Words are cheap, Jane Fonda

[Dr Grump]

When you defend a tyrannical communist government , I take that to mean you consider them your "pals".

Second, I find it ironic that the Left always brings up Calley; you practically have made him the poster boy for all American soldiers in Vietnam. Thanks to him, all of us have been labeled murderers and baby killers. Well, Calley WAS a failure and a disgrace, and yes, I'll throw in war criminal as well, because what he and his men did is definitely a war crime. Everybody remembers Calley. However, there WERE Americans at My Lai that day who did not commit atrocities, or stand there and do nothing while others committed mass murder. I never hear Hugh Thompson mentioned, and yet, he ought to be remembered by you, and everyone else, for what he did. I want to know if you or anyone else here remembers WO1 Thompson, because he represents the other side of the story of My Lai,and while we are telling the truth, we ought to tell ALL of it.

I defend the people of most any country coming up with popular self rule. That's what Vietnam was doing. That's what they've been trying to do for almost 1,000 years.

They wanted an election. They earned it. They helped fight the Japanese during WWII. They didn't get it. What they got was invasion.

That something you want to defend?

Cheers.

Are you really trying to defend the Communist North and their invasion of the south as a Democratic action?

Let's get real here. Ho was the aggressor. Ho invaded the south. Of this there is no doubt.

Why are we trying to spin this? Commie North vs sort of democratic south. Oh and btw, lets talk about all of this?

Part of the invasion of the south was based on the "whoopsies" we killed all the farmers in North Vietnam and we need the rice paddies in the south because we fucked up as commies always do.

The Cong offed all the farmers. Did you know that? I did. They blamed the farmers for a famine.

oh looky, global warming viet cong blaming the farmers for not forseeing a drought and a famine.

Lefties never change do they?

If you honestly believe the South was democratic, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn...

 

[The Gadfly]

The lame stream far right agenda-driven hoss and hosses here have never read the Pentagon Papers.

Listen up, morons, America was defending corporate profit structures in Vietnam 90%, democracy 10%.

We lost because the SVN leadership was as corrupt as the Tea Party and Righty Extremist Fascists in America today. You morons lost this battle in the 1970s and you will lose it the twenty teens. History will rub you out.

Oh, I've read them. And I would have LOVED to have had an honest stable, South Vietnamese government for an ally, AND a National Command Authority which could actually locate its collective arse, much less get its collective head out of said arse long enough to have some idea of what it wanted me and my fellow soldiers to accomplish, and just the slightest bit of a clue how it expected us to accomplish it, AND, oh by the way, ARVN counterparts who were actually reliable, and did not engage in undesirable (and illegal) extracurricular activities - little things like that. Unfortunately, my superiors were not in the habit of asking a mere O-3 what he would like to have....gee, I wonder why we felt we were being undermined on all sides? As long as I am wishing, it would also have been nice to come home to a country where people were NOT waving the VC flag and cheering for the other side, but I digress...

 

[Grace]

I guess this is supposed to show what a caring man he is.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The lame stream far right agenda-driven hoss and hosses here have never read the Pentagon Papers.

Listen up, morons, America was defending corporate profit structures in Vietnam 90%, democracy 10%.

We lost because the SVN leadership was as corrupt as the Tea Party and Righty Extremist Fascists in America today. You morons lost this battle in the 1970s and you will lose it the twenty teens. History will rub you out.

Oh, I've read them. And I would have LOVED to have had an honest stable, South Vietnamese government for an ally, AND a National Command Authority which could actually locate its collective arse, much less get its collective head out of said arse long enough to have some idea of what it wanted me and my fellow soldiers to accomplish, and just the slightest bit of a clue how it expected us to accomplish it, AND, oh by the way, ARVN counterparts who were actually reliable, and did not engage in undesirable (and illegal) extracurricular activities - little things like that. Unfortunately, my superiors were not in the habit of asking a mere O-3 what he would like to have....gee, I wonder why we felt we were being undermined on all sides? As long as I am wishing, it would also have been nice to come home to a country where people were NOT waving the VC flag and cheering for the other side, but I digress...

We were fighting the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong people (the SVN corrupt leadership and American corporations), and America rightly said "This is wrong."

Unfortunately, they took it out on the vets.

Gadfly, we have people on this thread will outright lie and say its urban myth the vets were spit on.

I saw it, I dozens who saw it, and that was just our experience. At least 95% of American historians teach this misplaced hatred.

 

[The Gadfly]

The lame stream far right agenda-driven hoss and hosses here have never read the Pentagon Papers.

