← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Gabrielle
Thread ID: 17881 | Posts: 59 | Started: 2005-04-21
2005-04-21 02:23 | User Profile
"KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - A man who said he was a Vietnam veteran spat tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face at a Kansas City book signing, calling her a traitor for a trip she made to Hanoi in 1972, police said on Wednesday.
[img]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050420/thumb.mokas10404201914.fonda_spitter_mokas104.jpg[/img]
The man, 54-year-old Michael Smith, waited in line for about 90 minutes before spitting a "large amount" of tobacco juice into Fonda's face, according to Kansas City police.
Smith was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
The 67-year-old Oscar-winning actress was in town as part of a book-signing tour for her newly released autobiography titled "My Life So Far."
In the book, she addresses her position as a polarizing figure for many Vietnam veterans and others outraged by her 1972 trip to Hanoi to oppose the Vietnam war.
During that trip she was photographed laughing as she sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft tank.
In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Smith said Fonda was a "traitor" who had been spitting in the faces of war veterans for years.
"There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did," the Star quoted Smith as saying. "
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050420/en_nm/people_fonda_dc&e=4[/url]
2005-04-21 02:34 | User Profile
That is awsome. Wish I was there to see it.
2005-04-21 03:18 | User Profile
Nice work!
2005-04-21 09:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle]"KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - A man who said he was a Vietnam veteran spat tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face at a Kansas City book signing, calling her a traitor for a trip she made to Hanoi in 1972, police said on Wednesday.
[img]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050420/thumb.mokas10404201914.fonda_spitter_mokas104.jpg[/img]
The man, 54-year-old Michael Smith, waited in line for about 90 minutes before spitting a "large amount" of tobacco juice into Fonda's face, according to Kansas City police.
Smith was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
"There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did," the Star quoted Smith as saying. "
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050420/en_nm/people_fonda_dc&e=4[/url][/QUOTE]
spitting on a woman, eh. Just down the alley of anyone who voted for bush and the traitors of Iraq and America.
This guy sounds like a Finkelstein-Gukert schaivo repube -- should have been euthanized on the spot, probably not a Vietnam vet at all, many of whom went insane and/or killed themselves. I wish I had been there to do it. I'll guard Jane's body. She stood up to the traitors then. Who will stand up to them today?
2005-04-21 10:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]spitting on a woman, eh. Just down the alley of anyone who voted for bush and the traitors of Iraq and America.
This guy sounds like a Finkelstein-Gukert schaivo repube -- should have been euthanized on the spot, probably not a Vietnam vet at all, many of whom went insane and/or killed themselves. I wish I had been there to do it. I'll guard Jane's body. She stood up to the traitors then. Who will stand up to them today?[/QUOTE]
I agree, he was wrong!!!!
She was a traitor! She should have been put to death long ago. I don't understand your reasoning, TexasAnarch.
2005-04-21 11:02 | User Profile
I've heard a lot of ranting about Jane Fonda, but I'm still not clear on what she did that was so bad. Can someone fill me in?
In the book, she addresses her position as a polarizing figure for many Vietnam veterans and others outraged by her 1972 trip to Hanoi to oppose the Vietnam war.
During that trip she was photographed laughing as she sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft tank. Is that all she did?
2005-04-21 11:22 | User Profile
It's time to forgive and forget the doings of Hanoi Jane. Only congress has the power to declare war and they never declared it on North Vietnam. It's the congress that deserves contempt.
2005-04-21 11:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Six]It's time to forgive and forget the doings of Hanoi Jane. Only congress has the power to declare war and they never declared it on North Vietnam. It's the congress that deserves contempt.[/QUOTE]Good point.
Whatever Jane Fonda did, it can't possibly be as bad as those who started an unconstitutional war and caused a lot of people to lose their lives. And yet a lot of these veterans who still hold a grudge against an old woman don't have a bad word to say about the spoiled, wealthy politicians who sent them into the meat grinder in the first place.
2005-04-21 11:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Six]It's time to forgive and forget the doings of Hanoi Jane. Only congress has the power to declare war and they never declared it on North Vietnam. It's the congress that deserves contempt.[/QUOTE]
Get real,Six!
[img]http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050410/images/i_fonda.jpg[/img]
Jane Fonda was photographed in July, 1972 as she sat on the gunner's seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun near Hanoi.
The most famous ââ¬â make that infamous ââ¬â image of Jane Fonda from her years protesting the Vietnam War was a photograph taken during her wartime visit to North Vietnam in 1972. In the photo, Fonda is sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun clasping her hands, singing, a rapturous smile on her face, a North Vietnamese helmet on her head, surrounded by grinning North Vietnamese soldiers. Fonda, out promoting her autobiography these days, now says she regrets that particular "betrayal," and that is her word. In an interview with Leslie Stahl on CBS's "60 Minutes," Fonda said: "I will go to my grave regretting that ... It was the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine."
She expressed similar regrets in an interview in 1988 and again in 2000, when she called posing on the enemy's anti-aircraft gun "thoughtless."
Careful readers will note that "thoughtless" and "lapse of judgment" and even "betrayal" are not apologies. In truth, Jane Fonda has never apologized for eagerly lending herself and her celebrity to the wartime propaganda of an enemy state, a Stalinist dictatorship no less, that killed 58,000 Americans.
And she's not apologizing today.
Fonda did a lot more in that 1972 visit to North Vietnam than demonstrate her solidarity with those who were shooting down American pilots.
At her request, she made at least 10 broadcasts on Radio Hanoi that included calling American pilots war criminals and urging them to stop bombing North Vietnam. In a propaganda gesture heavily publicized by Hanoi, she also met with a group of coerced American prisoners of war to demonstrate, as the North Vietnamese intended, that the POWs were receiving "humane" treatment.
In fact, as we know now, nearly all American POWs in North Vietnam were brutally tortured until 1969, when Hanoi's policy changed to more selective mistreatment. One American POW was strung up from a ceiling by his broken arm until he agreed to listen to Fonda's assertions that the prisoners were being well treated.
When the POWs returned from North Vietnam in 1973 and told of their torture, Jane Fonda declared, "the POWs are lying if they assert it was North Vietnamese policy to torture American prisoners." For good measure, she also suggested that their recollections of torture were products of "racism" toward the Vietnamese.
Does Fonda regret her propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi or her role in trying to persuade the world that tortured, brutalized American POWs were receiving humane treatment? Not a bit. Is she apologizing? No.
Here's what she told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes":
"I don't think there was anything wrong with it. It's not something that I will apologize for ... we'd been saying to Richard Nixon, 'stop this'... it needed what looks now to be unbelievably controversial things. That's what I felt was needed."
During World War II, two equally deluded American women, dubbed by U.S. servicemen Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally, made propaganda broadcasts from the capitals of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Both were prosecuted for treason after the war, convicted and sent to federal prison.
Fonda escaped that fate partly, one assumes, because of the ultimate unpopularity of the Vietnam War and partly because a prosecution for treason would require that a formally declared state of war had existed between the United States and North Vietnam.
Nonetheless, Fonda's treasonous folly speaks to larger truths about a war that inflicted grievous wounds on the American psyche. For millions of Americans, and for millions of America's South Vietnamese allies, those wounds have yet to heal completely, and perhaps never will.
