The issue of women in combat is, as usual, obscured by the traditional Western prejudice, romanticism and chivalry. Therefore, some obvious facts:

1) Women, on average, make much worse soldiers than men.
2) It makes no sense to require women to possess physical standards identical to men. You will not make women men, anyway. I hope I will offend nobody by observing that women differ physically from men, and this has consequences for various tests. If someone doubts it, I suggest to watch some sports on TV. A woman in a good physical condition will have different physical capabilities from a man.
3) This is no reason not to allow female citizens to die for their country. Al-Qaida does it, despite the notorious Arab sexism. Why shouldn't America do the same? The main problem in Afghanistan is not enough soldiers on patrols. Any soldier helps. Even if women are not as good as men, they can still fight, die, and kill. They will suffer perhaps more casualties - but even so, if we send 1000 women to Afghanistan, and 200 are eliminated, we have still 800 soldiers more than we would have otherwise. Anyone, Taliban are a fairly weak opponent, and women should manage to kill them.
4) It is well known that young women and men tend to engage in sex when placed in close proximity; and even if they do not, thanks to the well-known American self-discipline, you still get some feelings, which are impossible to eliminate. This is bad for unit cohesion. Moreover, women are, as I wrote above, different physically from men (on average smaller, weaker, lighter etc) and therefore require different standard kit, etc.
5) For those reasons, women in combat will be most useful if placed in an all-female unit. This has been the usual practice in all armies that used female soldiers. I think that as a minimum, an all-female battalion would be required to function effectively. Such a unit could help to offset inadequate number of troops in Afghanistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons

6) Such a unit would also have wide ranging public relations possibilities. It would serve to showcase the oppression of women by Taliban, esp. if there was a widespread volunteer movement amongst feminists.