Watch: Labour and Conservative MPs criticise Trump Afghanistan remarks
Donald Trump has sparked contemporary outrage within the UK after saying Nato troops stayed “a little off the front lines” in the course of the conflict in Afghanistan.
Labour MP Emily Thornberry, the chair of the international affairs committee, referred to as it an “absolute insult” to the 457 British service personnel killed within the battle, whereas Liberal Democrat chief Sir Ed Davey mentioned: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”
Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who served in Afghanistan, mentioned it was “sad to see our nation’s sacrifice, and that of our Nato partners, held so cheaply”.
The UK was amongst a number of allies to hitch the US in Afghanistan from 2001, after it invoked Nato’s collective safety clause following the 9/11 terror assaults.
The US president advised Fox News on Thursday that he was “not sure” the army alliance could be there for America “if we ever needed them”.
“We’ve never needed them,” he mentioned, including: “We have never really asked anything of them.”
“They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan,” he mentioned, “and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines”.
He mentioned the US had “been very good to Europe and to many other countries”, including: “It has to be a two-way street.”
Getty Images
Thornberry advised the BBC’s Question Time that the remarks had been “much more than a mistake”.
“It’s an absolute insult… How dare he say we weren’t on the front line, how dare he?
“We have all the time been there at any time when the Americans have needed us,” she said, calling Trump “a person who has by no means seen any motion” but was now “commander in chief and is aware of nothing about how it’s that America has been defended”.
She mentioned the US was the UK’s “buddy” but its leader had “behaved in a manner that’s bullying, impolite, that has intentionally been making an attempt to undermine us, which has been making an attempt to undermine Nato.”
On the same programme, Conservative shadow cabinet member Stuart Andrew also called the comments “disgraceful” and “appalling”.
“There are many individuals on this nation who served each in Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of whom misplaced their lives, but in addition many extra who got here again with life-changing accidents and we should always say thanks to them.”
He added that the UK-US special relationship was important for both defence and security, and that in recent weeks Trump had directed conversation to the security of the Arctic – where he said there was a “very severe menace”.
PA Media
457 British service personnel were killed in the conflict in Afghanistan
Sir Ed wrote on social media that Trump had “avoided army service”, including: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”
Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight programme, Dutch foreign minister David van Weel rejected Trump’s remarks as “false”, saying “Europeans shed blood” in support of US troops in Afghanistan.
He said Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte had rebuffed similar comments Trump made earlier, during a joint press conference the pair held at Davos on Thursday.
Asked about the US president repeating the claim, van Weel, said: “We ought to communicate out for the reality as Mark Rutte did. And if he repeated it, we have to repeat it once more as a result of that is not how historical past went.”
Meanwhile, former British Army officer Obese-Jecty said it was “unhappy to see our nation’s sacrifice, and that of our Nato companions, held so cheaply by the president of the United States”.
“I noticed first hand the sacrifices made by British troopers,” he wrote on X.
“I do not consider US army personnel share the view of President Trump; his phrases do them a disservice as our closest army allies.”
Calvin Bailey, a Labour MP and former RAF officer who served alongside US special operations units in Afghanistan, said the president’s claim bore “no resemblance to the truth skilled by these of us who served there”.
“As I reminded the US Forces I served with on 4 July 2008, we had been there due to a shared perception, articulated at America’s founding, that free individuals have inalienable rights and shouldn’t stay beneath tyranny,” he told the PA news agency.
“That perception underpinned the response to 9/11, and it’s value reflecting on now.”
The BBC approached the Ministry of Defence for comment.
A spokesperson pointed to comments made by Defence Secretary John Healey while visiting Nato ally Denmark on Wednesday – before Trump’s comments.
He said: “In Afghanistan, our forces skilled collectively, they fought collectively, and on some events, they died collectively, making the final word sacrifice.”
The US invaded in October 2001 to oust the Taliban, whom they said were harbouring Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the 9/11 attacks. Nato nations contributed troops and military equipment to the US-led war.
More than 3,500 coalition soldiers had died as of 2021, when the US withdrew from the country – about two-thirds of them Americans.
The UK suffered the second highest number of military deaths in the conflict behind the US, which saw 2,461 deaths.
The US is the only country to have invoked the collective security provisions of Nato’s Article 5, which states that “an armed assault in opposition to one Nato member shall be thought of an assault in opposition to all of them”.
