Among the objectives the United States used to justify the war it has been waging against Afghanistan since September 2001 is the "liberation of Afghan women". Can liberation be imposed from the outside by acts of aggression against the very people who are then to be liberated? In foregrounding Afghan women and the "duty to intervene", the attempt by the Bush administration to appease public opinion recalls the colonialist ideology of the civilizing mission. In their war against Marxist regimes, the United States had already helped the Moujahidin, who proclaimed and enforced Sharia Law in 1992. The forces that raped and held local people for ransom between 1992 and 1996 are today fighting as the "Northern Alliance". The Western media presents them as freedom fighters, even though there is little to distinguish them from the Taliban. Afghan women have not won much in the process, and the daily life of most Afghans, including women, has worsened.
