President Barack Obama met recently with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain. This week's meeting with Britain's Gordon Brown, who was pitching a "global New Deal," created a minor flap when the White House downsized a full news conference to an Oval Office question-and-answer session, viewed by some in Britain as a snub. The change was attributed to the weather, with the Rose Garden covered with snow.

  It might have actually related not to snow cover, but to a snow job, covering up the growing divide between Afghanistan policies.

  U.S. policy in Afghanistan includes a troop surge, already under way, and continued bombing in Pakistan using unmanned drones. Escalating civilian deaths are a certainty. The United Nations estimates that more than 2,100 civilians died in 2008, a 40 percent jump over 2007.

  The occupation of Afghanistan is in its eighth year, and public support in many NATO countries is eroding. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, told me: "The move into Afghanistan is going to be very expensive. ... Our European NATO partners are getting disillusioned with the war. I talked to a lot of the people in Europe, and they really feel this is a quagmire."

  Forty-one nations contribute to NATO's 56,000-troop presence in Afghanistan. More than half of the troops are from the U.S. The United Kingdom has 8,300 troops, Canada just under 3,000. Maintaining troops is costly, but the human toll is greater. Canada, with 111 deaths, has suffered the highest per capita death rate for foreign armies in Afghanistan, since its forces are based in the south around Kandahar, where the Taliban is strong.

  Last Sunday on CNN, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, "We're not going to win this war just by staying ... we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency." U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine: "The United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory." Yet it's Canada that has set a deadline for troop withdrawal at the end of 2011. The U.S. is talking escalation.

  Anand Gopal, Afghanistan correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, described the situation on the ground: "A lot of Afghans that I speak to in these southern areas where the fighting has been happening say that to bring more troops, that's going to mean more civilian casualties. It'll mean more of these night raids, which have been deeply unpopular amongst Afghans. ... Whenever American soldiers go into a village and then leave, the Taliban comes and attacks the village." Afghan Parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai, a woman, told Gopal: "Send us 30,000 scholars instead. Or 30,000 engineers. But don't send more troops-it will just bring more violence."

  Women in Afghanistan play a key role in winning the peace. A photographer wrote me: "There will be various celebrations across Afghanistan to honor International Women's Day on Sunday, March 8. In Kandahar there will be an event with hundreds of women gathering to pray for peace, which is especially poignant in a part of Afghanistan that is so volatile." After returning from an international women's gathering in Moscow, feminist writer Gloria Steinem noted that the discussion centered around getting the media to hire peace correspondents to balance the war correspondents. Voices of civil society would be amplified, giving emphasis to those who wage peace. In the U.S. media, there is an equating of fighting the war with fighting terrorism. Yet on the ground, civilian casualties lead to tremendous hostility. Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, recently told me: "I've been saddened and shocked by virulent anti-American responses to those wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan]. They're seen as occupations. ... I think it's very important we learn from mistakes of sounding war drums." She added, "There's such a connection from the Middle East to Afghanistan to Pakistan which builds on strengths of working with neighbors."

  Barack Obama was swept through the primaries and into the presidency on the basis of his anti-war message. Prime ministers like Brown and Harper are bending to growing public demand for an end to war. Yet in the U.S., there is scant debate about sending more troops to Afghanistan, and about the spillover of the war into Pakistan.

For years, rag-tag outfits toting deadly weapons have been left to their devices in Somalia, and anarchy has reigned supreme.

But when the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was formed in Nairobi in 2005, it was envisaged that the international community would give Somalia troops and logistics to mop up arms and stabilise the war-ravaged nation, and material aid for reconstruction.

However, according to a former Kenyan ambassador to that country, "the international community has so far been the biggest culprit in the Somali conflict".

In an interview with the Sunday Nation, Mohamed Affey claimed that had Somalia been given "a third" of the attention being accorded Darfur, Chad or even Uganda, the conflict in the country would have ended a long time ago.

But he said the new government, led by President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, is more inclusive and appears to have the tentative support of the international community.

"For the last 18 Somalia has been a tale of missed opportunities, but now there is a chance that the country, with the assistance of the international community, could finally come to a peaceful resolution".

The new government's inclusiveness stems from the fact that, apart from the hardline al Shabaab Islamic group, the administration is now enlarged to include members of the TFG (composed mainly of former warlords), the Islamic Court Union and lobby groups, a critical element that was missing before.

It may also be a plus for Sheik Ahmed that he is not known for warlike activities, a fact that could endear him to the UN, the US and the other Western countries that have shown signs of support.

He is also comparatively young - about 45. So the majority of Somalis who are youthful and fatigued by war and political bickering can identify with him.

"When he assumed the leadership of the Islamic Courts Union, he was able for six months before the Ethiopian troops came in to effectively manage the city of Mogadishu, which speaks volumes about his leadership qualities," notes Affey.

The outcome of the process that made Sheik Ahmed president is seen as a continuation of the Nairobi one that resulted in the TFG, and with the standing bilateral agreement signed in 2005 between Somalia and Kenya, it is expected to be business as usual between the two countries if and when the situation normalises.

But Affey admits that the security situation in that country and generally in the region is precarious.

"We share a 2,400km plus porous border and small arms from that country easily find their way into our cities and towns. This situation is enough to worry. "Insecurity in Somalia automatically translates into insecurity in Kenya and the rest of the region, and so nobody can rest easy," he adds.

The influx of refugees running away from the mayhem in their country is a big challenge to Kenya's ecosystem as well as internal and food security, among other things.

"Although we welcome them on humanitarian grounds, they are a big stress to our socio-economic wellbeing, and the sooner their country is back on its feet, the better for us as a country," Affey says"

And noting that Kenya is one of the region's states affected economically by the Somali pirates, with the transportation of cargo by sea to the port of Mombasa becoming prohibitive, the envoy says the Government cannot simply wish the problem away, and that it has the "sacred duty" of ensuring there is stability in Somalia for the sake of that country's people, Kenyans and the other people of the region in general.