I want the women of Afghanistan to be liberated. Do I have to support the war?

Short answer: No. In fact, supporting the war only works against their liberation.

If you can’t stand the idea of The Handmaid’s Tale come to life; set in a dusty, third world country, and despise the thought of women being kept out of schools and in large respects the outright chattel property of their fathers or husbands, then in fact you must work as hard as you can to end the continuing U.S. occupation and war against Afghanistan (as well as Iraq, Pakistan, and the potential war against Iran that still lies “on the table”). The reality is that The Handmaid’s Tale continues… While the Taliban were and are harshly oppressive – they are cut from the same fundamentalist cloth as the Northern Alliance which the U.S. brought to power, and the current regime has meant even more acute suffering for most women living in Afghanistan.