Listen up, morons, America was defending corporate profit structures in Vietnam 90%, democracy 10%.

We lost because the SVN leadership was as corrupt as the Tea Party and Righty Extremist Fascists in America today. You morons lost this battle in the 1970s and you will lose it the twenty teens. History will rub you out.

Oh, I've read them. And I would have LOVED to have had an honest stable, South Vietnamese government for an ally, AND a National Command Authority which could actually locate its collective arse, much less get its collective head out of said arse long enough to have some idea of what it wanted me and my fellow soldiers to accomplish, and just the slightest bit of a clue how it expected us to accomplish it, AND, oh by the way, ARVN counterparts who were actually reliable, and did not engage in undesirable (and illegal) extracurricular activities - little things like that. Unfortunately, my superiors were not in the habit of asking a mere O-3 what he would like to have....gee, I wonder why we felt we were being undermined on all sides? As long as I am wishing, it would also have been nice to come home to a country where people were NOT waving the VC flag and cheering for the other side, but I digress...

We were fighting the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong people (the SVN corrupt leadership and American corporations), and America rightly said "This is wrong."

Unfortunately, they took it out on the vets.

Gadfly, we have people on this thread will outright lie and say its urban myth the vets were spit on.

I saw it, I dozens who saw it, and that was just our experience. At least 95% of American historians teach this misplaced hatred.

Jake, that's the part of it I (and I'm sure many others) have struggled to understand. I guess we were easer and more convenient targets than the politicians, and now that most of the latter are dead, I suppose we are the only targets left, but damn, what did they expect us to do? What were we going to do? Mutiny? Just say "I quit!" and walk home? Some of us believed in what we were doing (or at least, trying to do), others didn't, but either way, the best we could do, was do our duty honorably, and hope we lived to come home. Hell, half the time our whole world was a few meters of rice paddy, tall grass or jungle, each other, and Charlie, and ultimately, all we were fighting for was each other.

Beyond that, I think most of it was sheer, ideological hatred; seems like some people would "forgive" those vets who "confessed to their crime"; the rest of us were, I guess you could say, "presumed war criminals", whether we had played by the rules or not. Well, sorry, but I don't believe in "confessing" to supposed "crimes" I never committed.

I'll tell you what it did in my case; I wasn't particularly political before, beyond "Duty, Honor, Country"; socially, for someone who grew up in the South, I was maybe somewhat liberal, but that treatment turned me against liberals. It wasn't hard to see what side of the political fence the hatred came from, and they even dishonored the wounded and the dead, which for me, was pretty much the last straw. So if you want to know how I learned to despise the Left; how I became what you called a righty extremist something or other, that's where it started. I've never been able to forget or forgive that, and I don't think I ever will be.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The New Left of the day were not the liberals, and the liberals today of our age are not the "old" New Left. Hayden and Fonda were New Left, he a solid Red and she a soft Pink. Citizens then were generally (and today simply do not know) unaware just how corrupt the damn SVN and some of ARVN leaderships were. This is why we are going to lose in Afghanistan, too: the Kharzais and buddies are out for themselves not the people.

All I can say is Fonda got religion, she got remorse, and she has tried to do right by it for some years.

No one today, at least, is spitting on soldiers coming home.

 

[The Gadfly]

The New Left of the day were not the liberals, and the liberals today of our age are not the "old" New Left. Hayden and Fonda were New Left, he a solid Red and she a soft Pink. Citizens then were generally (and today simply do not know) unaware just how corrupt the damn SVN and some of ARVN leaderships were. This is why we are going to lose in Afghanistan, too: the Kharzais and buddies are out for themselves not the people.

All I can say is Fonda got religion, she got remorse, and she has tried to do right by it for some years.

No one today, at least, is spitting on soldiers coming home.

I don't know about that first part, Jake; some of them sure sound much the same to me, still use the same mantras, catch phrases and canards. Some have changed, how much, I'm not certain. From my perspective some liberals today are totally different, and others....well, you've seen their comments here; judge for yourself, because I'm pretty biased, but....

I'll give you that on the RVN government(s), and some of the ARVN as well. The latter were a pretty uneven bunch; some of them were good soldiers and patriots, as far as I could tell, some of them were just about useless, and a few were corrupt, sadistic, little bastards who were little (if any) better than the Cong. Most of the civilian population, IMO, deserved better than either lot, but we couldn't give it to them, unfortunately.

As for the last sentence, yeah, at least there's that much, and I hope it stays that way; if that never happens again, then maybe what we went through was worth it in the end. Sometimes, I don't know; I just don't know.

