Donald Trump is facing backlash from Canadian veterans after suggesting NATO allies did little during the war in Afghanistan, comments veterans say ignore their painful sacrifices.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said the United States had “never needed” its NATO partners and characterized allied contributions in Afghanistan as minor, saying they “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
His remarks didn’t sit well with Canadian veterans who were part of the Afghan conflict, which represented the country’s largest overseas deployment since the Second World War. More than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces members served in the region between 2001 and 2014. In total, 158 Canadians were killed and thousands more were injured.
I should, but I don’t need to to know the horrors of war, even if I’ve been fortunate enough to not experience them personally. I’ve also read Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and have a fair idea about the horrors of living under an authoritarian regime, even if I’ve been fortunate enough to not experience them personally. One of the best ways to stop war is to resist those who would change the borders of other nations through violence, using whatever means are necessary, particularly if there are known abuses of their own citizens, let alone those they conquer, such as we have seen so many times with Russia.