John R. Allen quotes:

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.

There are tens of thousands of interactions every single day across Afghanistan between the Afghan troops and International Security Assistance Force. On most of those, every single day we continue to deepen and broaden the relationship we seek.

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.

Al Qaeda has come back. Al Qaeda is a resilient organization. But they're not here in large numbers. But al Qaeda doesn't have to be anywhere in large numbers.

We don't 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.

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.

We're probably going to see some post-2014 military presence - some U.S. presence and a NATO presence - and while we've got much work to do in the next 29 months, we'll have additional time later for the continued professionalization of the Afghan security forces.

Protecting Afghan civilians is the cornerstone of our mission.

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

You know, great powers don't get angry, great powers don't make decisions hastily in a crisis.

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.

What we do have to do, is listen to what Donald Trump's been saying about our military. He's called it a disaster. He says our military can't win anymore. That's a direct insult to every single man and woman who's wearing the uniform today.

We're pursuing a strategic partnership with Afghanistan on the case of the United States and Afghanistan where we're going to push toward a future. It is the future that the Afghans desire with the United States. It is a future that the Afghans desire with the international community and we desire that as well.

And the narrative for the Taliban that they can wait us out is a flawed narrative. I think that the unambiguous international support for Afghanistan has been a very powerful message. You know, that was the message that came out of the NATO summit. We will not abandon Afghanistan.

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.

I seek as much as I can to mitigate risk.

There are problems in the world today.

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.

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.

Planning is really the hallmark of any large military formation, and it's typically a weakness in new formations and new armies.

None of us wants any more war.

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.

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.

The best thing I ever did was give my family everything I could.

We need to have a commander-in-chief who knows what she is doing.

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

The Russians haven't helped us at all in the fight against ISIS. When you total up the numbers of sorties that have been going into Syria, aircraft attacks, if you will, going into Syria, when the Russians said they were going to assist, we got a very small number of Russian sorties.

What we need to do is ensure that we don't create an environment that puts us on a track conceivably where the United States military finds itself in a civil military crisis with a commander in chief who would have us do illegal things.

We need to understand what we're saying matters.