The anti-war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s was, in fact, two parallel movements. The majority of anti-
war protesters simply believed that American participation in the war was wrong. Their objective was American withdrawal from Vietnam. But a hard-core, hard-left minority in the anti-war coalition favored a communist victory by the Viet Cong and North Vietnam.
However witlessly, Jane Fonda lent herself to that latter goal, a communist triumph in Vietnam.
When the Soviet-armed North Vietnamese army overran South Vietnam in 1975, Fonda's then-husband, the left-wing radical Tom Hayden, expressed his relief and approval. When the North Vietnamese, quite predictably, imposed their totalitarian system on South Vietnam ââ¬â complete with concentration camps that imprisoned hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese and the extinguishing of all civil and political liberties ââ¬â Jane Fonda said she couldn't object because the evidence of oppression was unproven.
When, by United Nations estimate, a quarter of a million South Vietnamese boat people perished at sea escaping their supposed liberators in the 1970s and 1980s, Jane Fonda was silent. When 2 million Cambodians were murdered or died of privation at the hands of the communist Khmer Rouge (originally Hanoi's allies), Jane Fonda had nothing to say. When the people of reunified Vietnam were denied basic human rights and continue to suffer today under Hanoi's one-party dictatorship, Jane Fonda apparently was too busy with her personal life to comment.
That's a lot to answer for, Hanoi Jane.
Caldwell, a Vietnam veteran, is editor of the Insight"
[url]http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050410/news_mz1e10caldwl.html[/url]
section and can be reached via e-mail at [email]robert.caldwell@uniontrib.com[/email].
2005-04-21 11:49 | User Profile
" Traitor Jane Fonda
This is for all the kids born in the 70's that do not remember this, and didn't have to bear the burden, that our fathers, mothers, and older brothers and sisters had to bear. In 1999, Jane Fonda was to be honored as one of ABC's "100 Women of the Century." Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country but men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam."
There are several 'Urban legend' accounts of Hanoi Jane's treason and treachery. The most popular is attributed to F-4E pilot, Jerry Driscoll. This alleged incident is proveably false, even by Driscoll himself. For the truth in Jane Fonda's crimes and disgusting behavior, read the book titled: Aid and Comfort, written by Henry and Erika Holzer.
However, the following account is true.... "I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam, and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held for over 5 years. I spent 27 months in solitary confinement, one year in a cage in Cambodia, and one year in a "black box" in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban me Thuot, South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border.
At one time, I was weighing approximately 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs.) We were Jane Fonda's 'war criminals.'
When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with Jane Fonda. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received different from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane Fonda, as "humane and lenient." Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with a large amount of steel placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane till my arms dipped. I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda for a couple of hours after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She did not answer me."
To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."
Were Jane Fonda's actions treason, or were they the exercise of a private citizen's right to freedom of speech? At the time, the legal aspects of this question were moot: President Nixon was engaged in trying to wind down American involvement in Vietnam and had to face another election in a few months, so politically he had far more to lose than to gain by making a martyr out of a prominent anti-war activist. (No requirement in either the Constitution or federal law states that the U.S. must be engaged in a declared war -- or any war at all -- before charges of treason can be brought against an individual.)
On the one hand, Jane Fonda provided no tangible military assistance to the North Vietnamese: she divulged no military secrets, she gave them no money or material, and she did not interfere with the operations of the American forces. Her actions, offensive as they were to many, were primarily of propaganda value only. On the other hand, Iva Ikuko Toguri (also known as "Tokyo Rose") was convicted of treason for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Japanese during World War II (although she claimed her betrayal was forced and was eventually pardoned many years later by President Gerald Ford), and Fonda's efforts could fall under the definition of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." It is also undeniable that some American soldiers came to harm as a direct result of Fonda's actions, an outcome she should reasonably have anticipated.
In 1988, sixteen years after denouncing American soldiers as war criminals and tortured POWs as possessed of overactive imaginations, Fonda met with Vietnam veterans to apologize for her actions. It's interesting to note that this nationally-televised apology (during which she attempted to minimize her actions by characterizing them as "thoughtless and careless") came at a time when New England vets were successfully disrupting a film project she was working on. It's also interesting that not only was this apology delivered sixteen years after the fact, but it has not been offered again since. More than a few have read a huge dollop of self-interest into Fonda's 1988 apology. (Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")
Jane Fonda: May you live a thousand more times on this earth to rectify the karma you have generated."
[url]http://www.26thmarines.org/janefonda.html[/url]
2005-04-21 11:55 | User Profile
Boo hoo, so she posed in a photo. From the outpouring of hate against that woman, you'd think she'd fired that tank at Americans.
Do I like what she did? No. But it's a tiny drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things -- especially compared to the machinations of the traitors who started that war in the first place. Why aren't people so hateful toward the shredders of the Constitution? Isn't that what the military is supposed to defend, anyway? What the hell did those people take an oath to do: to defend the Constitution, or to obey the American Fuhrer without question?
2005-04-21 11:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Boo hoo, so she posed in a photo. From the outpouring of hate against that woman, you'd think she'd fired that tank at Americans.
Do I like what she did? No. But it's a tiny drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things -- especially compared to the machinations of the traitors who started that war in the first place. Why aren't people so hateful toward the shredders of the Constitution? Isn't that what the military is supposed to defend, anyway? What the hell did those people take an oath to do: to defend the Constitution, or to obey the American Fuhrer without question?[/QUOTE]
You reason like a woman, or should I say a modern man.
2005-04-21 12:00 | User Profile
[img]http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/images/20040518-1_p40690-09-515h.jpg[/img]
[size=3][color=#003399]President Speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [/color][/size]
[QUOTE]
Our nation, and the nation of Israel, have much in common. We're both relatively young nations, born of struggle and sacrifice. We're both founded by immigrants escaping religious persecution in other lands. We have both built vibrant democracies, built on the rule of law and market economies. And we're both countries founded on certain basic beliefs: that God watches over the affairs of men, and values every life. (Applause.) These ties have made us natural allies, and these ties will never be broken. (Applause.)
[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]
The United States is strongly committed, and I am strongly committed, to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state. (Applause.) Israel is a democracy and a friend, and has every right to defend itself from terror. (Applause.)
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
Perhaps the deepest obstacle to peace is found in the hearts of men and women. The Jewish people have seen, over the years and over the centuries, that hate prepares the way for violence. The refusal to expose and confront intolerance can lead to crimes beyond imagining. So we have a duty to expose and confront anti-Semitism, wherever it is found. (Applause.)
Some of you attended a very important event in Berlin last month, the International Conference on Anti-Semitism. You understand that anti-Semitism is not a problem of the past; the hatred of Jews did not die in a Berlin bunker. In its cruder forms, it can be found in some Arab media, and this government will continue to call upon Arab governments to end libels and incitements. (Applause.) Such hatred can also take subtler forms. The demonization of Israel, the most extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric can be a flimsy cover for anti-Semitism, and contribute to an atmosphere of fear in which synagogues are desecrated, people are slandered, folks are threatened. I will continue to call upon our friends in Europe to renounce and fight any sign of anti-Semitism in their midst. (Applause.)
