Kabul. A city that has grown accustomed to sirens and smoke. But on Wednesday, the source of the smoke was not a Taliban patrol or an Islamic State bomb.
It was a Pakistani airstrike. And its target was a rehabilitation centre. A place for addicts, for the broken, for those trying to piece their lives back together.
Now it is a pile of rubble. The civilian toll is still rising. Bodies are being pulled from the concrete.
The living weep over the dead. This is not a military strike. This is a cultural and human catastrophe.
The Afghans were already exhausted. The war had drained them. And now their neighbour drops bombs on a place of healing.
What does that say about the state of the region? Of the world? The families of the victims will not get justice.
They will get grief. And the rest of us? We look away.
But we should not. Because this is the human cost of foreign policy. This is what happens when borders are drawn in blood.
The rehab centre was a symbol of hope. Now it is a symbol of everything that is wrong.
