The absolute state of European diplomacy was on display in Brussels on Tuesday, as EU officials sat down with the Taliban to figure out how to deport Afghan migrants. You honestly cannot make this stuff up. For years, European elites have been peak virtue-signaling about human rights, but the absolute second their borders started overflowing and 20 member states demanded border control, they fast-tracked a meeting with the guys running Kabul. It is a masterclass in bureaucratic panic.

The European Commission, trying to keep its progressive credentials intact, attempted some elite-tier mental gymnastics. They claimed the talks were strictly focused on deporting migrants who "pose a security threat." But let’s be real—this is what European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam rightly called a piece of political legerdemain. It is a classic move: wrap a standard border control policy in layers of bureaucratic cope so the human rights crowd doesn't completely lose their minds.

And lose their minds they did. Activists and Afghan women are calling the meeting a massive "slap in the face," and frankly, they’re not wrong about the hypocrisy. They’re looking at an EU that passed consecutive resolutions earlier this year crying about how "Afghan women and girls have been subjected to systematic persecution," only for those same EU officials to slide into the Taliban's DMs the moment domestic anti-immigration rhetoric started heating up. It turns out "refugees welcome" has an expiration date, and that date is whenever the voters start getting angry.

The reality on the ground in Afghanistan is, of course, a complete disaster, thanks to the legendary 2021 withdrawal where US and NATO forces packed up their bags and ran. Five years into the Taliban's speedrun of running the country, women’s rights have been completely deleted. We’re talking no school after age 11, zero jobs, and a marriage law that basically legalizes domestic abuse. Activists pointed out that the regime literally affords "a bird better protections than a woman." But hey, European bureaucrats have quotas to meet, so those details get filed under "not our problem."

For the progressive crowd, the realization that "Our suffering doesn’t amount to anything" when real-world politics gets involved is a tough pill to swallow. They actually believed the EU’s high-minded resolutions meant something. In reality, the insidious consequences of normalization are already here. If you want to run a country and get the West to treat you like a legit government, all you have to do is wait for them to have an immigration crisis. Eventually, they will come crawling to you to take their people back.