TIME’s cover article this week, “Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban,” quotes an official who talks about the Afghan government’s willingness to concede women’s rights in exchange for a truce of sorts with the Taliban. According to Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “essentially asked me ‘What is more important, protecting the right of a girl to go to school or saving her life?’ ”