Wrong Lesson Plan?

" President Obama and his senior advisors have -- 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 what we thought it was worth examining. I'll take a look a what we found out."

" not afford the price it will come -- Afghanistan slides back in the chaos or al-Qaeda operates on track. In August -- the crystal gave President Obama a strategy for victory in Afghanistan today I'm announcing. -- comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan fox. Three months later that 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 the Vietnam War for guidance. They're looking to one book in particular. According to a Wall Street Journal senior advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Rahm -- Emanuel port through -- Goldstein's lessons in disaster and then gave it to the president himself. So we read it to and it reaches some very surprising conclusions. Goldstein argues that at JFK head live to serve out his term. And 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 that 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. 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 -- marquis is a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. They're worried about quagmire. They're worried about losing American faith. Mike. 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 Vietnam. A recent Newsweek cover story concludes that President Obama risked making the same mistakes. But once the president away from accepting the lessons in Goldstein's book. It cautions Obama from meddling in general the crystals planned by sending fewer troops. And his general has requested the -- 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 he just put general -- crystal is there the -- this error is ignoring the latter years of the war entirely. And Newsweek calls attention to that too but as it turns out those -- the years that deserve our attention today."

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

" That's why senior officials in the defense establishment. Our consulting Lewis shortly is a better war shortly argues that general -- Abrams who in 1968. Replaced. General William Westmoreland as senior commander in Vietnam implemented a counter insurgency strategy that actually won the war."

" It is this period that lessons in disaster all the looks completely."

" If we're going look at softball question from Vietnam War to see whether there's anything that we can. Experience. Elsewhere. We have to really understand what happened and 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 -- half. One is this for -- use lessons in disaster. Fundamentally. The argument areas. You could never win it it was beyond our control. The other for a -- war. Says no we actually won in Vietnam and they gave it away by cutting our great leader and we controlled our own -- 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 and the other ways to say we can control this with the right strategy if we want. Those two views diametrically volt as the subtitles like a -- says. On the examine victory. Of that of that latter period. -- writers basically not written about that period."

" Those victories came from the strategy implemented by general -- Abrams. One that bears a striking resemblance to the one proposed by general -- crystal 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 army forces. Had secure the population of south Vietnam from the Viet -- And fortify the country."

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

" We just gave it away like cutting the aid to south Vietnam in making. A self fulfilling prophesy that all the experts we talked to agree on one thing. The war in Afghanistan is winnable. If the president is willing to back -- the Taliban are not invincible. I 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 it President Obama now has been a couple months openly questioned. His whole military. That's just about unprecedented for a person to do so he's sending us saying he really doesn't want to be. Wartime president wins the war. And that is dead."