Defense Min. Lubomír Metnar told Právo at the end of July that the Nato alliance did not win the war in Afghanistan but that big advances were made there over 20 years, including a sharp increase in the number of students. One-third of them are now women, he said, and there are also women judges. Ret. Gen Petr Pavel, who visited Afghanistan as a Nato military leader, said last week that the mission definitely made sense, in part because the position of women in Afghanistan improved. When George W. Bush declared in his Mission Accomplished speech on May 1, 2003, that the Taliban had been "destroyed," he vowed to continue to help the Afghan people "lay roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their children." According to official U.S. military figures, 46,000 bombs were then dropped on Afghanistan by American military planes between 2009 and 2020, long after the Taliban had been "destroyed." That's about one bomb for every 350 Afghan women. Is that the new price for women's rights? If not, Czech politicians might want to find a new explanation for supporting the 20-year war in Afghanistan. [ Czech Republic 19 years United States of American president Pres. ]