"Thanks to the US. . ."

This is the first I've heard of this speech, though I haven't been listening to the news I have been reading a bit:

[. . .]

All of this activity came to a halt when Karzai, dressed in his flowing green silk coat and black lambskin hat, approached the microphone. He thanked Vice President Cheney for making the trip from Washington and then turned his attention to the American people:

Whatever we have achieved in Afghanistan--the
peace, the election, the reconstruction, the life that the Afghans are living
today in peace, the children going to school, the businesses, the fact that
Afghanistan is again a respected member of the international community--is from
the help that the United States of America gave us. Without that help
Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists--destroyed, poverty-stricken,
and without its children going to school or getting an education. We are very,
very grateful, to put it in the simple words that we know, to the people of the
United States of America for bringing us this day.

Sadly, most Americans never heard these words. Gratitude, it seems, is not terribly newsworthy. Neither is democracy. The Washington Post played Karzai's inauguration on page A-13, a placement that suggested it was relatively less important than Eliot Spitzer's decision to run for governor of New York or the decision of the U.S. government to import flu vaccine from Germany. . .