Still, there is a simple fact which should be kept foremost: the Iraq war destroyed that woman's relationship, just as it has destroyed countless others. We think of loss in terms of the singular fact of death. A mother loses her child and grieves.
Simple, profound and direct.
But wars vaporize not just individual lives but the links between lives.
Richard Rhodes, writing about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima:
[The atomic bomb] destroyed [...] not only men, women and thousands of children but also restaurants and inns, laundries, theater groups, sports clubs, sewing clubs, boys' clubs, girls' clubs, love affairs, trees and gardens, grass, gates, gravestones, temples and shrines, family heirlooms, radios, classmates, books, courts of law, clothes, pets...
[...]
The Making of The Atomic Bomb, pg. 733
This is what I see when I look at that photo - a severed link, a lost chance, an unspeakable crime.
.d.