Wrong Lesson Plan?

" President Obama and his senior advisors have been looking to history America's involvement in Vietnam in particular. To guide their decision about what sort of commitment to make in Afghanistan. But what lessons are they taking and are they even the right ones we thought it was worth examining. -- take a look at what we found out."

" I cannot afford the price will come due if Afghanistan slides back in the chaos or al-Qaeda operates on track. In August general Stanley McChrystal gave President Obama -- strategy for victory in Afghanistan today I'm announcing. A comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan fox. Three months later that's strategy has yet to be implemented the president has made a public show of hesitation and indecision. In private he and his advisers are looking to -- Vietnam War for guidance. They're looking to one vote in particular. According to a Wall Street Journal senior advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Rahm -- Emanuel poured through Wharton Goldstein's lessens it disaster and then gave it to the president himself. So we read it to and it reaches some very surprising conclusions. Goldstein argues that it JFK had led to serve out his term. That he would have kept the country out of Vietnam. LBJ preoccupied with his domestic agenda and worried about being portrayed as soft on communism. Wound up fighting the war half heartedly. He let the military establishment take the reins. In Goldstein's view LBJ except the flawed war plans without intervening as he should have. The book sends the unmistakable message that the war was a tragic mistake and American lives -- needlessly sacrificed to a hopeless cause. Applied to the struggle in Afghanistan and the implication is obvious -- brought down or even a full scale withdrawal of American troops. Goldstein's depiction of Vietnam seems to be weighing heavily on the administration today Dan Markey is a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. They're worried about quagmire. They're worried about losing American faith. By. And today they simply aren't sure if they have a strategy for winning strategy. And the last time the United States really grappled with and similar types of issues. Was -- A recent Newsweek cover story concludes that President Obama risks making the same mistakes. But once the president away from accepting the lessons in Goldstein's book. It cautions Obama from meddling in general McChrystal plan by sending fewer troops. In his general has requested. Big west served as assistant secretary defense for international security affairs. In the Reagan administration. And as a marine in Vietnam. If he doesn't trust his old coach. On the battlefield yet another coach. But -- just put general McChrystal is there the -- this error is ignoring the latter years of the war entirely. And Newsweek calls attention to that -- but as it turns out those of the years that deserve our attention today."

" The American historical memory of Vietnam is twisted. And it basically says it was unwinnable and therefore people really that they were like National Security Adviser. On Monday. Us secretary of defense that America reporting they had against the that's exactly wrong."

" That's why senior officials in the defense establishment. Our consulting Lewis shortly isn't a better war shortly argues that general Creighton Abrams who in 1968 replaced. General William Westmoreland as senior commander Vietnam. Implemented a counterinsurgency. Strategy that actually won the war."

" It is this period that lessons in disaster overlooked completely."

" If we're going workers so -- lessons from Vietnam War. To see whether there's anything that we can. Experience. Elsewhere. We have to really understand what happened in Vietnam and and apply the right. The ones that would be drawn from true understanding in Vietnam just like in Afghanistan very true. Entirely different views of how the war was fought and one half. Why is this for -- use lessons in disaster. Fundamentally the argument areas. He could never win it it was beyond our control. The other book a bitter war. Says no we actually won in Vietnam and they gave it away by cutting our great leader and we controlled our own destiny. So you have to entirely different ways of looking at Vietnam and Afghanistan. One way is to say it's hopeless it's beyond us in the other ways to say we can't control this the right strategy if we want. Those two views diametrically volt as is subtitled life of booksellers. On the examined victory. Of that of that latter period. Best known writers basically not written about that period."

" Those victories came from the strategy implemented by general Creighton Abrams. One that bears a striking resemblance to the one proposed by general McChrystal in March through a combination of combat operations. Pacification and building up south Vietnam's armed forces United States -- south Vietnamese government defeat the Communist insurgency by 1970 US along with the south Vietnamese armed forces. Had secured the population of south Vietnam from the Vietnam. And fortify the country."

" south Vietnamese government in my judgment has never gotten credited her for becoming a viable government. That was able to please take the help America provided. And and and do something -- with -- being west was there in 1970. You could drive and -- just one G. Practically anywhere itself yet in the village areas. The US did not lose the war militarily but the cause its political leaders who lost the will to win. That is the lesson that for this president is worth considering the narrative is that general Abrams actually won that war. After we didn't want it."

" We just gave it away like cutting the aid to south Vietnam in making. A self fulfilling prophecy all the experts we talked to agreed on one thing. The war in Afghanistan is winnable. If the president is willing to back the Taliban are not invincible. Don't have invincible. Partners elsewhere this is a winnable war I believe after forty trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. If the United States of America wants to win the war in Afghanistan it can't. It just has to have the resolve to do what President Obama now has been a couple months openly questioned. His home military. That's chest about unprecedented. For a president to do so he's saving the -- he really doesn't want to be. Wartime president whom we lose the war. That is dead."