We are living through historic times. We are called to do important work in the world. We will stand together against bigotry in every land and every language. We will answer violent men with patient, determined justice. We will expand human freedom and the peace that freedom brings. And by our resolve, and by our courage, we will prevail. (Applause.)
I want to thank you -- I want to thank you for your dedication to the security of America and to the safety of Israel. I want to thank you for your warm hospitality today. May God bless America. May God bless Israel. Thank you for coming. Thank you all for your time. Thank you all. (Applause.) [/QUOTE][u][color=#22229c][url="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040518-1.html"]http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040518-1.html[/url][/color][/u]
2005-04-21 12:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle]You reason like a woman, or should I say a modern man.[/QUOTE]Oh, witty retort!
At least I reason, sweetie.
2005-04-21 12:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Oh, witty retort!
At least I reason, sweetie.[/QUOTE]
LOL! Yes, like a woman. :wink:
2005-04-21 14:34 | User Profile
5:1 the guy was never even in the military. 10:1 he was never within 1,000 miles of Vietnam.
Fonda's a lousy leftist, but get a grip. Vietnam was an unjust, economic war. The men responsible for it deserve far worse.
2005-04-21 14:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]5:1 the guy was never even in the military. 10:1 he was never within 1,000 miles of Vietnam.
Fonda's a lousy leftist, but get a grip. Vietnam was an unjust, economic war. The men responsible for it deserve far worse.[/QUOTE]
We were at war, whether congress declared it officially or not! ** She was a dirty traitor!**
Why can't you guys stick with the subject?
2005-04-21 14:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stigmata][/QUOTE]
[SIZE=7]Wrong![/SIZE]
2005-04-21 15:16 | User Profile
As someone who's been spat on in public for his political beliefs, I think anyone who uses their spittle to assault another person is extremely low class and needs a punch in the face, I don't care who's side he or she is on. It would be more honorable to slap or punch someone, than secrete bodily fluids on them.
Second, Robert McNamara is infinitely, infinitely more guilty than Hanoi Jane. He recalled the US fighters sent to defend the USS Liberty! Who's the real traitor here?
Hanoi Jane never recalled fighter jets from defending American sailors, and never sent soldier to die in what they knew was a losing war.
Rob
2005-04-21 15:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Kievsky]As someone who's been spat on in public for his political beliefs, I think anyone who uses their spittle to assault another person is extremely low class and needs a punch in the face, I don't care who's side he or she is on. It would be more honorable to slap or punch someone, than secrete bodily fluids on them. AMEN to that. Anyone who spits on someone proves that his mother didn't know how to raise him right.
Second, Robert McNamara is infinitely, infinitely more guilty than Hanoi Jane. He recalled the US fighters sent to defend the USS Liberty! Who's the real traitor here?
Hanoi Jane never recalled fighter jets from defending American sailors, and never sent soldier to die in what they knew was a losing war.[/QUOTE]Yes! The USS Liberty definitely needs to be brought up here. That is probably the ultimate example of real treason. Where is the overwhelming outrage about that? Even if the Israeli attack had been by mistake -- which it clearly wasn't -- recalling the rescue jets, and then trying to cover up what happened, is treason of the highest order. You won't hear Gabrielle or the other Freepers complain about that, though.
2005-04-21 15:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Kievsky]Hanoi Jane never recalled fighter jets from defending American sailors, and never sent soldier to die in what they knew was a losing war.[/QUOTE]
True, but that still doesn't excuse cheering on the deaths of conscripted American servicemen. Fonda deserves to be publicly horse-whipped, in my opinion.
2005-04-21 16:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]True, but that still doesn't excuse cheering on the deaths of conscripted American servicemen. Fonda deserves to be publicly horse-whipped, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
Then let's carry that horsewhip to Wall St., Mr. Tex. That "Domino Theory" has flattened Industrial and Middle-Class America--to the Trillion dollar advantage of the same Red Peking Empire our elder brothers fought in the '60s.
Our Republic hasn't fought a "Good" War since 1848...
2005-04-21 16:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]True, but that still doesn't excuse cheering on the deaths of conscripted American servicemen. Fonda deserves to be publicly horse-whipped, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
I'd rather see Robert McNamara in the Hague for war crimes or on trial for treason long before I'd see Fonda "horse whipped" or whatever.
The Hanoi Jane thing is a [B]distraction[/B] from the real traitors.
Rob
2005-04-21 16:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.]Then let's carry that horsewhip to Wall St., Mr. Tex.[/QUOTE]
I'm there, Brother Howard! Line 'em up.
2005-04-21 16:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Kievsky]I'd rather see Robert McNamara in the Hague for war crimes or on trial for treason long before I'd see Fonda "horse whipped" or whatever.
Sure, but one doesn't exclude the other is all I'm saying.
The Hanoi Jane thing is a [B]distraction[/B] from the real traitors.[/QUOTE]
Distraction? Maybe. I see it more as symbolic. Again, this incident is about Fonda. Having her horse-whipped shouldn't exclude having McNamara stand trial for high treason. It's all good.
2005-04-21 16:31 | User Profile
no, "we" weren't at war. The psychokillers, like you, were at work. Just like now. They got their asses screwed into the ground, just like they deserved. Some actually lost their kids. But they deserved to; so of couse they whine, just like you. Why wouldn't they go ahead and just kill their kids themselves? Like the schiavos.
2005-04-21 17:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]spitting on a woman, eh. Just down the alley of anyone who voted for bush and the traitors of Iraq and America.
This guy sounds like a Finkelstein-Gukert schaivo repube -- should have been euthanized on the spot, probably not a Vietnam vet at all, many of whom went insane and/or killed themselves. I wish I had been there to do it. [B][I]I'll guard Jane's body[/I].[/B] She stood up to the traitors then. Who will stand up to them today?[/QUOTE]I do not condone this act and time will reveal if this guy was in Vietnam. But I would have punched TexasAnarch for his choice of who was worse. Fonda stood up to the traitors - what crap.
2005-04-21 23:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]I do not condone this act and time will reveal if this guy was in Vietnam. But I would have punched TexasAnarch for his choice of who was worse. Fonda stood up to the traitors - what crap.[/QUOTE]
Traitors then -- everybody who supported that war. Traitors now, whoever supports this one. Not a dime's worth of difference. -- assuming we are talking America, Christianity, decency, humanity, not some foreign old world ideology.
Why not just kill me? I don't give a shit, frankly. If the truth means anything, I'll be across the great divide from all of whoever supports the killers. It was worked out that way from the foundations of the world. They all deserve to die.
[url]http://lists.topica.com/lists/psychohistory/read/message.html?mid=1718723250&sort=d&start=10251[/url] In the following article, Mike Whitney gives a good description of the currently disastrous situation in Fallujah and the clear attempt by the military--with the help of the mainstream media--to cover up an horrific war crime. It seems that our preferred way of dealing with evidence that shatters the illusion of us being the 'good guys' in Iraq is simply to deny that it even exists.
