Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet said he hoped the United States would not repeat the same "mistakes" in Afghanistan it committed in the war in his country over 30 years ago, in an interview published Tuesday. "I hope that the American and Afghan people do not suffer the consequences caused by the mistakes that the United States committed in Vietnam," he told the Spanish daily El Pais.
He said any comparisons between the 1964-1975 Vietnam war and the war in Afghanistan which the US launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks "is relative". "I hope the US administration takes adequate measures to resolve the problem as soon as possible to bring the Afghan people peace and stability," he added.
US President Barack Obama rejected any comparisons between the two conflicts on December as he ordered an extra 30,000 American troops into Afghanistan, saying they depended "upon a false reading of history. Unlike in Vietnam, in Afghanistan the United States has been joined by a coalition of 43 nations and it is not facing a broad-based popular insurgency, he said.
Obama added that the most important difference with Vietnam is that "the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target" for al Qaeda extremists. The Vietnam War was the deadliest for the United States after World War II.