Jane Fonda

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birch

Valued Senior Member
https://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/the-vietnam-war-jane-fonda-vietnam-photo-hanoi-jane-pbs-1201880919/

During the vietnam war, she was considered a traitor to america and american pow's. Most conservatives are of that opinion. Some liberals thinks she was brave to speak out against the war.

Was she really a traitor?

What is the true or closer to true narrative?

I"m asking because i want to know if it's logically sound for a die-hard conservative who evaded the draft to speak out against jane fonda and accuse her of being a communist sympathizer and anti-american.
 
birch said:
https://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/the-vietnam-war-jane-fonda-vietnam-photo-hanoi-jane-pbs-1201880919/

During the vietnam war, she was considered a traitor to america and american pow's. Most conservatives are of that opinion. Some liberals thinks she was brave to speak out against the war.

Was she really a traitor?

What is the true or closer to true narrative?

I"m asking because i want to know if it's logically sound for a die-hard conservative who evaded the draft to speak out against jane fonda and accuse her of being a communist sympathizer and anti-american.
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It seems ridiculous to brand her a traitor for objecting to a war that had nothing to do with the security of her country. Does anyone have evidence that she gave information to the Viet Cong to help them defeat the US forces? I bet they don't.
 
She was a liberal, attractive, female that was seen as pushy by the right and most of the rest was made up. She has apologized for the picture that she is famous for...sitting on a N. Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (as I recall).
 
She was a well meaning anti-war activist who was trying to bring to light US war crimes in Vietnam, specifically the bombing of rice fields and berms in order to starve out civilians. She was there gathering film evidence of this war crime (the film later disappeared from her residence). She made a huge public relations mistake while there, getting photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. This wasn't her plan and she realized before she even left the country that it was going to undermine her whole visit. She was involved with the winter soldier campaign with John Kerry. I don't see her as a traitor, just a person in over her head who was targeted and slandered by the FBI. Standard operating procedure for prominent anti-war activists at the time.
 
birch said:
https://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/the-vietnam-war-jane-fonda-vietnam-photo-hanoi-jane-pbs-1201880919/

During the vietnam war, she was considered a traitor to america and american pow's. Most conservatives are of that opinion. Some liberals thinks she was brave to speak out against the war.

Was she really a traitor?
Click to expand...

I remember seeing a clip of her singing to North Vietnamese troops, giving them some much needed R&R. If I had been an American soldier, or had I a family member serving there, I probably would have viewed it with disgust.

In the larger picture, it is probably trivial since the conflict in itself was a waste of life, money and energy. Her role in the war might have deepened peoples resolve, so I don't see any good coming from her actions. But there was much more at play than her.
 
American actions in Vietnam were disgusting and morally indefensible. Fonda was the true patriot.
 
spidergoat said:
American actions in Vietnam were disgusting and morally indefensible. Fonda was the true patriot.
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I think had we gone in with the intention to actually win the fight, it might have turned out differently. As for Fonda, her intentions might have been noble, but the results were counter productive. She more or less pissed off a lot of people, giving them reason to keep up the fight.
 
Bowser said:
I think had we gone in with the intention to actually win the fight, it might have turned out differently.
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I never know what people mean when they say this, what else short of nuclear weapons didn't we do? Torture, B-52 strikes, napalm, agent orange, destroying agricultural production, paying informants, murdering civilians, a domestic draft...
 
sideshowbob said:
That war was never winnable.
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I think had we invaded the North, the war might have ended quicker. The question in my mind is, had we done so, would more or fewer lives been lost over the course of the war? Also, would the Vietnamese people be living better or worse now?

I've read that nothing happens by accident, so maybe there was no other way then what was.
 
spidergoat said:
Lots of people though.
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They had the manpower, we had the machinery. But it goes back to cost and benefit: the number of lives that would be lost.

I think the public rational for the war was "Containment." Maybe they thought it would resolve itself much like the Korean war.
 
I spent many years trying to forget that war and hanoi jane. The last time i remember anyone mentioning her was in veterans group therapy when one of the crazies went on a rant about just where she could shove that anti-aircraft gun.

Things change and time mellows us as memories fade and new knowledge broadens our perspective.
Give 'em their due.
When the world was bemoaning the brutality of Pol Pot, and nobody was doing anything about it, The Vietnamese grew tired of the bodies floating down the Mekong and went into Cambodia and chased Pol Pot's sorry ass back up into the mountains.
(I was actually quite proud of our old enemies/little buddies)
And then the Chinese got pissed off because Pol Pot had been their guy and decided to attack Vietnam.
3 times the Chinese PLA invaded Vietnam, and 3 times the Vietnamese stomped their asses.
It had been said that when we left Vietnam, we left them as the tenth most powerful military nation in the world.
The Vietnamese had the military equipment that the chinese had given them before they turned to russia, then the equipment that the russians had given them, and the equipment which we had left behind, and an exceptionally well trained front line cadre, and a fierce sense of independence. And-----------They proved it with Pol Pot and China.
Ya gotta admire that.
 
Bowser said:
They had the manpower, we had the machinery.
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Somebody once commented that the US used a $4 million aircraft to destroy a $400 bamboo bridge. The bridge would be rebuilt overnight. The aircraft and pilot were not that easy to replace.

It's about appropriate technology, not advanced technology. Sometimes the barefoot youngster with nothing but an AK and a bag of rice wins.
 
I have long suspected that Westmorland was the wrong man for the job.
I've read that generals are invariably well trained in fighting the last war(or the one before that)
240 years ago, anyone who would face the british regulars in the open field was a soon to be dead fool.
and yet------we won
47 years ago, anyone who would choose to face the us military in the open field was a soon to be dead fool.
and yet---------they won.

or did they?
Giap expected the south Vietnamese to rise as one to rid the country of the foreign dogs when he launched the Tet offensive.
Aside from the Vietcong, who were already committed, and the North Vietnamese army, nobody came to the party. The people of the south did not rise up and join their northern "brothers". They seemed to have preferred us to the northerners.
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you loose and sometimes you do both simultaneously.
 
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