You Call This Normal? The New York Times in Fallujah
by Mike Whitney Counterpunch, April 18, 2005
"Things are almost back to normal here. We have teachers and books. Things are getting better." - New York Times 3-26-05 "Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja"
"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"my own government." - Rev. Martin Luther King
Cameras aren't allowed in Falluja; neither are journalists. If they were then we would have first-hand proof of America's greatest war crime in the last 30 years; the Dresden-like bombardment of an entire city of 250,000. Instead, we have to rely on eyewitness accounts that appear on the internet or the spurious reports that sporadically surface in the New York Times and Associated Press. For the most part, the Times and AP have shown themselves to be undependable; limiting their coverage to the details that support the overall goals of the occupation. For example, in the last few weeks both the NYTs and the AP ran stories on the alleged progress being made in Falluja. The AP outrageously referred to the battered city as "the safest place in Iraq"; a cynical appraisal of what most independent journalists have called nearly total destruction. One can only wonder if the editors at the AP would approve of similar security measures if they were taken in their own neighborhoods.
The NYTs also ran a lengthy story, "Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja", which portrayed Falluja as a city 'on the mend' after a healthy dose of imperial medicine: "Classes have started again two months ago and the cheerful shrieks of children can be heard in the hallways." This was just one of the more contemptuous quotes lifted from the NYT's story of "rebirth" from the epicenter of American devastation. The quote was accompanied by a picture of a Marine in full-combat gear bending over to tie the shoe of a seven or eight year old Iraqi boy; a threatening image used to convey the spirit of American generosity.
The truth about Falluja is far different than the bogus reports in the AP and Times. The fact that even now, a full 6 months after the siege, camera crews and journalists are banned from the city, tells us a great deal about the extent of America's war crimes. Just two weeks ago, a photographer from Al Aribiyya news was arrested while leaving Falluja and his equipment and film were confiscated. To date, he is still being held without explanation and there is no indication when he will be released. This illustrates the fear among the military brass that the truth about Falluja will leech out and destroy whatever modest support still exists for the occupation. Journalists should realize that Falluja may turn out to be the administration's Achilles heel; a My Lai-type atrocity that turns the public decisively against Bush's war.
The fairytales in the Times and AP are typical wartime propaganda; no different from the fabrications about Jessica Lynch's heroics or the Dear Leader larking-about in Baghdad with a plastic turkey in tow (Bush's "surprise" Thanksgiving day visit) The articles suggest that the administration has settled on a strategy for concealing the unpleasant facts about the obliteration of the city. Along with an active disinformation campaign featured in the nation's leading newspapers, the administration has put together a PR operation to shape public perceptions. This explains why the State Dept's number two official, Robert Zoellick, popped up in Falluja last week for a photo-op at a bread-making factory and a water-pumping station. Zoellick's visit was supposed to draw attention the progress being made in Falluja's restoration. Instead, his plans were disrupted by threats to his personal safety and he was hustled-off to a fortified military compound in the center of town. There he was beset by the cities tribal leaders' complaining about the dismal pace of reconstruction.
2005-04-21 23:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]Traitors then -- everybody who supported that war. Traitors now, whoever supports this one. Not a dime's worth of difference.[/QUOTE]
Yes, there is a difference. In Vietnam there was a draft where thousands of working-class men who didn't have Senators and Congressmen for fathers were conscripted to go and fight for their country. If you argue that those same men should have fled to Canada, refused to serve, or used their family's influence to get into the state guard, then I guess you would hold men like Bush, Jr. and Quayle in the highest regard and as role models for everyone to emulate.
2005-04-22 00:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Yes, there is a difference. In Vietnam there was a draft where thousands of working-class men who didn't have Senators and Congressmen for fathers were conscripted to go and fight for their country. If you argue that those same men should have fled to Canada, refused to serve, or used their family's influence to get into the state guard, then I guess you would hold men like Bush, Jr. and Quayle in the highest regard and as role models for everyone to emulate.[/QUOTE]
The reasons for opposing the VIetnam war were clearly established before the draft was put in ('68?), just like this board has clearly established the reasons for opposing this one. In both cases, only a few listened.
If you trust your instincts and keep informed, as you do and help many on the OD board and abroad to, role models are irrelevant. You are one. And what else could matter to oneself? And when to comes to religion and country, one goes "all in", as they say in Texas Hold-em, or gets out.
2005-04-22 01:55 | User Profile
TexasAnarch,
I fear I agree with you for the most part. [QUOTE]spitting on a woman, eh. Just down the alley of anyone who voted for bush and the traitors of Iraq and America.[/QUOTE]
Kievsky is right: [QUOTE]Second, Robert McNamara is infinitely, infinitely more guilty than Hanoi Jane. He recalled the US fighters sent to defend the USS Liberty! Who's the real traitor here?[/QUOTE]
2005-04-22 04:28 | User Profile
No doubt, there were traitors of a much higher order tha Commie Fonda, but when you read the stories of the POW'S, And then learn of how that bitch betrayed them when one of them ( I don't have the book sitting in front of me now) tried to pass information to her of the POW'S horrible mistreatment, she turned this info over to her NVA buddies which resulted in increased torture of said POW'S.
Inexcusable... Blindfold and a cigarette is all she deserves.
2005-04-22 13:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle][size=7][size=1]Wrong![/size][/size][/QUOTE][QUOTE]"And so our public policy ought to recognize Mexico as an incredibly important part of the American future. And therefore, I look forward to working with el Presidente Fox on how best to make sure our relationship is strong," Bush said.
"We've got a spirit of amistad (friendship). We've got a relationship that is open and strong," Bush said in Spanish and English, referring to the bi-national ties between the United States and Mexico.
The president reinforced his commitment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
"I believe NAFTA is not only good for Mexico; as importantly, it is good for American workers, as well," he said.
Bush also referred to Section 245(i) of the U.S. Immigration Law, which allows some illegal immigrants to legalize their stay in the United States.
"I told the Congress that I want to make sure that the Mexican citizen here is well-respected, and one way to do that is to pass 245(i), which will allow for families to be reunited," the president said.
"If you believe in family values, if you understand the worth of family and the importance of family, let's get 245(i) out of the United States Congress and give me a chance to sign it," Bush said.
Bush also spoke about his second visit to Mexico where he will participate in a development conference.
The president also urged the U.S. Senate to approve his appointment of Hispanic Judge Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit.
"I'm calling on the United States Senate to move quickly on Miguel's nomination, so that we can have a good, young Latino; (a) smart, brilliant man represent our nation," Bush said. [/QUOTE][QUOTE] "This administration is going to continue to support Latino businesses" and issues of utmost importance for the Hispanic community such as immigration, education and social security, according to Barreto, one of the two Hispanics in Bush's cabinet. [/QUOTE][url="http://www.wrnha.org/Issues%20News%20Articles/Immigration/Bush%20Speaks%20to%20Hispanics%20About%20Immigration,%20Trade.htm"]http://www.wrnha.org/Issues%20News%20Articles/Immigration/Bush%20Speaks%20to%20Hispanics%20About%20Immigration,%20Trade.htm[/url]
2005-04-22 13:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Kievsky]Hanoi Jane never recalled fighter jets from defending American sailors, and never sent soldier to die in what they knew was a losing war.
Rob[/QUOTE]Good point. Hard to see why a single white man should die in a contest to see whether members of the Asian race should live under authoritarian dictatorship or totalitarian dictatorship. Recall the Jewish Rostow brothers were among the architects of that mindless slaughter.
