There will be blood.

Women will be raped.

Children will be pressed into servitude.

This is the reality now that the American troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Taliban have taken Kabul and now control the country.

America’s capitulation means that tribal warlords will administer the country and those who consorted with the “infidels” will pay a terrible price.

Watching Afghans fall to their deaths from fleeing American airplanes is a chilling sight that graphically paints a picture of the country’s future.

At an important time when human rights, elected governments, the rule of law should prevail and the dark nature of humankind prevented from metering out death and destruction, this is a humiliating failure of American foreign policy.

Yes, America cannot be depended upon to be the policeman of the world – that is the job of the United Nations, nevertheless it has a leading role to play in seeing to it that the world does not go off kilter, that despotism does not prevail.

Afghanistan has always proven to be obstinate,  steadfast in its ability to defy and repel invaders. It is not a country that easily surrenders.

For 2,500 years it has perfected the art of guerrilla warfare taking on the Great Persian kings of Cyrus and Darius I, Alexander the Great, the Mongols, The Indians, The Russians, the British and now the Americans.

It is a difficult territory to subdue and it has proven difficult to hold and govern Afghanistan.

These tribal people first honed their fighting abilities waring with each other then took on all comers and never ever completely back down.

The Pastuns and Zunbils tribes are a tough lot, warriors who use the steppes of Central Asia and the forbidding ridgeline of the Hindu Kush to their advantage. They have always ably traversed the great Oxus River to evade their foes and employed the mountainous terrain as a bulwark – natural fortifications that have proven a nightmare for successive armies taking on these intractable tribes.

It has been said that American soldiers are soft and getting softer with some pointing to the Vietnam war as a demonstration of its inability  to possess the “right stuff” when up against an enemy that is dug in and relishes the fight.

A diet of pizza and fast food, living for video games and social media, overweight and complaining of mental difficulties; untested lives spent watching Netflix is no match for these tribal warriors who don’t give up and fight like lions defending their territory.

Push-button wars and technological advances has singled out the U.S. as having one of the greatest military forces the world has  ever seen.

But it is the will to fight that wins out in the end.

America saw itself having to make an indefinite commitment and decided it was not worth it. It trained and supplied the Afghan army and that still was not enough to stop the Taliban.

President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan as the Taliban entered Kabul and now there are pictures of the Taliban posing in the Presidential Palace – victorious. The American flag had to be ignominiously taken down from the embassy and Americans made a bee line to the airport, desperate to board a flight out of this hellhole.

What the Taliban is now saying is that the great United States of America with all its big talk cannot be counted on to have your back and will abandon you when the going gets tough.

This is not what America needs the world to see. Its power must be imperious, and it must be a force for good. It cannot cower in the face of terrorists or allow these organisations to be emboldened by the Taliban marching on and capturing Kabul in a matter of days.

Make no mistake, ISIS and Al-Qaeda will be back and the modern western world will now have to be on its guard against hostile terrorists acts. Why? Because America was unable to put a chokehold on these bandits.

President Theodore Roosevelt lived by the West African aphorism, “speak softly and carry a big stick”.

There are times when you have to let it be known what you are capable of and that you can rain down destruction – that has to be at the centre of foreign policy of the greatest power in today’s world.

Kindness and magnanimity should not be taken for weakness. Don’t allow people to take the piss.

Biden needs to study Teddy Roosevelt foreign policy approach where he describes his method as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis”.

Yes America must act justly towards other countries allowing for their laws and culture to prevail but it should strike when there is injustice and abominations are allowed to go unchecked.

The world must know America means business.

Member of the Arms Services Committee, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney spoke about the ramifications of America leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban.

“What concerns me most going forward from a national security perspective is the extent to which Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist organisations now have an entire country that the Taliban controls.

“Twenty years ago, we knew the Taliban was hosting Al-Qaeda while they planned the attacks against us.

“President Biden should never have withdrawn forces. Ultimately when you look at how we got to this point certainly there is sufficient blame on both sides. But this decision to just fundamentally withdraw…. we are watching unfold what it looks like when America adopts a policy of retreat, when America adopts a policy of surrender. It makes us less safe and it is going to make the war longer.

“But ultimately this decision to completely and totally withdraw is Joe Biden’s – and it is one that is disgraceful.”

Liz Cheney is absolutely right here. We are all less safe and these terrorism groups will become less fearful.

So what have we learnt from the Taliban now controlling Afghanistan?

“The lessons of history are largely made up with the story of bloody struggles for the freedom of body, mind and soul…the real nature of valour consists of power to struggle still for that freedom, be it in war or peace,” someone once wrote.