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HR McMaster was the US National Security Advisor between 2017 and 2018. He previously served in Afghanistan with the US Army. He says that the current desperate scenes where those who worked with the Afghan government are now being hunted down by the Taliban as "sickening to see but completely predictable". He sees the Taliban takeover as a threat to security and that the world is now "a much more dangerous place".

"We surrendered to the Taliban ... We deluded ourselves thinking, 'Oh maybe the Taliban will impose a more benign Sharia'. We're acting as if we can't do anything to protect even our own citizens, let alone the Afghans who are fleeing the brutality of the Taliban."

"We gave up all the airports even before we'd evacuated our own citizens, how is that possible?"

Photo: A man watches people get wounded as the Taliban break up a protest outside Kabul airport. August 2021 Credit: Getty Images