Last year during harsh Afghan winter, many people living in tent camps across from one of the US/NATO military bases in Kabul, froze to death because their tents had no heat.  The military compounds are actually multi-billion dollar self-contained modern cities that have all the amenities for the occupiers of Afghanistan—heat, water, sewage,  food—yet right across the road are the occupied--Afghans living in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances—and freezing to death....

reaching beyond her own pain to others in yet another area of conflict said, “I heard that the people in Gaza were attacked again by the Israelis.  I know the women of Gaza have suffered much; we know what they are living through.”  Having just come from Gaza, the woman’s comment brought me to tears.  Here in Afghanistan, a country ravaged by war for 30 years, a woman whose country is described as a “hospital,” reached out to women in an area called “an open air prison.”...

Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire gave a moving address relating her struggle for peace in Northern Ireland to the struggle for peace in Afghanistan.  Maguire said that only through dialogue among all parties will the conflict in Afghanistan be resolved.  She recalled that peace takes the efforts of citizens as well as governments and that the road to peace is not easy and maintaining the peace is a a constant challenge. 

She called on President Obama to speed up the withdrawal of US forces and specifically to end the drone strikes in Afghanistan.  This year the US military has used drones 447 times in 2012 to kill Afghans.  Drone attacks now constitute 11 percent of the air war in Afghanistan....