And now what do we say to Afghan women

And now what do we say to Afghan women, what do we say to intellectuals, artists, what do we say to those who believed that the world was committed to their freedom, their rights, their future.

We can tell you that it was all a mirage, that in reality there was no Afghan army to protect them, that we have been training soldiers for years, investing in equipment that has been useless to protect them.

We can tell you that there was no autonomous government, that they did not have a president with authority, that 20 years of war, the presence of international troops, had not managed to defeat the Taliban.

More information

• Taliban declare victory and end of war in Afghanistan

• The Taliban enter Kabul and take the presidential palace

• AUDIO An Afghan refugee in Spain, on the Taliban: "I had to live like a man for ten years"

We can recognize that this withdrawal has been chaotic, that they have hidden from them what the world powers had to know, that it was not possible to sustain a precarious and artificial government structure without their military cement.

We can tell you that 20 years later, the world is begging the Taliban to let the foreigners and Afghans leave if they can afford it, and that the others, there, manage because those who promised them freedom now assume it is inevitable his yoke.

Presumably, the Taliban arriving in Kabul 20 years later are just as radical, as savage, as dangerous as before, but they are also now euphoric.

They have won, they have humiliated the enemy;

That will not be necessary for us to tell them because they are going to suffer, but we can tell them that, in reality, we had ignored their present and their future and, above all, we can ask their forgiveness.