Polly Toynbee: Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan has laid bare magnitude of western hubris

I was one of many who thought, in the wake of 9/11, that “something must be done”. We have learned a bitter lesson

US soldiers stand guard along a perimeter at the international airport in Kabul yesterday. Photo: AP/Shekib Rahmani

Here ends the West’s grotesque delusion that it could use its military might to turn Afghanistan into a stable democracy, a shining path of moderate Islam.

In the shadow of New York’s burning twin towers, I was one swept along on that “something must be done” tide, that drumbeat for a war to stop terror and liberate oppressed people. We have learned a bitter lesson.