Outrage over Trump’s ‘wipe out’ remark

AFGHANISTAN yesterday called for an explanation of comments by US President Donald Trump in which he said he could win the Afghan war in just 10 days by wiping out Afghanistan but did not want to kill 10 million people.

Trump’s remarks followed a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House on Monday at which Trump voiced optimism that Pakistan could help broker a political settlement to end the nearly 18-yearold war in Afghanistan.

The remarks drew a stiff response from Afghanistan’s presidential palace, which has been excluded from talks between the US and the Taliban, and which accuses Pakistan of supporting the insurgency.

“The Afghan nation has not and will never allow any foreign power to determine its fate,” the presidential palace said. “While the Afghan government supports the US efforts for ensuring peace in Afghanistan, the government underscores that foreign heads of state cannot determine Afghanistan’s fate in absence of the Afghan leadership,” it said. It called for clarification of Trump’s statement.

In his comments in Washington, Trump said Pakistan was helping the US “extricate” itself from Afghanistan, where the US was acting as a “policeman” rather than fighting a war. “If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump said at the White House where he was hosting Khan.

Senior Afghan politicians refrained from comment, but commentators on social media were infuriated.

Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan-American author of the best-selling novel, The Kite Runner, which introduced Afghanistan to many foreign readers, called Trump’s remarks “reckless, appalling”.

Others said the government had no effective recourse, pointing to its dependence on billions of dollars of aid from the US every year.