As the news unfolds, we watch with horror. Afghanistan has been plunged into a crisis due to Western political choices, and yet those who made such agreements have been all but silent to this humanitarian crisis.

The Government has been replaced by an authoritarian regime and millions of people have been displaced, as they run for safety, frightened and feeling abandoned.

It is clear that after years of devastation, politicians failed to grasp the complex political situation of a weak government and inexperienced Afghan army, which so depended on Western support. To sign a deal and walk away was wrong. It has plunged Afghanistan into a crisis. President Biden should have reassessed the mess his predecessor made of his deal to withdraw. And yet again our Government overlooked the political detail which led to its support of the withdrawal deal. The Prime Minister has only just woken up to the problem now that the Taliban has seized control, and the Foreign Secretary is away on holiday.

Twenty years of sacrifice and an estimated £37 billion spent on UK operations alone has been unravelled in a matter of days as the Taliban has seized control at scale and pace because of the ill-timed and ill-planned withdrawal of military forces. Parliament will be recalled on Wednesday to debate the UK’s response, woefully inadequate against the scale of need. A humanitarian catastrophe awaits as people flee in search of a safe haven.

From the late 1970s, the Soviet Union stepped into neighbouring Afghanistan to back the Saur Revolution which sought radical change. This soon escalated to war. Throughout the 1980s, I recall the images of armed destitute communities defending their territory and their homeland - dusty mountainous terrain that seemed scarcely seemed worth defending, yet Afghanistan’s impoverished and deprived tried to salvage the little they could.

Mikhail Gorbachev pulled his forces out after a near decade-long Afghan war, the carnage left space for resistant forces to establish, and the Taliban seized control over many provinces. It was from this, that violent regimes like Al-Qaeda joined forces with elements of the Taliban under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden, and its violence was felt in the region, then around the world.

However, the day the twin towers fell, twenty years ago this September, President Bush Junior announced a new ‘war on terror’, to ‘take out’ Osama Bin Laden and impose a system of Western democratic governance in Afghanistan. There was no further military objective; there was no exit strategy.

Once again Afghanistan was at war: a war should never have been and that raged out of control. Bush knew better, but blinded by rage he sought revenge on his ‘axis of evil’.

It wasn’t long before UK troops were on the ground in Afghanistan. 150,610 personnel have served in this war; 454 never came home. And while thousands were injured, most have been mentally scarred. I have not met a soldier who hasn’t returned deeply affected by things witnessed; things none of us should ever see.

Today, bereaved families are searching for answers, not least as they watch the Taliban seize control again, gains made over two decades swept away in moments. As we have seen in all conflicts, the way in which you withdraw determines the legacy.

The situation has now imploded. So what should we do? The US want their troops ‘home’. The UK’s Army has been slashed in size and we cannot sustain more casualties and fatalities. It is all too little, too late.

Afghanistan is now a humanitarian disaster on an incalculable scale. We must protect the innocent fleeing for safety. As part of the UK Government’s cut to Overseas Development Aid, Afghanistan’s funding will be slashed from £292m to £155m this year. Simultaneously, the Home Secretary is making it near impossible for refugees from this conflict to find a place of sanctuary in the UK with her latest round of inhumane immigration laws. Yet interpreters, guards and students were expecting to come to the UK. Aid workers, military personnel and other British Citizens need support to leave, and millions of Afghans are on the move.

This is not a time to hold back as other nations reach out with compassion and generosity. We must make it our business to play our part, to show our values and reach out to provide safety and security to all those who have need.