ESHAWAR: Seven-year-old Ursal wakes up at night, crying. Her 6-year-old sister Nazeen jumps when she hears any loud noise. Their 10-year-old cousin Nasim is nervous when he is indoors, afraid the house will collapse around him. These refugee children, whose family fled the Afghan capital of Kabul five days ago, were already ragged, ill and malnourished before the US-led bombing campaign began. Now they have added fear and displacement to the long list of hardships already besetting them.

The extended Gul family — four women and 17 children —slipped out of Kabul before dawn last Thursday, terrified after four nights of thunderous bombardment that shook the poor neighborhood where they lived. Sometimes the warplanes came back by day as well. The family managed to arrange truck transport to a point near the border, which is closed by refugees.

They crossed the frontier in the dark on a steep, rocky mule track, with guides who charged what was for them the astronomical sum of per adult. Exhausted and nearly penniless, they finally arrived in the frontier city of Peshawar over the weekend. Two of the women left behind husbands who will try to follow later; two had already been widowed by earlier fighting in Afghanistan.

They were able to carry almost nothing with them. On their cross-border journey, each adult was clutching at least one small child, and the older children were responsible for shepherding along their younger brothers and sisters. ‘‘We have what we are wearing —that is all,’’ said Qandi Gul, 40, the mother of six girls and a boy, covered from head to toe in burqa. Only her chapped, callused hands showed, palms turned up in a gesture of helplessness.

On Monday, the mothers and 11 of the children made their way to an Afghan aid group, the Welfare and Development Organization. By word of mouth in the refugee camps, it has become a crucial way station for new arrivals like these. Because they are here illegally and fear being picked up and sent home, they are afraid to seek help anywhere else.

Almost all the children were ill with diarrhea or respiratory ailments, said Al-Umera, a 28-year-old doctor treating them. As the family waited in an anteroom at the aid group’s offices, a chorus of racking coughs arose. There are limits to what she will be able to do for them, said the doctor, whose own family fled Afghanistan when she was 5. None of the children has gotten enough to eat in a long time, she says, and malnourishment will leave them susceptible to more illness, especially in the cramped, squalid conditions in which they will be living.

Al-Umera, who like many Afghans uses only one name, questioned the children gently about the bombardment and the family’s flight. Most are sleeping badly, their mothers told her. ‘‘This one has bad dreams — she cries out at night,’’ said Qandi Gul, mother of Ursal, a luminous-eyed 7-year-old who carried her 18-month-old brother Lamzai on her skinny hip.( AP )

area too.

RIGHT WING NUTJOB WAR MONGER OIL/BLOOD VULTURE INCOMPASSIONATE NAZI RACSIST FACSIST.

What children in new york are suffering?



Rally to the left.

I'm sick and tired of folks pretending sympathy for the dead in NYC and using their grief as an excuse to inflict pain and death on copuntless others. Is this any way to honor our dead - to kill innocent people in return? What is the idea, trying to spread the grierf around evenly? It is sick. People who continue to use the events of S11 to justify their murderious desire for revenge is just plain sick. Such a position is with out moral foundation. I would think such folks could be shamed but apparenttly they have no shame. It almost makes me wish that some day they will all get their faces rubbed in it. It will not make me feel any better but then maybe they will finally see how wrong they are.

despite your "two wrongs don't make a right tirade."

What are we going to do to make sure no other American children have their dad's blown up?

Should we capitulate to the lunatics who killed these kids dad's?

Should we give into their demands to have all infidels leave the holy land?

Should we give into their demands that Israel be wiped off the face of the earth?

Do you think these people would, at that point, just leave us alone and there would be peace throughout the world.

I don't. I've seen nothing to indicate that these people want peace with the West.

I don't know about the original poster but I found the questions objectionable enough to try and take a stab at it myself.

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The best we could do is advocate for fair and just foreign policy with complete transparency. This suggestion is an acknowledgement that there can be no peace without justice. The secret agencies would no linger be allowed to disrupt the workings of any foreign government for any reason, the US would cease training terrorists, and most importantly, the US will help stem the flow of arms around the world. Problematic states would be treated in the context of international opinion and action. The US would no longer be allowed to act unilaterally as the policeman of the world. In short, the US would seek to make more friends and not enemies.

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A question which assumes that the answer is either/or (you are with me or against me). The use of the word 'capitulate' is emotionally charged. It reveals a lot about the mindset of the questioner. The world is rarely so black and white. We need to break out of this narrow-minded view if we expect to progress on these issues. We can seek a response other than bombing and not be perceived as capitulating.

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The case has been made by some reasonable minds that perhaps the US should not have a military presence in the land of Islam's most sacred religious sites. Sounds reasonable to me. I would consider it. The mere fact that a crazy fundamentalist has also posed the question is no reason to disregard it.

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Another false dichotomy. History suggests that the US supports Israel to the extent of protecting it against some fairly serious condemnations. The US has used its power in the UN security council again and again to deny voice to legitimate grievances. Had some mechanism been allowed to freely address these grievances and hold Israel accountable to world opinion then we might not find ourselves in the current position. Continuous suppression of legitimate grievances has caused them to manifest themselves in some very ugly ways, it is kind of like displacing air in a balloon, squeeze one end and the other end explodes. We are as much at fault as Israel in this case. We certainly do not have to always squash the concerns of the Palestinians. We could find ways to allow Israel to be more accountable to the community of nations. We can begin to address the concerns we have worked so hard to supress.

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This may be the most important question posed. By its very placement we may presume the questioner has an answer, that we will never be left alone and that immoral actions are required to protect ourselves. It reveals the primary fallacy of the retribution minded - that somehow bombing people will prove that bombing us is wrong. This argument is far deeper than the simplistic "two wrongs" argument, it suggests that the probably outcome of violence will be to justify more violence in continued retribution. Violence doesn't prove violence is wrong - to the contrary it suggests that violence can always be rationalized. There will only be peace in the world when one side finds the courage to break the cycle of violence. Right now I think the onus is on the folks who are militarily superior. Failure to find the will to address this question will continue to have dire consequences. One only need look around the world to bear witness to the fact that our actions are filling the ranks of those committed to engage in suicide bombing against the US. There is much to suggest that this is exactly what our 'enemies' desire and that we have fell into a trap of sorts. Even if we eliminated bin Laden tomorrow his ideas may could live on, spurned on in fact by recent US actions. Perhaps the crazy ideologue will even gain greater prominence due to actions against him (prior to this he was marginalized by the vast majority of Muslims few of which took him seriously).

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Who told you that these crazy people are our enemies? Why do you believe then so easily? Might some be using fear to manipulate you? What is your explanation why 'these people' arise at this time apparently without provocation? Why didn't they appear 40 years ago? 60? Islam has been around for a long time and while there is a history of tension between different spiritual practices there are usually also political reasons behind them. Are today's concerns solely religious and not political? And finally, do you see any indications that the West wants peace? If the US truly wants to stop terrorism then it should stop training and arming terrorists, it should shut down the School of the Americas, it should practice a foreign policy of transparency and always seek to be accountable to world opinion.