The thing that I'm always left with is this overwhelming desire for people to be rooted and the only way that they feel rooted is through another person.

Protecting Afghan civilians is the cornerstone of our mission.

There are problems in the world today.

One would think that if you're anonymous, you'd do anything you want, but groups have their own sense of community and what we can do.

It's not possible to put into words the sense of loss and grief that comes to a family that loses one of their children.

We dont see that the Taliban ultimately can succeed, and its a combination both of what the international community can do to support Afghanistan, not just in the short term, but over the long term.

And across Afghanistan, every single day, Afghan soldiers, Afghan police and ISAF troops are serving shoulder-to-shoulder in some very difficult situations. And our engagement with them, our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with them, our conduct of operations with them every single day defines the real relationship.