Australian politicians and war veterans have condemned US President Donald Trump’s denigration of the role played by foreign troops in Afghanistan as “utterly shameful” and “a profound insult”, comparing the hundreds of casualties with the president’s record of draft dodging.
Liberal backbencher Andrew Hastie, who served with the Special Air Service Regiment, said Trump had insulted every Australian soldier who served in Afghanistan by suggesting in an interview with Fox News on Thursday they were not on the front line of combat.
Trump said he was not certain that NATO allies would support the US if ever they were asked to do so, though he said the US had never needed them.
“You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed back a little, a little off the front line,” Trump said.
“But we’ve been very good to Europe and many other countries.”
Australia operated alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force from 2001 to 2021. Among the nearly 40,000 Australian troops who served in the conflict, 263 service personnel were wounded and 47 were killed.
Hastie, a contender for leadership of the Liberal Party, said he had joined the Australian Defence Force as a direct result of the 9/11 attack on the United States. He was twice deployed to Afghanistan, where he worked closely with the US Green Berets and Navy SEALS.
“Many Diggers saw combat through small arms fire, IEDs and rockets,” Hastie said.
“If that’s not frontline service, I don’t know what is. Why would a US president kick allies in the teeth like this? Especially when he missed the call to serve in Vietnam. Perhaps to mask a deep insecurity about his own record.
“We put our lives on the line, we lost mates and had others seriously wounded – who still carry the scars both physically and mentally. We were frontline with the US troops, even when we had doubts about the direction of the war.”
RSL Australia president Peter Tinley said Trump’s remarks were “factually wrong, historically ignorant, and deeply offensive” to the 47 Australians who died in the conflict. Australians, including himself, were among the first coalition troops on the ground two weeks after 9/11.
“Our troops didn’t ‘stay a little back’,” Tinley said.
“They conducted offensive counter-insurgency operations, cleared Taliban strongholds, defused roadside bombs, mentored Afghan forces under fire, and fought in sustained close combat.
“To our veterans, I say I understand what you are feeling today. I feel it too. Many of you deployed
multiple times, missed births, funerals and years of your children’s lives. Some of you carry visible
and invisible wounds that will never fully heal. To have that service dismissed so casually is a profound insult. Your service mattered.”
Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who served in the Australian Defence Force for 11 years, told her 461,000 Facebook followers that the president’s comments that NATO troops hung back off the front lines were “utterly shameful” and called for him to apologise immediately.
Hundreds of those who served had suffered injuries inside and out as a result of their service in Afghanistan, she said, compared with the US president’s efforts to avoid military service.
“So no Mr President ‘they didn’t stay back off the front lines’ – and they didn’t get ‘daddy’ to get a doctor to say they had bone spurs so they could get out of it! What a disgrace!” she posted.
Trump’s remarks have been roundly condemned by world leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The conflict in Afghanistan was the first and only time that NATO has invoked its collective security clause, which obliged every allied nation to lend its support to the United States.
A government spokesman said: “Australian Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan made a very significant contribution, and we continue to honour their bravery and sacrifice.”
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