To quote the late Dennis Green: They are who we thought they were, and we let the off the hook. The Taliban didn’t take long to revert to their brutal theocratic oppression after Joe Biden’s hasty bug-out from Afghanistan. And unfortunately, despite their promises that they would modernize, the Taliban have relentlessly moved in the opposite direction over the last sixteen months.

Just days ago, the ruling clique barred women from secondary education — supposedly because girls in schools didn’t dress appropriately. Overnight, the theocrats have now escalated their isolation and oppression of women by ordering all domestic and foreign humanitarian organizations to fire all of their female staffers:

The Taliban government on Saturday ordered all foreign and domestic non-governmental groups in Afghanistan to suspend employing women, allegedly because some female employees didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly. The ban was the latest restrictive move by Afghanistan’s new rulers against women’s rights and freedoms.

The order came in a letter from Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, which said that any NGO found not complying with the order will have their operating license revoked in Afghanistan. The letter’s content was confirmed to The Associated Press by the ministry’s spokesman, Abdul Rahman Habib.

The ministry said it had received “serious complaints” about female staff working for NGOs not wearing the “correct” headscarf, or hijab. It was not immediately clear if the order applies to all women or only Afghan women working at the NGOs.

The Taliban insist that they put these restrictions and dress codes in place to honor and protect women. Of course, the Taliban also honor women by doing this:

Also Saturday, Taliban security forces used a water cannon to disperse women protesting the ban on university education for women in the western city of Herat, eyewitnesses said. The Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately.

I’m sure they feel very honored and protected in Herat.

What comes next for women in Afghanistan? It isn’t difficult to predict, since the Taliban’s actions thus far have been entirely predictable from the start. When the US government — in two different administrations — decided to withdraw entirely from Afghanistan, we knew exactly what would happen to women if the Taliban returned to power. We knew it because we had seen how the Taliban imposed its medieval version of shari’a law during their previous years in power prior to 9/11. Despite many silly and simpering claims from US officials, analysts, and the media, the Taliban had never moderated their theocratic principles nor modernized their policies and methods.

The decision to pull out always carried that risk. Had we committed to continuing logistical and intelligence support for the native Afghan military we built, and that we built for reliance on US support, we may have delayed that outcome for a couple of years. Perhaps that would have been enough time for the Afghan government that allied itself to the US to build strength and stand on its own. Perhaps it would have only delayed the inevitable.

We’ll never know, though, because we bugged out so thoroughly that we toppled our own allies on the way out. And now we’re finding out what we knew all along — the Taliban are who we knew they were, and we let them off the hook. Just as they did before Afghan women are paying the price for it. And if this order undermines the work of these humanitarian NGOs — and how could it not? — be prepared for reports of mass starvation, disease, and continuing misery for the entire captive population.