2005-04-22 16:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Blond Knight]No doubt, there were traitors of a much higher order tha Commie Fonda, but when you read the stories of the POW'S, And then learn of how that bitch betrayed them when one of them ( I don't have the book sitting in front of me now) tried to pass information to her of the POW'S horrible mistreatment, she turned this info over to her NVA buddies which resulted in increased torture of said POW'S.
Inexcusable... Blindfold and a cigarette is all she deserves.[/QUOTE] If Fonda actually did that (not doubting your honesty, but sometimes rumors and such get out of control), then she does deserve to be punished very severely. Opposing a war, even stridently and publicly, is perfectly legitimate -- especially an unconstitutional war. But betraying POWs who cry out for help is utterly sickening.
Yes, there are some Vietnam vets who committed atrocities against civilians or helpless gooks (some vets readily admit it). Those people are the scum of the earth and are no better than any VC gook who tortured US POWs. If you excuse the conduct of one group, you must excuse the other. I hold that morality isn't relative.
But then there are those soldiers who served honorably and just did the best they could under very trying circumstances. I like to think they were the majority. Fonda might have thought that the POWs she betrayed (if she really did what is alleged above) were responsible for deliberately killing civilians or torturing prisoners of their own, but she had no way of knowing that, and thus she had a responsibility to give them the benefit of the doubt. Thus, betraying POWs and causing them to be treated even worse was inexcusable.
I still think spitting on her was a disgusting and loathsome act, though. As someone already said, slapping her would have been more honorable. And I maintain that the politicians of the time were FAR worse traitors who deserved assassination.
2005-04-22 17:27 | User Profile
Kind of a non-event for me. If it was true that Fonda betrayed POWs trying to send her messages, then she deserves whatever she gets, but as far as playing the fool and posing on a 57mm AA gun, well, such stupidity speaks for itself.
Dunno that I would be too quick to condemn soldiers over there who "massacred" civilians. Yes, there's no excuse for shooting a child cowering in a ditch, but I wonder how many of the "atrocities" were cases of troops shooting first and asking questions later? I don't know about you, but in a guerilla war, where the enemy can pop out from nowhere to take a shot at you, then blend back into a civilian population that harbors more than a little sympathy for them, it's really hard to control that trigger finger sometimes. Kind of sounds like the situation over in the Middle East, don't it? Instead, I reserve opprobium for the likes of Johnson, MacNamara, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Frum et al.* who were/are not only the wars' biggest cheerleaders and architects, but also conspicuous for avoiding anything remotely resembling danger as well as shielding their kids from the consequences of their decisions, ones they have no trouble making apparently, that result in the deaths of honorable and well-meaning servicemen. I truly wonder how amoral an individual you have to be to be able to order people off to their deaths to do something you took extreme measures to avoid doing yourself. I've concluded that such people must be either nearly souless, or so completely stupid that they just are incapable of seeing the schism. Perhaps it's both. As the bumper sticker says, "Draft the Twins!"
One last thing. Everyone when thinking about "atrocity" and "Vietnam" in the same sentence immediately recalls My Lai. As grotesque as such acts were, why are much larger atrocities by the V.C. and NVA studiously ignored or glossed over? My Lai may have resulted in the deaths of some 100 civilians, while the NVA-directed slaughter at Hue during the '68 Tet offensive killed thousands. Has that ever penetrated the national consciousness? No. In fact, the indelible image from the Tet offensive is the famous clip of the bug-eyed ARVN General So-And-So executing a V.C. infiltrator/sapper in a Saigon street. Unpleasant to look at? Yep. But keep in mind, the guy wasn't in uniform and the usual penalty for such actions is in fact death. General Bug-Eyes just greased the wheels of justice with his S&W.
*Apparently Johnson, while on a "fact-finding" mission (for which he tried to award himself a friggin' medal) in a B-26 was almost shot down by Japan's leading ace, Saburo Sakai, who flamed one of the plane's two engines, but couldn't finish off the bomber before it slipped into a cloud. I ofter wonder how history would have been different had he succeeded.
2005-04-22 18:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=MadScienceType]Dunno that I would be too quick to condemn soldiers over there who "massacred" civilians. Yes, there's no excuse for shooting a child cowering in a ditch, but I wonder how many of the "atrocities" were cases of troops shooting first and asking questions later? I don't know about you, but in a guerilla war, where the enemy can pop out from nowhere to take a shot at you, then blend back into a civilian population that harbors more than a little sympathy for them, it's really hard to control that trigger finger sometimes. Right, but I wouldn't lump such "negligence" into the "atrocity" category anyway. I can totally understand people getting jumpy and trigger-happy in a war zone, especially during a guerrilla war, like you said. I'm talking about stuff like the example you gave: shooting a child cowering in a ditch, or raping young girls or women, or burning an injured/dying enemy soldier alive with white phosphorus after the battle is over. Those kinds of things did happen, and I don't care if those who did them later on won the Medal of Honor for bravery -- they are still the scum of the earth in my book.
Instead, I reserve opprobium for the likes of Johnson, MacNamara, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Frum et al.* who were/are not only the wars' biggest cheerleaders and architects, but also conspicuous for avoiding anything remotely resembling danger as well as shielding their kids from the consequences of their decisions, ones they have no trouble making apparently, that result in the deaths of honorable and well-meaning servicemen. I truly wonder how amoral an individual you have to be to be able to order people off to their deaths to do something you took extreme measures to avoid doing yourself. I've concluded that such people must be either nearly souless, or so completely stupid that they just are incapable of seeing the schism. Perhaps it's both. As the bumper sticker says, "Draft the Twins!" Agreed.
I don't paint all the soldiers in Iraq with the same brush, either good or bad. I figure that some are probably assholes and thugs and others are probably great men -- just like civilians -- and there's really no way to tell who's who without being there. So I neither worship them all as heroes nor despise them all as war criminals. I do look down strongly on their support for Bush, Rumsfeld, etc., though. That's either ignorance or self-delusion, and I can't respect that. I also reject the common statements that they're "our" troops or are "serving their country." They are not doing anything for the United States over in Iraq; whether they know it or not, they are only serving Bush and the Jews.
One last thing. Everyone when thinking about "atrocity" and "Vietnam" in the same sentence immediately recalls My Lai. As grotesque as such acts were, why are much larger atrocities by the V.C. and NVA studiously ignored or glossed over? My Lai may have resulted in the deaths of some 100 civilians, while the NVA-directed slaughter at Hue during the '68 Tet offensive killed thousands. Has that ever penetrated the national consciousness? No. I think people tend to overlook the horrors committed by the VC because they somehow feel less responsible for acts committed by foreigners than those committed "in their name." For example, when we hear about some Negroes in some African nation killing the women and children of an enemy tribe, we might be disgusted, but not nearly as disgusted as if we heard about US soldiers doing such things.
2005-04-22 18:47 | User Profile
The United States Government of Israel, filled with corrupt, vile and evil thugs in business suits, start illegal wars-for-big-business-profits/kickbacks and slaughter millions of foreigners in the process while annihilating their lands, and everyone's surprised at the bizarre behavior of Jane Fonda hanging out with the NVA?!
No way, she doesn't deserve to be spat upon. Vietnam was one of the most despicable, disgraceful wars in US history. The man who spit on Jane is a f*cking coward.
