Nicholas Kristof:
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Time quoted Aisha as saying of the Taliban, as she was touching her disfigured face: “How can we reconcile with them?”
It’s a fair question, as is: Are those of us who favor a military pullback in Afghanistan sentencing more women to be brutalized? Those are questions that I came to Afghanistan to wrestle with.
Women are fearful, no question. Here in Kabul, far fewer women wear the burqa today than on my previous visits. But several women told me that they were keeping burqas at home — just in case. The gnawing fear is that even if the Taliban do not regain control in Kabul, fundamentalist values and laws will gain ground.
Still, it seems to me a historic mistake to justify our huge military presence in Afghanistan as a bulwark to protect the women. In fact, most women I interviewed favored making a deal with the Taliban — simply because it would bring peace. For them, the Taliban regime was awful, but a perpetual war may be worse.
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If we leave before defeating the Taliban the only ones in the country who will know peace are the dead. The fact is that civilian deaths in Afghanistan have dropped dramatically since the US invasion despite all the Taliban propaganda to the contrary. Our pulling out before the Taliban are defeated will only mean more dead Afghans and many of them will be women victims of Taliban misogyny.
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