 

[Sallow]

When you defend a tyrannical communist government , I take that to mean you consider them your "pals".

Second, I find it ironic that the Left always brings up Calley; you practically have made him the poster boy for all American soldiers in Vietnam. Thanks to him, all of us have been labeled murderers and baby killers. Well, Calley WAS a failure and a disgrace, and yes, I'll throw in war criminal as well, because what he and his men did is definitely a war crime. Everybody remembers Calley. However, there WERE Americans at My Lai that day who did not commit atrocities, or stand there and do nothing while others committed mass murder. I never hear Hugh Thompson mentioned, and yet, he ought to be remembered by you, and everyone else, for what he did. I want to know if you or anyone else here remembers WO1 Thompson, because he represents the other side of the story of My Lai,and while we are telling the truth, we ought to tell ALL of it.

I defend the people of most any country coming up with popular self rule. That's what Vietnam was doing. That's what they've been trying to do for almost 1,000 years.

They wanted an election. They earned it. They helped fight the Japanese during WWII. They didn't get it. What they got was invasion.

That something you want to defend?

Cheers.

Are you really trying to defend the Communist North and their invasion of the south as a Democratic action?

Let's get real here. Ho was the aggressor. Ho invaded the south. Of this there is no doubt.

Why are we trying to spin this? Commie North vs sort of democratic south. Oh and btw, lets talk about all of this?

Part of the invasion of the south was based on the "whoopsies" we killed all the farmers in North Vietnam and we need the rice paddies in the south because we fucked up as commies always do.

The Cong offed all the farmers. Did you know that? I did. They blamed the farmers for a famine.

oh looky, global warming viet cong blaming the farmers for not forseeing a drought and a famine.

Lefties never change do they?

No lets get real here. During WWII the Viet Mihn fought the Japanese. France wanted it's colony back and supported the South..which was a dictatorship. Then decided that the Viet Mihn were to tough for them. At the Paris peace accords they were promised an election but Eisenhower intervened once he realized that Ho Chi Mihn would have won fair and square. That began it.

The South was a dictatorship under Diem that went from bad to worse after his assassination..and wound up with a known heroin dealer as Dictator, Thieu. That's what the United States was backing.

You really ought to do research before posting this bullshit.

Nguyen Van Thieu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[José]

Originally posted by Sallow
France wanted it's colony back and supported the South..which was a dictatorship.

France did much more than simply supporting South Vietnam, Sallow... the frogs created the whole damn puppet state!!

South Vietnam is just the new name of the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam created and ruled directly by France that later became the State of Vietnam.

The State of Vietnam replaced the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam (1948–1949).

From 1949 to 1954, the State of Vietnam had partial autonomy from France as an associated state within the French Union.

State of Vietnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dr Grump]

Most French colonies were seen as part of France, as opposed to an extention of France...there is a difference...

 

[The Gadfly]

Originally posted by Sallow
France wanted it's colony back and supported the South..which was a dictatorship.

France did much more than simply supporting South Vietnam, Sallow... the frogs created the whole damn puppet state!!

South Vietnam is just the new name of the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam created and ruled directly by France that later became the State of Vietnam.

The State of Vietnam replaced the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam (1948–1949).

From 1949 to 1954, the State of Vietnam had partial autonomy from France as an associated state within the French Union.

State of Vietnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

None of which changes the fact that the RVN was a recognized, sovereign state, militarily invaded by another state (the DRV). Aren't you and your comrades on the Left always ready to cite legal technicalities when it suits you? Well, legally speaking, what Uncle Ho's DRV did was unlawful aggression. Election or no election, Ho had no mandate from the U.N. or anyone else (except his Soviet puppet masters) to invade the RVN. Facts are a bitch, aren't they?

 

[JakeStarkey]

The New Left of the day were not the liberals, and the liberals today of our age are not the "old" New Left. Hayden and Fonda were New Left, he a solid Red and she a soft Pink. Citizens then were generally (and today simply do not know) unaware just how corrupt the damn SVN and some of ARVN leaderships were. This is why we are going to lose in Afghanistan, too: the Kharzais and buddies are out for themselves not the people.

All I can say is Fonda got religion, she got remorse, and she has tried to do right by it for some years.

No one today, at least, is spitting on soldiers coming home.

I don't know about that first part, Jake; some of them sure sound much the same to me, still use the same mantras, catch phrases and canards. Some have changed, how much, I'm not certain. From my perspective some liberals today are totally different, and others....well, you've seen their comments here; judge for yourself, because I'm pretty biased, but....