2005-04-22 19:32 | User Profile
Fonda was an out of touch hollywood elitist who had no clue what she was talking about. I feel no sympathy for her, but she is a symptom not a cause of anything.
Some of the worst accusations against her (like turning in slips of paper with Gi's names to the VC) seem to be false. I think the following link is a fairly decent summation of her anti-war theatrics. Anyone have any better info?
[url]http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp[/url]
2005-04-23 01:59 | User Profile
If I have wrongly accused Commie Fonda, I offer my apologies to her and the members on OD for passing along false information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A quick google search of Jane Fonda POW's found this:
[url]http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/pow.asp[/url]
Also, Jane Fonda's Hanoi Radio broadcast:
[url]http://www.3rdmarines.net/Vietnam_jane_fonda_Hanoi_radio.htm[/url]
[QUOTE]Jane Fonda also participated in a staged press conference with American servicemen held captive by the Viet Cong, the purpose of which was to "prove" that the POWs were not being mistreated by their captors. Years later when the released POWs described the very real torture and degradation they suffered at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Fonda called them "hypocrites and liars."[/QUOTE] Above Quote from:[url]http://www.3rdmarines.net/Vietnam_jane_fonda_in_vietnam.htm[/url]
Finally:[url]http://www.americandaily.com/article/7366[/url]
2005-04-23 02:14 | User Profile
I don't think people ought to care too much about what actors and actresses do. Prior to about 1920 or so, people in the acting field were considered by most folks in polite (and not so polite) society as people of poor character. There was a time when actors were looked down upon by garbagemen. If a janitor went to North Vietnam and posed on an AA gun would anyone have cared?
While I would hope that no one would act uncharitably toward actors, I hope people will return to the old belief that it is not a profession for "nice people." When I go to the supermarket and buy my humble food, I look at the magazines showing people every detail of the lives of actors and actresses. Who cares about a bunch of rather dim, but good looking people who mostly have poor morals.
If I had a daughter, I would prefer that she bring home a McDonalds fry cook or a ditchdigger rather than an actor.
2005-04-23 14:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=MadScienceType][B]One last thing. Everyone when thinking about "atrocity" and "Vietnam" in the same sentence immediately recalls My Lai. As grotesque as such acts were, why are much larger atrocities by the V.C. and NVA studiously ignored or glossed over? My Lai may have resulted in the deaths of some 100 civilians, while the NVA-directed slaughter at Hue during the '68 Tet offensive killed thousands. Has that ever penetrated the national consciousness? No. In fact, the indelible image from the Tet offensive is the famous clip of the bug-eyed ARVN General So-And-So executing a V.C. infiltrator/sapper in a Saigon street. Unpleasant to look at? Yep. But keep in mind, the guy wasn't in uniform and the usual penalty for such actions is in fact death. General Bug-Eyes just greased the wheels of justice with his S&W.
*Apparently Johnson, while on a "fact-finding" mission (for which he tried to award himself a friggin' medal) in a B-26 was almost shot down by Japan's leading ace, Saburo Sakai, who flamed one of the plane's two engines, but couldn't finish off the bomber before it slipped into a cloud. I ofter wonder how history would have been different had he succeeded[/B].[/QUOTE]Good to see somebody remembering atrocities and important, but largely forgotten, details of history.
American atrocities have always existed, but sometimes, if not most times, forgotten. On the whole Americans are far more sinned against than having sinned.
2005-04-23 15:10 | User Profile
Previously the departed [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] would comment extensively on weapons with rifles and ballistic properties being a favorite subject. He referred to "[I]military morons[/I]" as not being as appreciate of technical aspects as he. Needless to say, [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] though of age managed to avoid the war in Vietnam. [B] Angler[/B] reminds me of him. Never having known any danger that would make the scrotum shrivel, he unhesitatingly proffers opinions on others who have. He impressed as professing to know all about weapons, except what to do if an enemy were present.[QUOTE=Angler]I don't paint all the soldiers in Iraq with the same brush, either good or bad. I figure that some are probably assholes and thugs and others are probably great men -- just like civilians -- and there's really no way to tell who's who without being there. So I neither worship them all as heroes nor despise them all as war criminals. I do look down strongly on their support for Bush, Rumsfeld, etc., though. That's either ignorance or self-delusion, and I can't respect that. [B]I also reject the common statements that they're "our" troops or are "serving their country." They are not doing anything for the United States over in Iraq; whether they know it or not, they are only serving Bush and the Jews**.[/QUOTE]When in a war zone, very, very few soldiers believe they are serving any great moral purpose. Their great aim is to live and have their friends live. Angler and his like may have disturbed sleep over these sentiments, but so what. [QUOTE]I think people tend to overlook the horrors committed by the VC because they somehow feel less responsible for acts committed by foreigners than those committed "in their name." For example, when we hear about some Negroes in some African nation killing the women and children of an enemy tribe, we might be disgusted, but not nearly as disgusted as if we heard about US soldiers doing such things.[/QUOTE]The establishment media to include such lying Jews as Morley Safer, the staff of the New York [I]Times[/I], and even America's most trusted man, Walter Cronkite, lied about the extent of the butchery in Hue. That the VC and NVA were the great killers of that war, not the American soldier, is something that has long bothered me.
2005-04-23 15:26 | User Profile
I agree that we should be charitable as we can toward the soldiers in Iraq, but it does beg the question; does a soldier have ANY moral responsibility if he participates in an unjust war? If I were serving at the time of the beginning of the latest Iraq war I would either have attempted to resign my commission or, if an enlisted man, would have applied for some kind of conscienious objector status or service in the Medical Corps. Christians can't participate in mainfestly unjust wars.
2005-04-24 11:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]Previously the departed [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] would comment extensively on weapons with rifles and ballistic properties being a favorite subject. He referred to "[I]military morons[/I]" as not being as appreciate of technical aspects as he. Needless to say, [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] though of age managed to avoid the war in Vietnam. [B] Angler[/B] reminds me of him. Never having known any danger that would make the scrotum shrivel, he unhesitatingly proffers opinions on others who have. He impressed as professing to know all about weapons, except what to do if an enemy were present.When in a war zone, very, very few soldiers believe they are serving any great moral purpose. Their great aim is to live and have their friends live. Angler and his like may have disturbed sleep over these sentiments, but so what. The establishment media to include such lying Jews as Morley Safer, the staff of the New York [I]Times[/I], and even America's most trusted man, Walter Cronkite, lied about the extent of the butchery in Hue. That the VC and NVA were the great killers of that war, not the American soldier, is something that has long bothered me.[/QUOTE]
Good post, edward gibbon. :)
2005-04-26 04:11 | User Profile
edward gibbon,
[QUOTE]In fact, the indelible image from the Tet offensive is the famous clip of the bug-eyed ARVN General So-And-So executing a V.C. infiltrator/sapper in a Saigon street.[/QUOTE]
I think I remember hearing something about that V.C. infiltrator had just murdered the wife and children of a SVA officer. Does anyone remember?
