Tim Costley pictured during his career in the RNZAF.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has slammed US President Donald Trump’s slur against Nato and non-American troops in Afghanistan, calling the remarks “incredibly disrespectful and wrong”.
The slur, which falsely claimed Nato troops stayed away from the front line in the Afghanistan conflict was also rebuked by Tim Costley, a National MP who served in Afghanistan, who noted that the fact so many New Zealanders did not return was evidence that Nato and non-American troops were “very much” on the “front line”.
Last week, Trump, who is feuding with the rest of the alliance’s members over his ambitions to annex Greenland for the United States, posted to social media that the United States “never needed” the alliance, which fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan, after 9/11 – the only instance in which Nato’s famous Article 5 mutual-defence provision has ever been activated.
“We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines,” Trump posted.
Heading into his caucus meeting, Luxon said New Zealand had 3500 personnel serve in Afghanistan.
“We lost 10 lives,” Luxon said, noting that that was the seventh-highest per capita fatality rate of countries that served.
“I thought it was incredibly disrespectful,” Luxon said.
“It’s up to him to work out whether he wants to apologise.”
Trump has been criticised by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Prince Harry, himself a veteran of the conflict.
Trump has since walked back his comments, praising soldiers from the United Kingdom, a Nato member, however he has not walked back the comments for other nations.
New Zealand is not a member of Nato, but served in Afghanistan as part of several Nato-led missions.
Costley, the MP for Ōtaki, served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) from 2001 to 2023 as a helicopter pilot and in other roles.
He was deployed to Afghanistan, based between Kabul and Bagram.
On his way into National’s Tuesday morning caucus meeting, Costley said where his colleagues were deployed was “very much the front line”.
“There’s a bunch of people with medals to show it, and 10 [people] that didn’t come back. You could not be more front line than where they served,” Costley said.
He said forces deployed to Afghanistan did an “extraordinary job”.
“I just come back to the fact that there were young girls that got to go to school for 20 years in Afghanistan that wouldn’t have otherwise. They did a tremendous job and worked with such a large number of countries, Americans included.”
Asked whether Trump’s comments were offensive, he said he “didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on them”.
Veterans Minister Chris Penk, who himself served in uniform, although not in Afghanistan, said he knew some veterans and their families would be offended by the remarks.
“I know that some who served in Afghanistan and probably the loved ones of those who didn’t return will have been offended by those remarks, but certainly from my point of view it’s just important to point out that as a Government, we greatly respect, honour and value those contributions – we will remember them.”
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said Trump’s comments were “absolutely offensive”.
“New Zealand troops contributed enormously in Afghanistan and other theatres around the world. They deserve to be respected.”
Hipkins attacked Foreign Minister Winston Peters for being slow to defend them.
“I’m absolutely astounded that our Foreign Minister, who describes himself as a patriot, hasn’t lifted a finger to defend our troops,” he said.
Peters told RNZ’s Morning Report on Monday that “we are not part of Nato, we were in Afghanistan voluntarily, we were not part of Nato in that context”.
He said Defence Minister Judith Collins was the minister most appropriate to respond to Trump’s comments.
Collins described Trump’s comments as “ill-informed”.