In the course of writing this piece about the International Violence Against Women Act, I went to a breakfast with Democratic Representatives Jan Schakowsky, Nita Lowey and Donna Edwards. All of them brought up the plight of Afghanistan's women -- Schakowsky even brought a burka she had obtained on her most recent trip there, and Lowey described a personal meeting with Karzai where she criticized his government's approach to women. Their hope is to increase the attention and resources devoted to preventing violence against women around the globe, but soon they were asked how their concern for women would affect their support of more troops for Afghanistan if the president requests them."When we have gone to Afghanistan repeatedly, we're asked not to forget them, not to desert them again; it definitely is a factor, whether or not we need more troops to do that," Schakowsky said. "For a lot of us who have been there, the future of the women in Afghanistan is a factor that has to be considered."It's hard to think it couldn't be -- women's rights were a much ballyhooed reason to support the invasion of Afghanistan in the first place (remember when they tracked down the girl from the famous National Geographic cover photo?) and the number of girls in school became an important development metric. (Girls in school should be an important development metric everywhere, of course, given the many studies linking the empowerment of women with economic success.) And, as Schakowsky points out, "There would be no girls in school if the Taliban was in charge, period, end of story."At the same time, though, none seemed too eager to commit more resources to the conflict; Lowey took time to praise the president's deliberative approach to policy-making. Given the questions of whether an escalation in Afghanistan could succeed in building up state capacity, it is a wise approach, but it does highlight the implicit tensions that arise when American liberals meet a human-rights crisis abroad. Those who oppose putting more troops in Afghanistan will observe that women are oppressed in many other states, including U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, and that more constructive global efforts there will do more good than emphasizing a military solution in Afghanistan. I saw the other end of the spectrum later in the day at a hearing on the International Violence Against Women Act, where the subcommittee's top Republican, Dana Rohrbacher, had committed to support the bill in large part, it seemed, because of his dislike of cultural relativism and Islam in particular. Delivering an impassioned speech on behalf of preventing violence against women, he said, "We need to confront those governments in the world, and we have not been confronting them in the past, because this is their Islamic faith. I happen to believe that rights are given to all people by God." That approach, though, is likely to alienate the very people the legislation is trying to help -- the bill's advocates emphasize that their message will come in a culturally specific package. Women's rights are human rights, but they aren't a cudgel for beating down any group perceived to be an enemy of the U.S.These aren't easy questions, and I think anyone who has a pat answer for how the U.S. should forge ahead in Afghanistan isn't considering the many dynamics, among them the situation of women there. Perhaps a strategy exists to build the Afghan government short of a major escalation that will continue to improve their lives, or perhaps a massive counterinsurgency campaign is the only way to establish institutions that will treat women equally. Even then, improving the lot of women is a global problem, and making Afghanistan the locus of that effort suggests a narrow approach predicated on solving a problem only when U.S. troops are within a hundred miles of it. -- Tim Fernholz