2005-04-26 06:19 | User Profile
Faust, you mean this photo? [IMG]http://www.treefort.org/~cbdoten/rvntanks/sp071632.jpg[/IMG]
Thursday, 16 July 1998 General in '68 Vietnam execution dies image 1968 AP PHOTO: Nguyen Ngoc Loan, whose execution of a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon became one of the most chilling images of the Vietnam War, dies at age 67. Eddie Adams, whose photo of the execution won a Pulitzer Prize for The Associated Press, said the man Loan shot had been seen killing others and that the execution was justified.
SPRINGFIELD, VA (AP) - Nguyen Ngoc Loan, whose execution of a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon in 1968 became one of the most chilling images of the Vietnam War, died Tuesday. He was 67. The former South Vietnamese general died of cancer at his home in Burke, a Washington suburb. He fled South Vietnam in 1975, the year the communists overran the country, and moved to Virginia, where he opened a restaurant.
On Feb. 1, 1968, Loan was director of South Vietnam's national police and the North Vietnamese had just begun the Tet Offensive, their huge military push southward. Firefights had broken out all over Saigon, and Loan's police were trying to rid the South Vietnamese capital of Viet Cong guerrillas. Loan led the prisoner, his hands bound, onto a street corner and in front of a group of journalists pulled his pistol and shot the prisoner point-blank in the head. The general told the newsmen that the prisoner was a known Viet Cong captain.
Eddie Adams' photo of the execution won a Pulitzer Prize for The Associated Press. NBC also showed film of the execution. Adams said yesterday that Gen. Loan's actions were misinterpreted because of the picture. "The guy was a hero. America should be crying," said Adams, now a free-lance photographer. "I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him." Adams said the man Loan shot had been seen killing others and that Loan was justified in executing him.
The picture was among three that came to symbolize the brutality of the war, said Marco Leepson, spokesman for the Washington-based Vietnam Veterans of America. The photo of a screaming girl running down a road after napalm had burned off her clothing and the picture of helicopters rescuing people from the roof of a Saigon building as the city fell are the others, he said.
The Tet Offensive had a powerful effect on U.S. public opinion because it contradicted assurances from the Johnson administration that the United States was winning the war. The photograph "was a part of the media presentation of the Tet Offensive and that had a pretty big negative impact on public opinion," Leepson said.
Leslie Cullen, a military history professor at Texas Tech University who specializes in the Vietnam War, said the man Loan summarily executed was involved in killing a policeman and his family. "Not that such a thing was justified, but people had the impression from press reports that this guy was killing him just to be killing him," Cullen said. "People had a question in their mind, `Do we support people who do this?'"
Loan is survived by his wife, Chinh Mai, and his five children. [url]http://www.treefort.org/~cbdoten/rvntanks/080-4450.htm[/url] =========================
Nguyen Van Lem is the real name of Captain Bay Lop (d. Saigon 1 February 1968), a suspected Viet Cong guerrilla executed on camera in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.
On the second day of Tet, amid fierce street fighting, Lem was captured and brought to Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, then Chief of the Republic of Viet Nam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, Loan summarily executed Lem before international press including AP photographer Eddie Adams and a television crew. The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement; Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.
Though Loan's execution of Lem violated the Geneva Convention norms for treatment of prisoners of war, the execution has been attributed to war crimes committed by Lem.
South Vietnamese sources say that Lem commanded a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon, which that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; these sources say that Lem was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of which were the family of Gen. Loan's deputy and close friend. (In some accounts, the deputy was a victim as well; in others, the number of murdered relatives is as few as six.) Photographer Adams confirms the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lem's widow confirmed that he was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official said that Lem was only a political operative.
The story I always have heard was the guy executed was a Viet Cong sapper and that he killed a friend of Loan's and his family.
While I don't think much of spitting on Hanoi Jane, I think even less, on the rare occasion that I do, about Jane Fonda. She is a real bitch and I take pleasure in meeting her briefly years ago and calling her a "fascist pig." (yes, I know she's a communist)
2005-04-26 09:12 | User Profile
Basic question:
What the f*** were Americans doing in Vietnam in the firts place? :mellow:
2005-04-26 17:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]edward gibbon, I think I remember hearing something about that V.C. infiltrator had just murdered the wife and children of a SVA officer. Does anyone remember?[/QUOTE]From my book: [QUOTE]Almost 20 years later the New York [I]Times[/I] reported that hundreds, possibly thousands, were reported killed by communist forces during the siege of Hue.[1] These victims were singled out because they refused to cooperate or earlier had been judged as potential obstructions to the communists. After all those years the newspaper could not bring itself to admit the magnitude of the killing by the communists. The New York [I]Times[/I] did give the firm opinion that nothing captured the horror of the Tet offensive as much as the photograph of the South Vietnamese Police Chief, General Loan, with pistol in his outstretched hand putting a bullet in the head of a Viet Cong "suspect" in the streets of Saigon as the war raged about him.[2] A onetime president of ABC News, Frederick Pierce, claimed to have seen executions during the evening newscasts of the Vietnam War.[3] Surely the only execution he saw was General Loan putting the bullet in the Viet Cong's head. The Viet Cong had just butchered the family of one of General Loan's associates and was receiving battlefield justice. General Loan knew the Buddha would understand, but what he did not count on were the legalistic snotnoses of the American press who professed not to understand. In a conference for scholars in Hanoi the Vietnamese side admitted to huge losses during the Tet offensive.[4] If that were not enough, a former high official of the Viet Cong, Truong Nhu Tang, admitted the truth to be that the Tet offensive cost the Viet Cong half of their forces, a surprising confession which appeared in the New York [I]Review of Books[/I], a periodical of the left, and he thought it ironic that the propaganda of the Viet Cong side transferred a military debacle into a brilliant victory.[5] 1. NYT, Aug 26, 1987, p10 2. NYT, Jan 31, 1988, p14 3. New York Post, Jan 10, 1994, p66 4. Washington Post, Dec 11, 1988, pA27 5. New York Review of Books, Oct 21, 1982, p32[/QUOTE]I remember that the massacre at Hue was on the order of 10 times as great as that at My Lai. I remember that Morley Safer of CBS has claimed those at Hue were carefully chosen to be executed and that Safer regarded General Giap as the true hero.
Marc Leepson of the Vietnam Veterans of America is one of those despicable characters who revels in the image of American soldiers as the bad guys. That shit has been like this for more than 15 years that I know.
2005-04-26 19:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]Previously the departed [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] would comment extensively on weapons with rifles and ballistic properties being a favorite subject. He referred to "[I]military morons[/I]" as not being as appreciate of technical aspects as he. Needless to say, [B]NeoNietzsche[/B] though of age managed to avoid the war in Vietnam. [B] Angler[/B] reminds me of him. Never having known any danger that would make the scrotum shrivel, he unhesitatingly proffers opinions on others who have. And you, sir, don't know a goddamn thing about me. I have in fact been in life-threatening situations before -- situations probably worse than you've been in, and at a very young age. You don't know anything about me, scumbag!
As long as I have posting privileges on this board, I will present my opinions about anything I please, including those people you feel are above criticism. If I want to criticize certain Vietnam vets or the slaves currently risking their lives in Iraq for wealthy Jews and their puppets, then I will do so. Don't like it? Tough sh!t. Your sacred cow is my hamburger.
BTW: I don't play paintball, a$$hole -- get that stupid delusion out of your head. Your beloved fellow soldiers do when they're training. Even better, they play laser tag.
