A sneering slur on all who served

DONALD Trump's slur against British and NATO troops was not a gaffe.

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

It was clear expression from a man who has spent his political life sneering at service, trivialising sacrifice and rewriting history to flatter himself.

When the US president claimed allied forces in Afghanistan “stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines” he was not merely wrong.

He was erasing the deaths of more than a thousand non-American soldiers who fought and died after the United States invoked NATO’s Article 5 - the alliance’s mutual defence clause - for the first and only time, in response to the September 11 attacks.

America asked for help. Its allies answered. And they paid in blood.

More than 3,400 NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan.