In dishonouring our war dead and injured, the US president has inadvertently rallied the most unlikely of defenders
At the end of a week when Donald Trump did his best to wreck transatlantic relations and make people fear for a new world war, he has also achieved the unexpected: brought peace to Westminster. Unity has indeed broken out between our political parties on the subject of Nato troops and their contribution to the conflict in Afghanistan. Trump, speaking on a morning show of Fox Business from the World Economic Forum, said of Nato troops: “We’ve never needed them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan… and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.”
One can never know where the US president gets his historic knowledge – perhaps from his own wandering imagination – but tossing this blasé, off-the-cuff piece of meat to his supporters via Fox is a line crossed, plunging into a quagmire of doodah that even Trump might regret.
In America, especially, one does not diss old soldiers. From Peloton instructors (trust me on that) to presidents, you don’t question your veterans and you don’t dishonour the war dead.
The facts, meanwhile, are crystal clear.
Nato troops who lost their lives in Afghanistan include: 165 Canadians, 44 Danes, 53 Italians, 62 Germans, 90 French, seven Hungarians and three soldiers from Iceland. As for the British, there were 7,807 wounded soldiers admitted to hospital and 457 military deaths.
Casting doubt on the bravery and commitment of Nato troops, suggesting they are battle-shy when many of them died for that foggy cause, has left politicians aghast. First to show were the obvious disparagers of Trump, politicians you would not expect to mince their words.
“It’s an insult,” said Dame Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, adding: “How dare this man who has never seen any action, who somehow or other when there was a draft for everybody else in the United States managed to avoid it, do this?” The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who normally slings out abuse at Trump before breakfast, also suggested Trump was a draft dodger, writing on X that he “avoided military service five times.”
But then our leaders began to speak out. Sir Keir Starmer, still buoyed by finding steel defending the sovereignty of Denmark earlier in the week, was firm. The president’s remarks were “deeply disappointing,” he said, with his official spokesman clarifying that “the president was wrong to diminish the role of Nato troops, including British forces in Afghanistan.”
Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch also joined the fray, describing the remarks as “flat-out nonsense”. She added: “British, Canadian and Nato troops fought alongside the US for 20 years. This is a fact, no opinion. Their sacrifice deserves respect not denigration.”
The chorus of discontent grows by the hour as families of dead soldiers and senior military figures protest at Trump’s glib distortion of reality.
Trump, until this point, was able to trot around the world dishing out insults to all and sundry, safe in the knowledge that other world leaders wouldn’t have the cojones to speak back at him. A prime example this week being Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. He made an excellent speech in Davos talking of a “rupture in the world order” but still didn’t have the balls to actually mention Trump.
And we in little old England, as ever, would doff our caps, bow and scrape, dangling invitations from the King. But not anymore. This inelegant, disrespectful, undignified, inaccurate and dishonourable epithet from Trump is a poke in the eye we won’t take.
By insulting our war dead and wounded he has awoken a fiery dragon, a shared patriotic zeal and a spirit of serious common cause around which all Brits can unite. Only Nigel Farage, as I write, is still reticent in delivering his typical bombast, uttering only that Trump’s remarks are “not quite fair”.
So we’re only waiting on Nigel, and then Trump will see that Britain is an impenetrable fortress of iron resilience. Trump’s next cup of tea with King Charles could be rather more uncomfortable than he might imagine.