Barack Obama announced last night that the US would be sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. (No word on how many private contractors would be accompanying them.) He did not explicitly use the Afghan women as justification, but many politicians have, claiming that we cannot leave the women to their fate.
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is an underground women’s organization and one of the groups that predicted a long, deadly engagement. Zoya is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of RAWA and she joined us to talk about what would really be best for the women–and all the people–of Afghanistan. The Afghan Women’s Mission has coordinated her speaking tour.
Zoya is a pseudonym and her face is obscured to protect her identity.