Yet conflict environments may be more fluid and complex than they appear in a photograph. As counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen has noted, "[B]eware the children.… [C]hildren are sharp-eyed, lacking in empathy, and willing to commit atrocities their elders would shrink from." Children may also be dependent on foreign forces for security, food, and shelter. I remember visiting a NATO forward support base in Herat, Afghanistan, in late 2005 when, just months after Italian and Spanish troops had taken up there, children were already begging outside the gates for "uno euro, uno euro." The camera may never lie, but the image often deceives.
Here, children jostle for water handouts near Ghazni, Afghanistan, in late 2010.
Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Joseph Swafford
