Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen on Sunday lashed out at Donald Trump's harsh assessment of U.S. military's fight against the Islamic State (ISIS,) calling the critique "a direct insult" to the men and women serving in the armed forces.
In an interview on
ABC News' "This Week," Allen, a four-star general who served as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and as the U.S. special presidential envoy for the international coalition fighting ISIS, said Americans should "listen to what [Trump's] been saying about our military."
"He's called it a disaster," he said. "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."
Allen also said the GOP presidential nominee's attack on him as a "failed general" after his endorsement of Hillary Clinton has "no credibility."
"He has no credibility to criticize me or my record or anything I have done," Allen said. "If he'd spent a minute in the deserts of Afghanistan or in the deserts of Iraq, I might listen to what he has to say."
He also dismissed Trump's assertion that relations with Russia would be better if he were elected, and would help America combat ISIS.
"The Russians have not helped us at all in the fight against ISIS," he declared. "When the Russians said they were going to assist, we got a very small number" of airplane attacks.
And he hit back at
Trump's attack on the Muslim family of hero Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2004, calling his bravery "an act of nobility."
"That family was humiliated by those comments," Allen said. "That was unfair and a shameful thing."