The Military Hides Under the Skirts of Women to Justify War in Afghanistan

For eight years, many Americans have justified the war in Afghanistan as a moral battle to "protect" Afghan women. But Afghan women tell another story: more U.S. war will bear them more suffering.

Three decades of foreign occupation -- with little sign of ending -- have led to the complete collapse of more than a century of progress in Afghanistan for women's rights, which reached their peak in the 1970s. Occupation destroyed Afghan public services and created incredible poverty, a perfect void of power ready to be filled by the Taliban (encouraged by the U.S. to counter Soviet influence). Many Afghan women say the collapse poses a greater threat to women's lives: 87 percent are illiterate, 1,600 out of every 100,000 mothers die while giving birth or of related complications, and 1 and 3 women experience psychological, emotional or physical abuse.