The young woman from Kandahar sat with me in the office of an independent monitoring group two days before Afghanistan’s August 20th presidential election. Halima had defied her family and threats from neighbors in the tumultuous southern region to work as an election observer and to vote.

When the United States and its allies went to war against the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "liberating the women of Afghanistan" was often cited as one of the reasons to seek "regime change." More than seven years later, however, the situation for Afghan women remains dire.

Afghans continue to have significant human rights concerns about the preparation and plans for the upcoming presidential election on August 20, 2009.

Afghanistan’s influential international supporters should insist that President Hamid Karzai act to amend the notorious law that formalizes discrimination against Shia women.

Politicians want a way out of this quagmire. So talking to the Taliban is back on the table, a discussion that quickly leads to clumsy distinctions about varieties of Taliban.

President Sarkozy of France has reignited the debate about how Muslim women in Europe should dress by calling for a ban on clothing that, as he puts it, imprisons women and undermines their dignity.

The United States should cooperate fully with Afghan police in investigating the death and alleged torture of a member of an Afghan armed faction who appears to have died at a US airbase.

The review announced by Gen. David Petraeus, chief of the US Central Command, into the use of airstrikes by US forces in Afghanistan needs to produce fundamental changes to reduce civilian casualties.