At war without knowing why

Images of the World Trade Center buildings billowing smoke, as their final minutes counted down a decade ago this month, gave a very different symbolism to the already iconoclastic twin towers — one representing the change of an era and a new geo-political order. Later that afternoon of September 11, 2001, according to the confidential notes of his aides, Donald Rumsfeld, then United States Secretary of Defense, was to instruct: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not”.  And thus followed the two prolonged and bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On top of its tangible tragedy, 9/11 was also devastatingly aesthetic, a mixture which helped to sear the event into our collective memory, so much so that it has become one of those rare occasions for which most can remember where they were when they first saw the smouldering towers. But what do Afghans who live in