US President Joe Biden was criticised by British military veterans of the Afghan campaign for turning his back on the country and its fighters.
MPs in the Commons for an emergency debate were silenced by an emotional speech from Afghan veteran Tom Tughendhat
Tory MP Tugendhat, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan, was applauded after an emotional speech in which he spoke about his “grief, anger and rage” over the swift victory of the Taliban.
Tugendhat laid the blame for the foreign affairs disaster squarely at the door of the White House, after President Biden refused to reverse the US decision to pull soldiers out, while blaming his predecessor Donald Trump for signing a peace deal and Afghans soldiers for failing to fight.
He also launched an excoriating attack on Biden for trying to blame the Afghan army, tens of thousands of whom died, for the swift collapse of Kabul.
Tugendhat said it had been an honour to fight and serve with US and Afghan forces.
He said: “To see their commander in chief call into the question the courage of men I fought with, to claim that they ran is shameful”
He also decried the collapse of western will to stay the course in Afghanistan.
He told MPs: “Let’s stop talking about forever wars. Peace is won over time. The tragedy about Afghanistan is we’ve swapping patience for fire, for a second war”.
Tugendhat ended by recalling his time as an advisor to the governor of Helmand and the “joy” given to families by the opening of schools for girls, adding: “I didn’t understand it until I took my own daughter to school about a year ago.
“There was a lot of crying when she first went in, but I got over it and it went OK. I’d love to see that continue.”
That raised a laugh but MPs fell silent as he recalled “a man whose name I never knew, carrying a child who had died hours earlier - carrying this child into our fire base and begging for help.
“There was nothing we could do. It was over. This is what defeat looks like when you no longer have the choice of how to help.
“This doesn’t need to be defeat but at the moment it damn well feels like it.”
Labour MP Dan Jarvis, another army veteran, warned that the withdrawal will have a "very long lasting impact on Britain's reputation around the world",
In an emotive speech, the Barnsley Central MP said there had been a "catastrophic failure" of leadership in the planning of the West's military exit from the region.
Jarvis, who served on two tours of the Middle East, revealed that many Afghans who fought alongside British troops now feared for their lives.
He said: "Many of us who served in Afghanistan have a deep bond of affection for the Afghan people. I had the honour of serving alongside them in Helmand.
"We trained together, fought together and in some cases we died together. They were all brothers in arms.
"But I shudder to think where those men are now, many will be dead, others I know consider themselves to be dead men walking.
"Where were we in their hour of need, we were nowhere and that is shameful and it will have I have a very long lasting impact on Britain's reputation around the world."
