Donald Trump’s useless prattle hurts people, and spoils decades-long relations
Donald Trump talks a lot. Speech is his weapon of choice, and attack is his strategy. Dangerous stuff if you happen to be the president of the United States, and have a huge and well-equipped military machine at your disposal in case you want to put words in action. But it does not require a shot to be fired for a lot of people to get hurt, and for relations built over decades to be spoilt.
Trump was is Davos last week. His speech was, as expected, controversial. But it was what he said after his return that caused a stir. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said of Nato troops: "We've never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. "They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan... and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
Nowhere in Afghanistan was safe
In 2005, I took a sabbatical from my NGO work to go and work for six months with the United Nations in Afghanistan. I was part of a five-person team that was to help set up the new Afghan Parliament.
The international community went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. An incensed United States invoked NATO’s article 5, for the first and only time in the Alliance history, and soon led an international coalition invading Afghanistan. The Taliban government collapsed quickly, and running Afghanistan became an international problem.
When I arrived in Kabul, I understood immediately that the international effort was not working. The Taliban had not been defeated, they simply melted away. Money was pouring into the country in aid, but there was little to show for it; the international community was in a hurry, but they came with their own fixed ideas that were often at odds with Afghan society, and they had no coherent exit strategy.
But we laboured on, and the new Parliament was inaugurated in December 2005 by US Vice President Dick Cheyny and president Karzai. It was dissolved in August 2021 when the Taliban took over again.
My office in Kabul was in Wazir Akbar Khan District, a stone throw away from the British Embassy. It was as safe as could be in Afghanistan at the time. But, in fact, nowhere was safe. The Serena Hotel, where I used to go every Friday for coffee was bombed soon after, leaving many dead. Every time you left Afghanistan you were glad you were still alive.
Trump’s insensitivity
Like many others I was angry and upset when Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, said of Nato troops:
"We've never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. "They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan... and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
Its simply not true. Thousands of soldiers joined the US military operation, and were at the heart of the biggest security problem areas, such as Helmand and Kandahar.
The BBC’s veteran Security Correspondent, Frank Gardiner, wrote on Friday (23 January),
“Blast walls, rocket attacks, Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)... and long queues in the canteen. Anyone who deployed to Afghanistan, in whatever role, between 2001-2021 will have their own vivid memories of that time.
It started with the flight in – to Kandahar, Kabul or Camp Bastion. It could be a long, slow descent with the lights out on an RAF jet, or a rapid, corkscrew down in a C-130 transport plane. In both cases the aim was to avoid being blown out of the air by a Taliban surface-to-air missile.
Over the course of 20 years thousands of servicemen and women, as well as civilians, from dozens of countries deployed to Afghanistan, [died] answering the US call for assistance.”
More than 3,500 coalition soldiers died, about two-thirds of them Americans, as of 2021 when the US withdrew from the country. The UK suffered the second-highest number of military deaths in the conflict behind the US, which saw 2,461 fatalities. Most of the 457 British troops who died serving in Afghanistan over a period of nearly 20 years were killed in Helmand - the scene of the heaviest fighting.
Hundreds more suffered injuries and lost limbs.
Canada's Minister of National Defence David J McGuinty said that Canadian "men and women were on the ground from the beginning, not because we had to, but because it was the right thing to do."
He said 158 of their troops "paid the ultimate price" for leading allied efforts in the Kandahar Province.
In Britain the whole nation condemned Trump.
The mother of a Scottish soldier killed in Afghanistan has described Donald Trump's claim that allies stayed away from the front line as "soul-destroying".
Sean Binnie was a 22-year-old acting sergeant when he was killed while on patrol with the Black Watch in Helmand Province in May 2009.
His mother, Janette Binnie, 58, of Crimond in Aberdeenshire, told BBC Scotland News:
"His comments are soul-destroying, for me personally as a mum, that's lost my only child in that war. How can you stand there and say this?"
Can any ally trust the United States again?
But Mrs Binnie in her interview also put her finger on another problem.
She said: "The boys went to Afghanistan because they needed them. "We were all there fighting the same war. My son worked alongside some of the Americans. He's just diminished everything that our children have done."
Trump seemed to back track after speaking with British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer on Saturday (24 January). Sir Keir had earlier been unusually candid, describing Trump’s words on Thursday as "insulting and frankly appalling". After speaking with Sir Keir, the US president used his Truth Social platform to praise UK troops as being "among the greatest of all warriors". But the damage had been done.
The insult to war dead and veterans is more costly to the US than all the shenanigans around Greenland
Trump’s insult to the dead, wounded and others who served in Afghanistan will not be forgotten easily. The US will find this out when it needs allies to support it, as it will sooner or later. The NATO alliance was already rattled by Trumps attempts to absorb Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally. But all the shenanigans around Greenland will blur into insignificance when compared to the insult to thousands of war dead and veterans. The bad taste will linger for a long time and spoils relations that have been built over decades.
source: Monday Commentary is written every week by Dr Dennis Sammut, Director of LINKS Europe Foundation, and Managing Editor of commonspace.eu.
photo: Taliban fighters
