Allies Respond to Trump’s Ignoble Comments on Afghanistan Sacrifices
Our NATO allies answered the U.S. call of need without hesitation and their troops fought valiantly on the front lines alongside ours. They shed blood and made the ultimate sacrifice side-by-side our soldiers throughout the twenty-year Global War on Terrorism.
While most coalition soldiers killed were U.S. Service members, some NATO allies suffered about the same death rate in per capita terms as the United States.
Small Denmark – much maligned by Trump – with 44 of its soldiers losing their lives, suffered almost the same death toll as the United States on a per-capita basis. Another eight Danish troops were killed in Iraq.
The United Kingdom lost 457 of its finest in Afghanistan, closely following Denmark on a per capita basis. In addition, approximately 2,000 British military and civilian personnel were wounded there.
Other NATO allies, including Canada, suffered a total of more than 500 military fatalities.
After his off-the-rails Greenland tirade in Davos, Trump added insult to injury by disrespectfully minimizing, even dismissing, the sacrifices other NATO troops made in Afghanistan. Comments that left NATO allies “dumbfounded” and “disgusted.”
“We’ve never needed them,” Trump said of non-U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, “We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, little off the frontlines.”
Trump’s disgraceful comments sparked outrage and indignation among European and Canadian politicians, veterans and families of the fallen.
While still at Davos, NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, politely told Trump, “There is one thing I heard you say yesterday and today, you were not absolutely sure that Europeans would come to the rescue of the U.S. if you will be attacked…Let me tell you, they will. And they did in Afghanistan.” Rutte then reminded Trump, “As you know, for every two Americans who paid the ultimate price, there was one soldier from another NATO country who did not come back to his family.”
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Trump’s remarks “insulting and frankly appalling” and called on Trump to apologize.
• Prince Harry, recalled his own service in Afghanistan, how he “… lost friends there…” and how “every allied nation was obliged to stand with the United States in Afghanistan…answered that call.” Speaking of the “thousands of lives [that] were changed forever,” he said, “Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defence of diplomacy and peace.”
• Alistair Carns, the U.K. Minister of the Armed Forces who served five tours in Afghanistan alongside American troops, called Trump’s comments on NATO a “real shame” and “utterly ridiculous” and posted on social media. “We shed blood, sweat and tears together, and not everybody came home. These are bonds, I think, forged in fire, protecting U.S. or shared interests, but actually protecting democracy overall.”
• Former Army Chief Lord Richard Dannatt called Trump’s comments about the role of NATO forces in Afghanistan “factually incoherent” and “absolutely disrespectful”.
• Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said it was a “disgrace to denigrate their memory like that “, and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called it a “huge insult to our brave soldiers.”
• Former NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, told BBC’s Newshour, “No American President should have the liberty to belittle their legacy and to insult the ones who are still grieving the fact that they didn’t come back alive from Afghanistan.”
• The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said: “These unacceptable comments are not worthy of response.”
• Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also expressed her government’s displeasure with Trump’s comments. In a statement on X, she said, “The Italian Government has learned with astonishment of President Trump’s statements according to which NATO allies would have ‘fallen behind’ during operations in Afghanistan.” She also reminded Trump of the unprecedented solidarity shown by the alliance following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Facebook: “I fully understand that Danish veterans have said no words can describe how much this hurts. It is unacceptable that the American president questions the commitment of allied soldiers in Afghanistan.”
• Denmark’s ambassador to the United States, Jesper Møller Sørensen, reaffirmed that Danish troops fought “on the front line” in Afghanistan and wrote on X, “That was solidarity…We stood with America then — and we still do.”
• Norway’s Defense Minister, Tore O. Sandvik, called Trump’s comments “Wrong and without respect,” adding, “All fallen soldiers, their families and veterans deserve to be spoken about with respect.” More than 10,000 Norwegian troops served in Afghanistan and 10 were killed
• France’s Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin, whose country lost 90 soldiers in Afghanistan, remembered them asserting “[their sacrifice] commands respect.”
• Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country lost 43 soldiers in Afghanistan said, “The American officers who accompanied me then told me that America would never forget the Polish heroes. Perhaps they will remind President Trump of that fact.” He was referring to a 2011 farewell ceremony honoring five Polish soldiers who had died in Afghanistan.
Polish defense minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, said the contribution of Polish troops in Afghanistan “must not be diminished”.
• Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said, “no one has the right to mock the service of our soldiers.”
• “That’s false,” said Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel. “That’s not how history went.”
• More than 40,000 Canadians served alongside NATO allies in Afghanistan – 158 of them made the ultimate sacrifice. Its Defense Minister, David McGuinty, said “There was no standing back. Only standing side by side, together on the front lines with our allies.”
But perhaps the most damning comments have come from European and Canadian veterans who fought and bled in Afghanistan.
The Danish Veterans Association was “at a loss for words” over Trump’s claims, but said in a statement, “Denmark has always stood by the United States, and we have shown up in crisis zones around the world when the United States asked us to.” Danish veterans are calling for a silent march in Copenhagen on January 31 to protest Trump’s remarks.
Bob Seddon, a former British Army top bomb disposal officer who served in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2011 and whose six operators were killed in action doing “phenomenally dangerous work” in Afghanistan alongside U.S. troops, told the BBC that he is “dismayed” by Trump’s “callous” remarks. In addition, he “implored the president to speak to those in the US Armed Forces who worked with Nato allies in Afghanistan and to ‘understand the effect this has on the families of those who were killed in action.’”
Ben McBean, one of the hundreds of British troops who were injured and lost limbs in Afghanistan wrote on social media: “As I sit here with two limbs missing, friends gone, trying to keep it all together for my family, it’s infuriating to hear this come out of Donald Trump’s mouth”.
Corporal Andy Reid, another British soldier who lost limbs in Afghanistan (his legs and right arm) when he stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED), told the BBC, “Not a day goes by when we are not in some kind of pain physically or mentally, reflecting on that conflict…I think it’s very disrespectful to say that we weren’t on the front line.”
Danish platoon commander Martin Tamm Andersen who fought with US Marines in Iraq said in an interview with the Associated Press: “When America needed us after 9/11 we were there.”
The reaction has been even more heartbreaking coming from the loved ones of those who died in Afghanistan. From those whom Prince Charles called, “Mothers and fathers [who] buried sons and daughters. Children [who] were left without a parent. Families [who] are left carrying the cost…”
Ian Wright’s son, Gary Wright, a Royal Marine from Scotland, was killed in Afghanistan at age 22. His father said, “There was no such thing as a front line in Afghanistan.” He added, “normally people would be shocked at the lack of diplomacy and factual accuracy shown by a president of the USA. Sadly, this is not the case in respect of the current incumbent.”
Janette Binnie, the mother of 22-yearold Scottish soldier, Sean Binnie, killed while on patrol with the Black Watch in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, calls Trump’s comments “soul-destroying.” “I’d love President Trump to come and see me,” she says. “I’d soon tell him how it is being an Army wife and an Army mother, and what it is to lose a child in those circumstances, something that he knows nothing about.”
Lucy Aldridge, mother of Rifleman William Aldridge — at 18 the youngest British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan — says she is “deeply disgusted” by Trump’s comments. She says Trump’s claim “picks the scab off wounds that never healed”.
Diane Dernie, the mother of Ben Parkinson, a former British paratrooper who was severely injured serving in Afghanistan, called Trump’s comments “disgraceful.”
How about American Veterans? I believe retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General “Ben” Hodges III, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, speaks for most of us when he says
Look, I was in Kandahar from 2009 to 2010 — thousands of British soldiers, Canadian soldiers, Danish soldiers, Romanians and others. I was on the runway many nights at what we call the ramp ceremony when the bodies of soldiers from all those nations who’ve been killed were being flown home. There’s no American soldier that believes what our president just said. I’m sorry that he did that.
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