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.

Afghanistan is going to be here a long time, and what's critical is that Afghanistan's relationship with its neighbors are, to the maximum extent they can be, constructive and operationally useful.

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.

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.

We need to understand what we're saying matters.

Donald Trump has no credibility to criticize me or my record or anything that I have done. If he had spent a minute in the deserts of Afghanistan or in the deserts of Iraq, I might listen to what he has to say.

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.