Trump’s lowest depths
Or, have you no sense of decency
(Image: Joseph Welsh confronting Senator Joseph McCarthy, June 9, 1954)
There are no depths to which this current US President will not descend. Infantile lies come easily to him. They are normalised through the right-wing media channels that fawn over him. One of the very worst lies was aired in an interview on, where else, Fox News, January 22. Watch it, if you have a strong stomach [1] In the midst of a free-flowing diatribe against NATO, Trump said this:
“We’ve never needed them [NATO] … They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.” [2]
Just as a reminder, NATO invoked its collective security clause, Article 5, for the first and, so far, only time following the Al Qaeda strikes of 9/11. NATO troops from many countries served alongside the US in Afghanistan after an invasion was mounted to oust Al Qaeda from its strongholds in the country and overthrow the Taliban regime which had harboured them.
Canada was among those NATO countries that joined in the Afghanistan war.
There will be many expressions of outrage from soldiers from NATO countries who served in Afghanistan and experienced war first-hand, including Canadians. [3]
We should be clear about the facts.
To that end, I asked a leading Canadian military historian, Dr. David Charters, to help us with a summation of the Canadian military contribution in Afghanistan. This is a story we must never allow a lie-spewing US President to pollute.
This is David’s brief history of the Canadian role, and I am grateful to him for ir.
When the US government invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty following the al-Qaeda attacks on the US in September 2001, Canada was one of the first to respond, initially deploying a naval task force to the region to interdict any al-Qaeda members who might be fleeing by sea.
Commencing in the Fall of 2001 and ending in 2014, some 40,000 Canadian Forces personnel served in the Afghan theater of operations.
Fighting alongside American, Afghan, NATO and non-NATO forces, they suffered 159 killed in action and 635 wounded in action, mostly in the heavily contested Kandahar province.
Canadian Special Operations Forces were the first Canadians to enter combat in Afghanistan, working with US and NATO SOF. But, the bulk of the combat operations fell on the battalion+ battle groups, that deployed on six-month rotations in Kandahar from 2006 to 2011. These consisted of infantry, artillery, tanks, armoured reconnaissance, combat engineers, and logistics troops.
Canada also provided a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar City. Backstopping these troops were a theatre support base in the Gulf, the task force/brigade headquarters at Kandahar Airfield, with national command and support (logistics) elements, an Air Wing comprising armed and transport helicopters, transport aircraft, and reconnaissance drones, an All-Source Intelligence Centre, and an advanced military hospital. CF personnel also served in coalition headquarters at all levels.
When the combat mission ended in 2011, the CF role transitioned to training the Afghan forces until mission end in 2014.
Lest we forget.
So yes, Mr. President, Canada was on the front lines. You, sir, have never been.
A coda.
Lies stick to liars. They can be career enders. The current denizen of the White House might do well to remember an episode from an earlier period when the US descended into political madness. Senator Joe McCarthy, the red-baiter and demagogue, was confronted in a televised hearing on June 9, 1954, by a very courageous counsel for the US Army, Joseph Welch. The attack has gone down in history; McCarthy went down with it. Welch said this to McCarthy:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last. Have you left no sense of decency.” [4]
Senator Joe McCarthy died three years after this exchange, a ruined man.
What’s left of the democratic world knows the answer should a similar question be posed to Donald Trump. May it haunt him.
[1] Fox Business, “Mornings with Maria,” January 22, 2026, https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6388087049112
[2] Ibid
[3] CTV News, Andrew Johnston, “We were the frontline: Canadian veterans outraged by Trump’s NATO comments,” January 22, 2026, https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/we-were-the-frontline-canadian-veterans-outraged-by-trumps-nato-comments/
[4] https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm
The little community outside Toronto to which I have retired assuredly still misses the men and women who died in Afghanistan after whom so many local streets and ways have been named. In fact the main highway connecting Canada's most populous area is itself called the 'Highway of Heroes' after the sad little parades that gathered spontaneously on the bridges over the highway along which the bodies were brought home...not so many years ago.
These honourable people did not deserve to have their painful losses thrown in their face by a pathetic mob boss.
Thanks for this article Professor Wark. I was one of the 40,000 who served in Afghanistan (2002, 2008/09). First with the U.S. in Operation Enduring Freedom and then with ISAF. We will NEVER forget.