I think it's been established that the US military short of a draft does not have the troops necessary to commit some 500,000 for an extended period in Afghanistan. We now have a plan to ramp up the Afghan army and throw it at the bad guys. TP now has up a study that the situation for women "may" deteriorate with the escalation in Afghanistan.
There seems to be a significant doubt as to the ability to raise a sufficiently large force in a short time. OK here's a thought you Arm the women and teach them to fight.
Plight of Afghan Women
http://thinkprogress.org/...
The already dire plight of women in Afghanistan risks deteriorating further as the US and its allies take steps to turn around the war against the Taliban, according to a report by Human Rights Watch today.
Eight years after the Taliban were ousted from power, rapists are often protected from prosecution, women can still be arrested for running away from home, and girls have far less access to schools than boys, the report says. [...]
Rachel Reid, of Human Rights Watch, said the situation "could deteriorate". She added: "While the world focuses on the Obama administration’s new security strategy, it’s critical to make sure that women’s and girls’ rights don’t just get lip service while being pushed to the bottom of the list by the government and donors."
Let's look at russia or as it was once known as "The Soviet union". This extract from a Pentagon study.
Warning PDF:
http://www.dtic.mil/...
During the war, Russia experimented with the extraordinary participation of thousands of women in direct combat roles. Prior to the Revolution (1914-1917), relatively small numbers of women disguised as men served side-by-side with men in combat units. One of only a handful of woman, however, Maria Bochkareva, held the distinction of serving, with the government’s approval, as a female in a combat unit. After the abdication of the Tsar in 1917, Bochkareva organized and commanded the "Women’s Battalion of Death" under the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky. The success of the "Women’s Battalion of Death" prompted Kerensky to organize other women’s combat units. Estimates assembled from
various unofficial published sources suggest that significant numbers, approximately 5,000 to 6,000 Russian women, participated as combatants in WWI under the Provisional Government.2 Members of one of these women’s units achieved notoriety for helping defend the Provisional
Government at the Winter Palace in Petrograd during the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in November 1917.
Russian Women in WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Women played a large part in most of the armed forces of the Second World War. In most countries though, women tended to serve mostly in administrative, medical and in auxiliary roles. But in the Soviet Union women fought in larger numbers in front line roles. Over 800,000 women served their Motherland in World War II; nearly 200,000 of them were decorated and 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. They served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.[1] Very few of these women, however, were ever promoted to officers.
The Israelis
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The image of the Israeli Army woman, in fatigues and sometimes carrying a gun, has long been viewed around the world as a sign of equality in the only country that drafts women as well as men.
For years, the Israeli Army has touted its recruitment of women as proof of an egalitarian approach lacking in the armed forces of other nations.
But a recent court case in which an Israeli woman won the right to qualify as an air force pilot has highlighted a gulf between the roles of men and women in the Israeli military, where women generally serve in support of men and are excluded from combat.
In a landmark decision on Nov. 8, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Alice Miller, a 23-year-old officer serving as an aeronautical engineer, could take qualification tests and join the air force flight-training course, opening the door for Israeli women to become pilots.
Admittedly we haven't figured it out yet for our own military but the Russians and the Israelis have. Maybe just maybe they have the right idea and same for same it might just address both issues of number of Afghan troops and the rights of women.