Afghanistan Video: Departing US Ambassador Blasts "Hurtful and Inappropriate" Karzai

On Sunday, the departing US Ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, used a speech to students in the western Afghan city of Herat to rebuke President Hamid Karzai: ""When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on."

Eikenberry, reading from a script, was responding to Karzai's comments on Saturday that the US-led coalition risked being seen as unwelcome outsiders who came into Afghanistan for their own interests.

Eikenberry said the frequent criticism from Mr. Karzai and other Afghan leaders as "hurtful and inappropriate":

At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good, when we reach a point that we feel our soldiers and civilians are being asked to sacrifice without a just cause, and our generous aid programs dismissed as totally ineffective and the source of all corruption . . . especially at a time our economy is suffering and our needs are not being met, the American people will ask for our forces to come home.

Eikenberry has been at the centre of disputes about Karzai before: last year, his classified cables that Karzai was an unreliable partner were leaked, presumably by other American officials who wanted to discredit the Ambassador as the US escalated its military presence.