Afghanistan in Winter: Where Death Comes Cheap

She's always around there somewhere: in front of the homes still wrecked after they were destroyed more than a decade ago, next to the police station that was torched by a mob last year, in the gutter as an MP cruises by in his SUV.

That's how life is here. Every corner has its own pitiful story and the old sorrow mixes with the new until it all becomes part of the same incessant sadness.

In December a man was shot in the centre of Kabul, not far from the presidential palace. His attackers stole the $25,000 they knew he would be carrying and left his corpse to freeze in the evening air. A week earlier an infant spilt boiling water over himself at home. He was buried in a simple ceremony soon afterwards.

Peace is only relative in a country where if the bombs and bullets don't get you, something else will. The winter brings death from poverty and desperation, spring adds intense violence to the mix.

Last week George W. Bush stood before an audience of neocons at the luxurious Mayflower Hotel, Washington D.C., and said Afghans can now "begin to realise [their] dreams".

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