So now Jane Fonda tells Oprah Winfrey that she made one unforgivable mistake when she allowed herself to be photographed on that North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi in 1972.
http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Jane-Fonda-Unforgivable-Mistake/2013/04/03/id/497721?promo_code=11C04-1&utm_source=11C04Maggies_Note_Book&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1
“I made one unforgivable mistake when I was in North Vietnam, and I will go to my grave with this,” Jane Fonda says on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
"I don't know if I was set up or not,”
This isn't new. She wrote this a few years ago in one of her autobiographies when she was describing her trip to Hanoi and praising her travel companion, "fellow patriot" Ramsey Clark, in the same passage.
Fonda doesn't get it. She never has.
She made her unforgivable mistake when she went to North Vietnam in the first place. Who set her up for that?
“There were no planes, the gun was not operable. It didn’t matter. This is an image that belied everything that I was,” Fonda said.
Really? In November 1970, there was this:
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2011/12/jane-fionda-and-800-pond-gorilla-in.html
Maybe Ms Fonda would like to explain to Oprah how she acted that day at Cleveland Airport in her confrontation with US Customs officers.
That image of her on the anti-aircraft gun did not belie anything. In my mind, it fully illustrated everything she was.
As someone who thrilled to hear President Lyndon Bahynes Jawnson say "We will stand firm in Vietnam" at age 10, supported Eugene McCarthy at age 14, sympathized with the Viet Cong at age 18, and always wished Jane Fonda had made some more Barbarella movies instead of casting her starry self into the anti-war movement, there was good cause for Americans to go to the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteWe were not in a declared war.
It was arguably illegal for our President to have sent American troops there in the first place.
America had missed the boat when we declined to make common cause with Ho Chi Minh against the return of French colonial rule after World War II.
The people we were allegedly there to save were the enemy, which is why military tactics couldn't help being barbaric -- if the civilians reject you, the only choices are to honor their wishes, and leave, or slaughter them.
That was all an appropriate witness to make. Jane Fonda was the wrong person to serve as such a witness.
P.S. We should honor our veterans no matter the wisdom of the policy that sent them into harm's way. They took the real sacrifice on themselves for all of us. Anyone could have been sent. It was our job as citizens to fix the mess, not to blame the veterans. Nobody made the case for getting out like VIETNAM VETERANS Against the War.
But you do not collaborate with those fighting our troops because you disagree with the war.
ReplyDeleteA delicate point Gary. In A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, Neil Sheehan writes of an AID worker who became convinced that American policy in Vietnam was entirely wrong, but, as he happened to be captured shortly before his rotation was due to end, refused to say anything during 5-8 years of captivity. What his captors wanted him to say was exactly what he had come to believe, but he wouldn't say it as a POW, while in custody of those the troops were opposing on the battle field.
ReplyDeleteIts a principled position. But there is still room for citizens to act as private citizens to highlight why and how the policy is wrong, which may even involve visiting the other side of the fighting to say so.
Actually providing material support to opposing forces, even if war has not been declared, would be a very different matter. Providing scarce medicines to civilians subjected to carpet bombing, even if some of those might be diverted to active duty soldiers, would be more acceptable.
Too many trees blocking your view of the forest, eh Siarlys?
ReplyDeleteRetreating into one-liners because you have nothing more to say, eh Gary?
ReplyDeleteHow much verbiage do I have to waste arguing with someone who wants to defend Jane Fonda for what she did? In legal terms, it is called "overkill".
ReplyDelete