Ambassador James B. Cunningham’s Remarks at Official Farewell Reception

For more than three and a half years it has been my privilege to serve the United States in Afghanistan, and to help strengthen the partnership between our two countries and our two peoples.  For Leslie and me, this has been the experience of a lifetime.  We prepare to depart with a bittersweet feeling of sadness and optimism – and an enduring respect for this country and the many remarkable Afghans who are building its future.

When I arrived here in the summer of 2011, the ISAF forces had reached their peak.  We were headed for Transition by the end of 2014, but did not have a real plan.  The Strategic Partnership was still a concept, the commitments to Afghanistan at the Chicago NATO Summit and at Tokyo were unformed ideas.  We had not yet conceived of the Bilateral Security Agreement.  But the United States and our partners were committed to forge with Afghanistan an international structure to provide enduring support, allow Afghanistan to assume responsibility for the security of its people, and lay a foundation on which Afghans could build.   That has now been accomplished.

No one should underestimate what Afghanistan has achieved in the past decade.  In terms of history, this is a blink of the eye.  Afghanistan is on the threshold of a future in which Afghans can seek peace and prosperity and a better life.

Afghan democracy has struggled, as all young democracies do, and even as much more mature democracies do.  But Afghanistan has achieved the first peaceful transfer of political authority to a new President, and President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah are forming the government of national unity which will provide the best possibility for success in the years ahead.  This will not be easy, as the past has not been.  But this is surely a time of promise and opportunity for Afghanistan that is historically unique.  I hope that the Afghan people will seize this opportunity.

I hope that Afghans will demand of themselves and their leaders the commitment, responsibility, and respect for others that will permit peaceful political competition and accommodation.  That they will build the broad cultural, religious and political space required to bring together all Afghans, wherever they are and of all beliefs, in a national project which rejects violence and terror, fights for peace, respects human rights and the rights of women, and is committed to the framework of Afghan law and the Afghan constitution.  A diverse society can nurture national unity.

I hope Afghans will not lose confidence in democracy.  Whatever else happened in the last election, it is without doubt that millions and millions of courageous and committed Afghans, men and women, cast their ballots, and at personal risk.  This is a remarkable phenomenon under any circumstance.  Afghans should be proud of that achievement, and demand better in the future, as the unity government is committed to provide.

Leslie and I long to return here and to travel freely in a peaceful Afghanistan.  The Afghan security forces are brave fighters.  They are capable, effective and with international support will only get better.  The Taliban must come to see not only that terror will not return them to power; they must see that their time, whether they have watches or not, is past.  The wheel of history has turned.  The empty vision of the Taliban, a vision without hope, which glorifies the murder of innocents, which attacks children at sporting events, surely cannot meet the aspirations of the Afghan people.   

In closing, I want to do two things.  Read More at  Kabul. US Embassy