tavis: up next, david kilcullen. stay with us. dave zave a former counterinsurgency advisor for david petraeus and former secretary of state condoleeza rice. his new text is called "counterinsurgency". david kilcullen, good to have you on the program. >> thank you for having me. tavis: let me start before i get too much into the text about two individuals whose names have been in the news a lot of late. petraeus and mccrystal. we know that mccrystal was removed from being our top leader in afghanistan. he is goings to retire from the military. you have advised both of them. talk to me about your sense of what happened to general mccrystal. >> look, i think it was a very tragic series of events. i think the president had no choice but to fire general mccrystal. if we were having this conversation a few weeks ago and you said what are the problems in afghanistan, i would have given you a long list but mccrystal would not have been on the list. it was just impossible for him to be in command. i was very worried when he was fired and t

four tane and more resources the second they want it is a big tactical hit on the taliban dr david kilcullen a counterinsurgency expert says in other words you have to do a lot of damage on the taliban before they'll be willing to talk a strategy that may sound familiar more money more troops and more time and if you do well there's no guarantee anything will change is it possible that this war is just unwinnable it's certainly possible the thing is we want to know until we get to the point where we begin to pull out and we see if the afghan government is sustainable it is a tragedy that significantly breaks from the one president obama announced in december and our lawmakers say they are listening many do not like their hero now what point do we say that we camps we can't make this work us senator ted kaufman not accepting the familiar strategy i'm not for spending one more dollar and one more american life until we have a conviction that we can get governance that's good. no. this is not about resurrecting afghanistan with all due respect i care about afghanistan but the standard is not th

a deadline, counterinsurgency expert david kilcullen, encouraged the taliban to fight on. >> i immediately went out and spoke to the population and said the americans are leaving in 18 months. >> reporter: the goal is to create an afghan government complete with army and police force that can fend for itself against the taliban. but before that can happen, u.s. troops will have to drive the taliban out of khandahar for the second time. the u.s. is not likely to get a third chance in afghanistan, this time is make or break. katie. >> couric: david, we have a question for you tonight from a viewer. to what extent do the leaked documents offer taliban insurgents material for propaganda aimed at u.s. troops and our allies? >> well, the documents contain reports of incidents in which u.s. forces caused civilian casualties. and the taliban never misses a chance to blame that on americans. so this will undoubtedly be more grist for their propaganda mill. >> couric: david, thanks very much. meanwhile the pentagon today released the names of the two navy petty officers who got caught up in a fire f