TO the victor, the spoils - and for the Taliban, what spoils they are.
More than eighty billion dollars-worth of US military hardware has been left scattered across Afghanistan.
The giant, Bagram air base, hurriedly deserted overnight only two months ago, has yielded up 33 Blackhawk helicopters, 22,000 Humvees, and hundreds of thousands of other pieces of equipment, including machine guns, mines and night vision kit.
While much of it was decommissioned, depressing footage of the Taliban driving American vehicles, dressed in American fatigues and armed with American rifles, reveals a lot was not.
It’s an utter humiliation for the West, not helped by President Biden’s refusal to accept any blame for pulling out unilaterally.
Remember, this is the same man whose electioneering slogan was, ‘America is back’.
Ironically, his new focus on the ‘fundamental national security interests of the USA’ is far closer to Donald Trump’s ‘America first’.
The truth is, after years of interventions overseas in the cause of ‘freedom’, America is turning inwards.
With an eye on the polls, Biden reckons that bringing the troops home will, eventually, prove more popular than continuing a faraway, forever war.
From a political viewpoint, he may be right.
But, from the free world’s perspective, this is genuinely worrying.
The world’s policeman asleep on the job is not what we expect from the US.
Freedom is our most precious gift, repeatedly fought for by past generations.
While the UK has a significant role to play, we cannot do it on our own.
Flash-points like Taiwan, the Baltic States and the Middle East are blinking red and tell me that, if world peace is to continue, we need our largest ally at the table.