According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, Afghan women are terrorized with “night letters,” threatening Taliban-authored missives usually hand-delivered or posted to a door or mosque, often at night. The women are told to quit their jobs or they or a family member will be brutally murdered. One typical letter read: “We warn you to leave your job as a teacher as soon as possible otherwise we will cut the heads off your children and we shall set fire to your daughter.” A 22-year-old working for a U.S. development company received threats by phone but continued to work. In April, unidentified gunmen shot her dead as she left her office. Another woman ignored her letter and her father was murdered a few days later, the report says.

This is horrific. If someone could make a strong case that by staying in Afghanistan a few more years we could help build a stable country where both women and men could live free—and the Taliban could not return to power—it might be worth it. But we have been there nine years and, as the HRW report testifies, couldn’t be further away from achieving this.

It wasn’t about women then. It’s not about women now.

It’s time to go.