There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today.

We dont want the Taliban to put down roots, or the al Qaeda to put down roots in Afghanistan that can facilitate Afghanistan becoming - once again - a launching pad for international terrorism.

I can't spend a lot of time worrying about the numbers at home. I've got to focus on the mission.

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.

With Hillary Clinton as our commander in chief, our international relations will not be reduced to a business transaction. I also know that our armed forces will not become an instrument of torture and they will not be engaged in murder or carry out other illegal activities.

I seek as much as I can to mitigate risk.

When we talk about carpet bombing ISIL, that's what it looks like, creating huge numbers of civilian casualties, which increases the numbers of refugees flowing out of the region, which increases the misery of the Syrian people.