President Donald Trump has sparked fresh anger in Britain after saying NATO troops were “a little off the line” during the war in Afghanistan.
Labor MP Emily Thornberry, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, called it an “absolute insult” to the 457 British soldiers who died in the war, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”
“It is sad to see the sacrifices of our country and our NATO partners being paid so cheaply,” said Ben Obese-Zekty, a Conservative lawmaker who served in Afghanistan.
Britain has been one of several allies to join the US in Afghanistan since 2001, after triggering NATO’s collective security provisions following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The US president said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that he was “not sure” there would be a military alliance for the United States “if we need one.”
“We have never needed them,” he said, adding, “We have never really asked them for anything.”
“They would say they sent troops into Afghanistan, but they pulled back a little bit and stayed a little bit away from the front line,” he said.
He said the United States has been “very kind to Europe and many other countries,” adding, “It should be a two-way street.”
ReutersThornberry told BBC Question Time the comments were “more than a mistake”.
“It’s a complete insult… How dare you say we weren’t on the front lines?
“We’ve always been there whenever the American people want us,” she said, calling Trump “a man who has never seen any action” but who is now “a man who is commander-in-chief and has no idea how America was defended.”
She said the US had been a “friend” of the UK but its leader had “behaved in a bullying and disrespectful way and has deliberately tried to weaken us and the UK has been trying to weaken NATO”.
Speaking on the same programme, Conservative shadow cabinet member Stuart Andrew also called the remarks “disgraceful” and “appalling”.
“There are many men in this country who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom lost their lives, but many more who returned with life-changing injuries. We owe them our gratitude.”
He added that the special relationship between the UK and the US is important for both defense and security, and that in recent weeks President Trump had directed talks on Arctic security. He said there was a “very serious threat” to the Arctic.
PA MediaSir Ed said on social media that President Trump “has shunned military service”, adding: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Veal, appearing on the BBC’s Newsnight program, dismissed President Trump’s remarks as “false,” saying that Europeans shed blood to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
He said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte rejected similar comments Trump made earlier during a joint news conference in Davos on Thursday.
Asked about the US president repeating these claims, van Will said: “We have to stand up for the truth like Mark Rutte did, and if he repeats those claims, we have to repeat them again, because that’s not how history works.”
Meanwhile, former British military officer Obiz-Zekty said it was “sad to see the American president so cheaply paying for the sacrifices of our country and our NATO partners.”
He wrote to
“I do not believe that members of the U.S. military share President Trump’s views. His comments are damaging to our closest military allies.”
Calvin Bailey, a Labor lawmaker and former RAF officer who served with US special forces in Afghanistan, said the president’s claims bore “no resemblance to the reality experienced by those of us who served there”.
“As I reminded the American soldiers I served with on July 4, 2008, we were there because of the shared belief made clear at the founding of this country that free people have unalienable rights and should not live under tyranny,” he told the PA news agency.
“That belief underpinned the response to 9/11 and is worth looking back on now.”
The BBC has approached the Ministry of Defense for comment.
The spokesperson pointed to comments made by Secretary of Defense John Healey during a visit to NATO ally Denmark on Wednesday, prior to Trump’s remarks.
“In Afghanistan, our troops made the ultimate sacrifice by training together, fighting together and, in some cases, dying together,” he said.
The United States invaded in October 2001 to oust the Taliban, which it said was harboring Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the September 11 attacks. NATO countries have provided troops and military equipment to the U.S.-led war.
As of 2021, when the U.S. withdrew, more than 3,500 Allied troops were killed, about two-thirds of whom were Americans.
Britain suffered the second highest number of military deaths after the United States, with 2,461 deaths.
The United States is the only country to invoke the collective security clause of Article V of NATO, which states that “an armed attack against one NATO member shall be deemed an attack against all NATO members.”
