U.S. troop withdrawal would leave Afghan women in peril

In mid-August in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz, a horrific, Taliban-ordered sentence was carried out against two young, unmarried Afghan lovers who had eloped against their families' wishes. The sentence was death by stoning. Deemed by Islamic extremists to be justified under Shariah law, the process involves partly burying the accused, after which a male crowd hurls stones at their exposed heads until they expire.

Observers around the world were shocked by another recent cruel event. It was the plight of a young Afghan girl, whose nose and ears were sliced off by Taliban order for fleeing her husband's home to escape beatings and abuse by her in-laws. Her picture was dramatized on the cover of Time magazine.

No wonder that Afghan women fear this is the beginning of a Taliban comeback, the imposition of harsh treatment and subjugation of women, and the loss of their new-found freedoms since the invading U.S. forces routed the Taliban in 2001. In some regions of Afghanistan, Taliban forces seem to be regaining the strength they once had in the 1990s and are restoring the Draconian laws and punishments they imposed earlier.

In the United States, there is intense debate about the wisdom — or otherwise — of a presidential decision to start ending the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in July of next year. Some U.S. military leaders say that decision has given the Taliban the green light to reassert themselves. Some U.S. military men counsel that the July date is just a beginning of the phaseout of the U.S. presence, and not its abrupt ending.

What is clear is that if the U.S. military departs Afghanistan before the Taliban are either defeated or have lain down their arms, the outlook for women's rights is bleak.

When the Taliban were in retreat in 2001, many women in Afghanistan began to enjoy a heady new bout of freedom, leaving their homes without spousal approval, attending school, some even running for political office.

A massive combined American military and civilian effort began first to establish security, then to build schools and clinics, and other infrastructure needed for the country's modernization. Women blossomed and displayed a hunger for education and emancipation. American officials pored over "Three Cups of Tea," a book chronicling the efforts of a sturdy mountaineer from Montana, Greg Mortenson, who had built dozens of schools, especially for girls, in Taliban territory in neighboring Pakistan.