The war in Afghanistan improved the lives of women, and I have a bridge to sell you.

Further proof that we have abandoned Afghanistan.

According to a recent United Nations study, 1,600 women die in Afghanistan in every 100,000 live births. In comparison, only 12 deaths per 100,000 are recorded in the United States.

But in the remote Afghan province of Badakshan, high in the northeast mountains of Afghanistan, the situation is even worse. The study found that more women of child-bearing age -- 64 percent -- die in pregnancy and childbirth there than has been recorded anywhere else in the world.

Allow me to posit a theory. A place where live has so little value that you'll probably die if you try to create one is not likely to raise children that will grow up to value life themselves.

Anar Gul says she has lost three of her six children, two of them when they were just a few days old.

And she is angry.

"We people don't get any help from the United Nations," Gul said via a translator. "People die hopeless here. We can't get to a hospital. And the U.N. and the government don't care. Only the rich get help, not us poor people."

This seems to me to be a kind of hopelessness and anger that would make someone easy prey for al-Qaida recruiters, let alone Northern Alliance drug-dealing warlords. But what do I know?