In a poignant speech Monday morning at the Pentagon, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani put a human face on the gratitude he feels for the 14 years of sacrifices U.S. troops have made in his country.
Speaking directly to the young daughter of a deployed lieutenant commander currently deployed in Afghanistan, Ghani told the young attendee “I have a greeting to you from 3 million Afghan girls attending school today,” thanking her for her father’s service overseas, which he said has helped make that possible.
Ghani is in the U.S. on a five-day trip to capitalize on the tighter U.S.-Afghanistan relationship that has taken hold since he took office six months ago. In his speech, the Afghan president let the assembled military community in on a few real-life glimpses into the efforts he and a force of dedicated U.S. military and diplomatic forces have put into getting Afghanistan on a new path.
“We are not going to become a burden,” Ghani said, committing his country to sustaining the gains it has made through U.S. reconstruction efforts.
Some of Afghanistan’s biggest gains have been realized unintentionally. For example, Ghani said that the Northern Distribution Route — a railway network the U.S. negotiated in 2009 through Eastern Europe in order to get millions of pounds of vehicles, containers of equipment and supplies shipped into Afghanistan to support the troop surge — has now become a steady and growing trade route for Kabul.
“This is an enduring legacy,” Ghani said. “What was done in a time of war … [has] now become the road for peace, the road for interactions.”
Ghani said Afghanistan’s violence continues, but the country is resolute not to allow the Taliban or other criminal or terrorist forces to take away its progress.
“We die every day,” Ghani said, of the continuing smaller attacks everyday places such as markets. “I’ve held more children in my arms who have been killed or wounded … playing volleyball, walking to school. We die but we will never be defeated.”
More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in Afghanistan, and 2,215 killed since U.S. operations began there in October 2001.
Ghani is here to try and seal the U.S. commitment to slow the drawdown of its remaining 9,800 troops in Afghanistan. U.S. force levels are currently planned to drop to 5,500 by the end of 2015; Ghani has requested those levels stay at closer to 9,800 for a longer period of time, to ensure the Taliban do not destabilize Afghanistan this spring.
President Obama is expected to announce his decision on the troop levels Tuesday.
Ghani, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew now head to Camp David for a day of meetings.
