American and NATO forces were in Afghanistan and were unable to prevent

a young woman being stoned to death in an insurgent-controlled village a few dozen miles from Kabul

Women in rural areas were never fully protected by the U.S. presence since they did not control those areas. If 30,000 - 100,000 troops could and did not offer protection, what are 10,000 troops going to accomplish?

American and NATO forces are still in Afghanistan and that did not prevent the Afghan parliament eliminating women from the councils or changing their criminal code. This is happening in parliament not just in rural areas.

It is the latest in a string of encroachments on hard-won rights for women, after parliament quietly cut the number of seats set aside for women on provincial councils, and drew up a criminal code whose provisions will make it almost impossible to convict anyone for domestic violence

American and NATO forces are still in Afghanistan and negotiations are underway for the U.S. to remain for at least another decade and yet their presence did not prevent this draft to permit stoning.

Twelve years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's government is considering bringing back a gruesome spectacle that became synonymous with Islamist cruelty: the use of public stoning as a punishment for sex outside marriage.

The sentence for married adulterers, along with flogging for unmarried offenders, appears in a draft revision of the country's penal code being drawn up by the ministry of justice.

Malalai Joya: ....In rural areas, the situation for women is like hell. During Taliban times, we did not have a Parliament. Today we have one, but it's a mafia Parliament. The majority of seats belong to warlords, drug lords, misogynists, even Taliban. Twenty-eight percent of Parliament is women, but most of these women are pro-warlord, pro-occupation and have a symbolic role.The catastrophic situation of women was a very good excuse for the US and NATO to justify their criminal war in Afghanistan. They misuse the miseries of Afghan women for their propaganda machine. Of Bibi Aisha, a woman who had her nose and ears cut off by her husband, Time magazine asked, "What happens if we leave Afghanistan?" It would have been better if they changed this to: "What happens to women while we are in Afghanistan?"

Self-immolation in Afghanistan is skyrocketing. We've seen rape cases, acid attacks, burning girls' schools, cutting the nose and ears off women, beating women with lashes in public, executing them in public, accusing them of adultery without even bringing them to the symbolic courts that we have.

DM: What changes do you anticipate following the US and NATO withdrawal?

MJ: These twelve years, we've lived in civil war. In the Taliban time, we had one enemy: the Taliban. Now we have three: the Taliban, warlords and the occupation forces. When they leave, the situation will be even bloodier--not because of the withdrawal of the troops, but because more terrorists will be brought into power.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has thrown acid on women's faces and committed other acts of violence against women. Now Hamid Karzai invites him to work with this puppet regime. The US and NATO presence is making the struggle for justice and peace much harder because they empower these reactionary terrorists, who are great obstacles for true democratic-minded elements in my country. link