Death of a 'butterfly' in Kabul

In "The Death of a 'Butterfly' in Kabul," published in today's New York Times, Rebecca Zimmerman writes a deeply personal essay about a suicide bombing that claimed the life of an 8-year-old girl in Afghanistan on Sept. 8

Zimmerman, a senior project associate at the RAND Corporation and a doctoral candidate in strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has interviewed several hundred Afghan citizens and members of the coalition forces over the past six years.

Parwana means butterfly in Dari, and that is exactly what she was, fluttering around the grit and gloom of the green zone. She was killed last week, along with several other children, as they tried to call attention to a suicide bomber a few blocks from my house in Kabul. They were killed in part because I and so many well-meaning people drew them to a place where we could not keep them safe.