{"id":387704,"date":"2026-01-24T09:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T09:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387704\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T09:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T09:21:15","slug":"prince-harry-says-sacrifices-by-nato-troops-in-afghanistan-deserve-respect-after-trump-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387704\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry says sacrifices by Nato troops in Afghanistan deserve &#8216;respect&#8217; after Trump comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hegseth&#8217;s war service and views on Nato alliespublished at 19:28 GMT 23 January<\/p>\n<p>19:28 GMT 23 January<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-3u1n9h-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a1462f87-b5c0-43b2-8a08-2f7c7a8f1bff.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Bernd Debusmann Jr<br \/>Reporting from the White House<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Pete Hegseth sat a table in a blue blazer, a Japense flag hangs behind him.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e9f577f0-3709-4b9d-891b-716c72a06ce5.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, EPA<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Only a small handful of the top tier members of the US<br \/>\ngovernment have served in the military &#8211; and a much, much smaller number served<br \/>\nin the &#8220;Global War on Terror&#8221; in either Iraq or Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Donald Trump&#8217;s cabinet, only one member fought in<br \/>\nAfghanistan: defence secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hegseth, now 45, commissioned as an infantry officer soon<br \/>\nafter graduating from Princeton University&#8217;s Reserved Office Training Corps<br \/>\n(ROTC) programme in 2003, two years into the Afghan war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After two other overseas deployments &#8211; guarding detainees at<br \/>\nGuantanamo Bay and with the 101st Airborne Division to Iraq &#8211; Hegseth deployed<br \/>\nto Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Afghanistan, he was primarily involved in teaching<br \/>\nlessons in counterinsurgency at an academy in Kabul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is unclear how much direct interaction he had with allied<br \/>\nNato troops while there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kabul, however, was the headquarters for the Nato-run<br \/>\nInternational Security and Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) until 2014, and troops<br \/>\nfrom a wide variety of countries were present in the city between its fall in<br \/>\n2001 until the Taliban returned to power in 2021 after taking control of towns and cities across the country.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But, in the past, Hegseth has been quite dismissive about<br \/>\nNato&#8217;s contribution to the war, last year joking that ISAF stood for &#8220;I<br \/>\nsaw Americans fighting&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cUltimately, it was a lot of flags&#8230; [But it] was not a lot<br \/>\nof on-the-ground capability,\u201d Hegseth told lawmakers on Capitol Hill last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cYou\u2019re not a real coalition, you\u2019re not a real alliance,<br \/>\nunless you have real defence capability, and real armies that can bring those<br \/>\nto bear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hegseth&#8217;s war service and views on Nato alliespublished at 19:28 GMT 23 January 19:28 GMT 23 January Bernd&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-387704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}