He impressed as professing to know all about weapons, except what to do if an enemy were present. I know about as much about weapons as an average gun enthusiast, but nowhere near as much as a professional gunsmith. I don't believe I've ever claimed to be an expert. So cough up the post where I said I knew all about weapons, or admit you're a f_cking liar. And if an enemy is present? You shoot him. There, do I get a gold star? :rolleyes:
When in a war zone, very, very few soldiers believe they are serving any great moral purpose. Their great aim is to live and have their friends live. Angler and his like may have disturbed sleep over these sentiments, but so what. When did I say I had a problem with trying to stay alive? I don't. What I have a problem with is soldiers raping women or burning helpless people alive with white phosphorus. Those things don't help people stay alive. Anyone who does such things deserves to reap whatever he sows. It doesn't matter if he's an American or a VC or anyone else.
The establishment media to include such lying Jews as Morley Safer, the staff of the New York [I]Times[/I], and even America's most trusted man, Walter Cronkite, lied about the extent of the butchery in Hue. That the VC and NVA were the great killers of that war, not the American soldier, is something that has long bothered me.[/QUOTE]My position on atrocities has already been made clear: Anyone on either side of a conflict who commits them deliberately is a rotten piece of sh!t who deserves to die. Yet I think I was very fair in my remarks about how I didn't think accidental shootings of civilians classified as atrocities. If anything, my remarks were biased in favor of US soldiers -- for example, I said that Fonda should have given the POWs the benefit of the doubt and should never have betrayed them (though it now appears that didn't actually happen). I never judged anyone in particular, but pointed out that there were good soldiers and bad. That's as fair as I can be without turning into a liar like you. If you want to hear unending praise for mindless servants of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Sharon and don't want to associate with "cowards" like us here, ride your high horse off to another discussion board.
2005-04-26 21:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler] My position on atrocities has already been made clear: Anyone on either side of a conflict who commits them deliberately is a rotten piece of sh!t who deserves to die. Yet I think I was very fair in my remarks about how I didn't think accidental shootings of civilians classified as atrocities. If anything, my remarks were biased in favor of US soldiers -- for example, I said that Fonda should have given the POWs the benefit of the doubt and should never have betrayed them (though it now appears that didn't actually happen). I never judged anyone in particular, but pointed out that there were good soldiers and bad. That's as fair as I can be without turning into a liar like you. If you want to hear unending praise for mindless servants of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Sharon and don't want to associate with "cowards" like us here, ride your high horse off to another discussion board.[/QUOTE]
I take back what I said about you earlier in this thread... you don't just reason like a woman...you reason like an emotional one.
2005-04-26 23:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle]I take back what I said about you earlier in this thread... you don't just reason like a woman...you reason like an emotional one.[/QUOTE]And you're a neocon bimbo whose opinion couldn't mean less to me. Take a pill for that yeast infection in your brain.
2005-04-26 23:21 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]And you're a neocon bimbo whose opinion couldn't mean less to me. Take a pill for that yeast infection in your brain.[/QUOTE]
Why you mean, mean bully! :taz:
2005-04-27 19:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]BTW: I don't play paintball, a$$hole -- get that stupid delusion out of your head. Your beloved fellow soldiers do when they're training. Even better, they play laser tag.[/QUOTE]I refer you to the following post of May 2, 2004 [QUOTE]FYI, I do not play paintball ([B]apart from a couple of times many years ago[/B]) or own any paintball equipment. I don't even have a set of cammies. I do own a ballistic helmet and body armor. Why? Because I think all US citizens should own ballistic armor, just as I think all US citizens should own combat-worthy firearms. Maybe you think that only "professionals" have a need for such items. If so, then the Clintons, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein would certainly agree with you[/QUOTE].Angler expounded: [QUOTE]And you, sir, don't know a goddamn thing about me. I have in fact been in life-threatening situations before -- situations probably worse than you've been in, and at a very young age. You don't know anything about me, scumbag![/QUOTE]Probably do not want to know much. [QUOTE]I never judged anyone in particular, but pointed out that there were good soldiers and bad. That's as fair as I can be without turning into a liar like you. If you want to hear unending praise for mindless servants of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Sharon and don't want to associate with "cowards" like us here, [B][I]ride your high horse off to another discussion board.[/I] [/B][/QUOTE]It is my duty to remain to keep the young and immature from being influenced by you and your wishful fantasies.
2005-04-27 21:25 | User Profile
[quote=edward gibbon]I refer you to the following post of May 2, 2004
FYI, I do not play paintball (apart from a couple of times many years ago) or own any paintball equipment. I don't even have a set of cammies. I do own a ballistic helmet and body armor. Why? Because I think all US citizens should own ballistic armor, just as I think all US citizens should own combat-worthy firearms. Maybe you think that only "professionals" have a need for such items. If so, then the Clintons, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein would certainly agree with you
Yes, that's exactly what I said, and it's true. I don't play paintball or even own any paintball equipment. I only tried it once or twice in high school with some friends. Why you're so obsessed with this, I have no idea. Evidently you have a screw loose.
2005-04-28 00:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]I refer you to the following post of May 2, 2004 .Angler expounded: Probably do not want to know much. It is my duty to remain to keep the young and immature from being influenced by you and your wishful fantasies.[/QUOTE]
LOL! Touche!
2005-04-28 01:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle]LOL! Touche![/QUOTE]What are you, eddie's stooge? Or do you just have brain-AIDS? :rolleyes:
The post he dug up didn't contradict anything I said. Try really hard to understand, moron: If I say, "I don't drink," that doesn't mean the same thing as, "I have never touched a drop of alcohol in my life." Now try to extend that concept to paintball.
Your stupidity is becoming tiresome. If you have nothing intelligent to post, then don't post anything at all.
2005-04-28 04:48 | User Profile
Any fool can see Vietnam was a waste of good White men. It also allowed thousands of non-White "refugees" (such as the Hmong) to flood into the US. Face it, The Vietnam War was basically the Jew's plan to wipe out as many good, strong, White men as possible.
Now, under a Kurt regimeââ¢, these same White men would've been used to clear the U.S. of all non-Whites, setting the stage for a truly White America, and not some phony separate-but-equal-Whites-living-with-non-Whites fantasy world that so many around here seem to favor. Whites and non-Whites can not live together! It is impossible! Saying Whites can live side by side with non-Whites is like saying humans can live in harmony with the Ebola virus. It just can't be done.
Here endeth the lesson.
2005-05-08 05:16 | User Profile
Sertorius and edward gibbon,
So I was right. Thanks for your reply!
[QUOTE]South Vietnamese Police Chief, General Loan, with pistol in his outstretched hand putting a bullet in the head of a Viet Cong "suspect" in the streets of Saigon as the war raged about him.[2] A onetime president of ABC News, Frederick Pierce, claimed to have seen executions during the evening newscasts of the Vietnam War.[3] Surely the only execution he saw was General Loan putting the bullet in the Viet Cong's head. The Viet Cong had just butchered the family of one of General Loan's associates and was receiving battlefield justice. General Loan knew the Buddha would understand, but what he did not count on were the legalistic snotnoses of the American press who professed not to understand. [/QUOTE]