No one hears the poor

Although no government official or journalist ever asks them about the conditions they are facing, they know the West is curious. The mothers are aware of the drone aircraft – planes without pilots, some of them armed with missiles, with cameras trained on their neighborhoods.

Yet the drone cameras miss a lot. Even when people come to witness first hand the suffering of common Afghans, Nekbat says, she is sure this news never reaches the ears of Karzai and his government. "They don't care," she says. "We may perish from lack of food, and still they don't care. No one hears the poor."

One hospital in Kabul, the Emergency Surgical Center for Civilian War Victims, serves people free of charge. Emanuele Nannini, the chief logistician for the hospital, reminded us the previous day that the US spends one million dollars per year for each soldier it deploys in Afghanistan. "Just let six of them go home," he said, "and with that six million dollars we could meet our total annual operating budget for the thirty-three existing clinics and hospitals we have in Afghanistan. With sixty less soldiers, the money saved could mean running 330 clinics."

Just before leaving Chicago, while the NATO summit was convening, Amnesty International announced its intention to campaign for NATO to protect the rights of Afghan women and children. Amnesty International should talk with the Afghan Peace Volunteers and the Emergency hospital network about caring, practically and wisely, for women and children in Afghanistan.

Surrounded by fierce warlords, cunning war profiteers, and foreign armies with menacing arsenals and wild spending habits, it's hard for these mothers visiting us today to imagine that the situation can ever change. And yet, before leaving, they smiled broadly. "For us," says Nuria, "the possibility of a bright future is over, but at least for our children there is a chance."