European veterans and politicians have voiced strong criticism after Donald Trump claimed NATO troops did not actively participate on the “frontlines” during the war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump made the remarks during a Fox News interview on Thursday, stating the United States had “never needed” NATO and that soldiers from other member states remained “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan.
The comments have drawn a sharp rebuke from countries that responded to U.S. calls for assistance following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Mr. Trump “was wrong to diminish the role of NATO troops, including British forces, in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on the US.” He added that 457 British service personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan and many more were wounded. “We are incredibly proud of our armed forces and their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten,” he said.
NATO soldiers at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2017. (Reuters: Mohammad Ismail)
‘Trump avoided military service’
Britain’s veterans minister, Alistair Carns, who served five tours alongside American troops in Afghanistan, called Trump’s claims “utterly ridiculous.” “We shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home,” he said in a video posted on X. Other British politicians pointed out that Mr. Trump avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs in his feet.
“Trump avoided military service 5 times,” Ed Davey, leader of Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats, wrote on X. “How dare he question their sacrifice.”
“We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Reuters in an interview. Mr. Trump has “crossed a red line,” he added. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.” Poland’s sacrifice “will never be forgotten and must not be diminished”, Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz added.
“Poland is a reliable and proven ally, and nothing will change that,” he said on X.
Mr. Trump’s comments were “ignorant”, said Rasmus Jarlov, an opposition Conservative Party member of Denmark’s parliament.
Under NATO’s founding treaty, members are bound by a collective-defence clause, Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all. It has been invoked only once – after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. European allies responded by joining the US-led mission in Afghanistan.
The United States lost about 2,460 troops in Afghanistan, according to the US Department of Defense. A total of 457 British military personnel were killed from the more than 150,000 who were deployed. More than 150 Canadians were also killed along with 90 French service personnel, while Denmark – which has been under heavy pressure from Mr Trump to sell its semi-autonomous region of Greenland to the US – lost 44 troops, one of NATO’s highest per-capita death rates.
“When America needed us after 9/11 we were there,” former Danish platoon commander Martin Tamm Andersen said.
Forty-one Australian soldiers were killed as well as with three New Zealand troops.
Trump revokes Canada’s Board of Peace invitation
On Thursday, Mr. Trump also withdrew an invitation for Canada to join his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts. The move follows Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he openly decried powerful nations using economic integration as weapons and tariffs as leverage.
“Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post directed at Mr. Carney.
Meanwhile, UK minister Stephen Kinnock also weighed in on Mr. Trump’s comments from his Fox News interview. “Many, many British soldiers and many soldiers from other European NATO allies gave their lives in support of American-led missions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq,” junior minister Stephen Kinnock told Sky News. “I think anybody who seeks to criticise what [our armed forces] have done and the sacrifices that they make is plainly wrong,” he added.
Reuters/ AFP
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