I'll give you that on the RVN government(s), and some of the ARVN as well. The latter were a pretty uneven bunch; some of them were good soldiers and patriots, as far as I could tell, some of them were just about useless, and a few were corrupt, sadistic, little bastards who were little (if any) better than the Cong. Most of the civilian population, IMO, deserved better than either lot, but we couldn't give it to them, unfortunately.

As for the last sentence, yeah, at least there's that much, and I hope it stays that way; if that never happens again, then maybe what we went through was worth it in the end. Sometimes, I don't know; I just don't know.

Those who did not live the Sixties and the war have no ideal emotionally or psychologically what the boomers went through, and in part how it molded us to even this day.

I honor your service and your fallen comrades. I honor all who served then and now. I just wish the far left and the far right who did not go through the experiences our generation did would take the time to study very, very carefully.

 

[José]

Originally posted by JakeStarkey
I honor your service and your fallen comrades.

Of course you do, Jake... after all you're a pornographic, morally depraved super patriotic american clown who dehumanise 1 million vietnamese killed by the "service" of the people you now honor.

 

[José]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
None of which changes the fact that the RVN was a recognized, sovereign state, militarily invaded by another state (the DRV). Aren't you and your comrades on the Left always ready to cite legal technicalities when it suits you? Well, legally speaking, what Uncle Ho's DRV did was unlawful aggression. Election or no election, Ho had no mandate from the U.N. or anyone else (except his Soviet puppet masters) to invade the RVN. Facts are a bitch, aren't they?

International law cannot be invoked to delegitimise genuine movements of national liberation from colonial rule (you just admitted that South Vietnam was a creation, an extention and the heir of French Indochina).

The 13 colonies were also a recognized overseas territory of the British crown in 1770 but this does not delegitimise the american revolution.

 

[José]

I already debated with Gadfly.

He seems to be a decent, likeable human being but he also fits the stereotype of a Vietnam veteran perfectly.

1 - Sad, embittered, mourning the fall of that shambolic mess of a (puppet) state called South Vietnam.

2 - Living in a permanent state of denial regarding the will of the vietnamese people and America's role in the conflict.

3 - Giving credence to the urban legend that Vietnam Vets were spat on and cussed by americans when they came back.

etc, etc, etc...

You name a vietnam vet sterotype and you'll find it in him.

I'm afraid that at any moment he'll start describing to us his flashbacks of the jungle fight in Vietnam.

But despite all this, I still have a strange kind of simpathy for the guy (excluding his "service" in Vietnam, of course).

I like the guy, I don't even know exactly why, but I do.

 

[Patrick2]

Living in a permanent state of denial regarding the will of the vietnamese people and America's role in the conflict.

A few communist thugs ran north vietnam, and you call that "the will of the vietnamese people"? How about all the south vietnamese who died in "re-education camps" after the war - they willed themselves to end up there?

Do you understand what a brainwashed ass you sound like?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Originally posted by JakeStarkey
I honor your service and your fallen comrades.

Of course you do, Jake... after all you're a pornographic, morally depraved super patriotic american clown who dehumanise 1 million vietnamese killed by the "service" of the people you now honor.

Jose, we were generation who went because we were expected to. Our parents were the generation who saved the world from fascism and militarism, then staved off communism.

They and our generation committed many errors, and Vietnam was one of them.

However, if we had stepped off, as you imply, you would not be able to yell about our failures. The bad guys either would have indoctrinated you or would have put you against the wall.

You do not know, or ignoring, the entire story, which is about right for your mindset in which you describe The Gadfly above by your standards.

You are wrong, and your errors are taught as such in our high schools and colleges.

You and your opinion are on the ash heap of history, Jose, and all your wailing does not change that.

 

[Mr_Rockhead]

R

Taking an active part in bringing about your countries defeat is not a simple act of protest.

While in Vietnam, Jane recorded many propaganda pieces for the North Vietnamese. These interviews were designed to do one thing and only one thing – demoralize American troops.

By comparison, an American woman was convicted of TREASON for doing the exact same thing during WW-II (she was one of the many Tokyo Roses).

So, regardless of whether Fonda was ever charged, there is plenty of evidence (such as the broadcasts) and also a precedent.

The reason that Tokyo Rose's actions were treasonous was because we were in a "declared" war.

Which was not the case concerning Vietnam or Jane Fonda's trip there as an American citizen.

This was already covered.

Copy and paste from post 185:

TREASON

This word imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of allegiance.

The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Legal Definition of Treason

And, yes, Jane was an American citizen while doing this stuff that's the reason she is just as just as guilty as WW-II American woman who was charged and convicted for doing the exact same thing.