Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.

The key thing about force protection is... if you focus too much on force protection, and you disengage yourself from the community, you're putting yourself at greater risk because you need to interact with the community in a positive way to gain the intelligence you need.

You have to keep listening and thinking and being critical and self-critical. Remember General Nivelle, in the First World War, at Verdun? He said he had the solution and then destroyed the French Army until it mutinied.

There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid. Asymmetrically means you're going to try to avoid our strengths. In the 1991 Gulf War, it's like we called Saddam's army out into the schoolyard and beat up that army.

I was born about 80 years too late. If you were a kid in 1910, the Fourth of July was a big deal. You knew all about the Revolution, and you still had Civil War veterans.

I don't think it's too late for 'The War of the Worlds' to come true. I'm talking about it from the standpoint that which you need to have and own things - to breed, to think, to create - is going on everywhere, not just on this planet or in the space around it.

In order to establish peace, you must have fair justice for everyone.

To say I was near our president, performing at the Nobel Peace Prize... I think that's an amazing thing.