Jane Fonda: ‘Hanoi Jane’ Moment Was A ‘Huge Mistake’

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

where do all those lies come from anyway?

Most likely those who were never there.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

I hated Jane Fonda for the story about giving the prisoners social security numbers they had carefully written down on small pieces of paper and handed to her which in turn it was said that she then handed to a Vietnam general standing nearby, but all lies.

Now I am the one that has to change my mind about her and where do all those lies come from anyway?

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp

I linked that already I recon that no one noticed.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I never understood how she got away with that, it really seemed like a black and white case of aiding the enemy...

What enemy would that be? The one we went overseas to try to overthrow? It wasn't even a "war".

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Clear cut, and dry case. she should still be in prison for it if you ask me.

Is it? How many "cut-and-dried" beliefs here are actually based on lies?

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Huge mistake....zero apology.

"I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."
-Jane Fonda, 1988 interview with Barbara Walters

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

The issue was visiting North Vietnam in time of war

And yet while she was there she did indeed visit a group of POWs, bringing them letters from home and returning with letters to their families.

Originally Posted by Platapus

Did she use the words "I am sorry" and "I made a made a mistake/I was wrong"?

This sterile "it was a mistake" kinda distances her from what she said and what she did. This an issue about what SHE did and what SHE said. Not some intellectual impersonal mistake.

Those are the words I would like to hear.

"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, 2000

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I see Jane Fonda crewing an anti aircraft gun in participation with enemy combatants

I see her sitting in one of the gunners' chairs, looking through the sight, while chatting with reporters holding a microphone to her face. In another photograph she is laughing with those same reporters. What I don't see is her helping to shoot the gun.

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Too late Jane!
Tell it to the air crew's that survived and the pilot's families who lost loved ones.

You'll always be Hanoi Jane.

She thought she was helping to stop the war. I think it is fairly plain that the United States was the aggressor, and that we should never have been there in the first place. Was she wrong to go there? Probably. This is one veteran who believes she was trying, however mistakenly, to point out the real villains in that conflict.

Originally Posted by Oberon

Most likely those who were never there.

To me that includes most of the people posting their hate in this thread.

[nikimcbee]

If you want to see someone get really wound up, bring up Hanoi Jane or John Kerry (if you're brave) with the Swift Boat vets that moor next to us at fleet week.
(spoiler alert) They go from good mood to really pissed off in about 2 seconds.

[Sailor Steve]

I have no respect for Kerry at all, but not for that reason. He served on the boats and was wounded. Some people belittle the Purple Hearts, but though at least one of them may have been minor the simple fact is that anyone who served in the freshwater navy risked his life every day.

That he threw his medals over the wall was neither here nor there. I came back disillusioned myself and took part in the Veterans Against The War movement. What bugs me about Kerry is that after being strongly anti-war he turned around and tried to run on his war record, and tried to sweep his anti-war record under the rug. I consider him to be two-faced to say the least.

I'm the same way about Clinton. I was indifferent to him until someone brought up his protest record and he tried to deny it. If he had just said "You're damned right I protested against that war! It was a bad deal and we never should have been there in the first place!", he would have gotten my vote. It's not the being for or against something for me, it's the waffling and the trying to deny it when it might hurt him politically.

I guess I just don't like politicians. Or lawyers.

[GoldenRivet]

I never said anything about "hating" Jane Fonda, i dont think the majority if the posters in the thread did either.

Hell... As Barbarella she played a major role in destroying a number of my socks when i was a pre-teen

That said... what if Angelena Jolie went to Iraq in 2003 or 2004 and posed with Jihadis who held a number of captives? how popular do you think that decision would have been? would she be right to tote along a camera crew and meet up, shake hands and trade jokes with known accomplices of Bin Laden? would that stigma follow her around for the next 40-50 years? more?

I liken the two scenarios. difference is one happened the other is hypothetical but is more "in our present time".

but like you said Steve... waffling on the issue.

In the same sentence she says it was a regrettable thing to do... then turns around and says poor me im only picked on over it because im an easy target.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Clear cut, and dry case. she should still be in prison for it if you ask me.

I'm sure it made her Father, Henry Fonda, a Navy Veteran, sick to his stomach to see his daughter do such a thing

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I never said anything about "hating" Jane Fonda, i dont think the majority if the posters in the thread did either.

Most people don't say they "hate" anybody, but the vitriol is still there.

That said... what if Angelena Jolie went to Iraq in 2003 or 2004 and posed with Jihadis who held a number of captives? how popular do you think that decision would have been? would she be right to tote along a camera crew and meet up, shake hands and trade jokes with known accomplices of Bin Laden? would that stigma follow her around for the next 40-50 years? more?

I think I made a decent case for North Vietnam not being the bad guys in that case. Yes, they held prisoners, but only ones who were captured making war on them and their country. Yes, many of those prisoners were mistreated, and they shouldn't have been. That said, if we hadn't been in their country making war on them none of those men would have been prisoners.

You're comparing that to a group of people who have come to our country and killed thousands; a group of people who are currently in the business of capturing innocent civilians and brutally murdering them on camera; a group of people who seem to enjoy giving that treatment to anybody who disagrees with their religion.

I liken the two scenarios. difference is one happened the other is hypothetical but is more "in our present time".

And I see a huge difference, not just in the era during which it happened, but in pretty much everything.

In the same sentence she says it was a regrettable thing to do... then turns around and says poor me im only picked on over it because im an easy target.

As I once said: "I used to be young and stupid. Things have changed. I got older."

She also said that she regretted posing for those photographs, but not for going there in the first place. Sorry, but I agree with her.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Sorry, but I agree with her.

Well Steve, i'm going to have to disagree with her without apology - i feel like what she did was wrong. But we have two different opinions and thats ok.

[Onkel Neal]

If it wasn't a war, there was an awful lot of killing and death to call it a picnic

Anyway, police action or military engagement, Jane Fonda went to North Vietnam to cheer on the people we were fighting. Whether the "war" was right, wrong, or something in the middle, when you have 400,000 men fighting and one woman decides to support the enemy, it seems bizarre that she was not called in to see the State Dept when she returned.

[Sailor Steve]

But was she supporting the enemy? If the "war" is indeed wrong then is it not right to oppose it? Was she misguided? I'd say so. Stupid? Probably, but so am I. But a traitor? To what?

I've always been a big fan of the paraphrase by Walt Kelly in his comic strip Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

[Wolferz]

With knowledge comes wisdom.

Jane was young and dumb and not very wise but, more than a little idealistic at the time.
Viet Nam wasn't a war per se. So, no they couldn't exactly throw her in Leavenworth over her actions. The blowback would've rivaled a tsunami if they had.
We only know the frontline story as to why our government felt the need to get involved on that peninsula in the first place.
I could speculate that it was more about keeping a viable land route into China for the Opium barons, rather than protecting the free people in the south. Logically, it would have required a full tilt effort to conquer the North Vietnamese which would have fomented a whole new set of problems with their backers in China.
We didn't lose but, were prevented from winning.
Jane's escapade did nothing to cause harm to anyone other than herself.

[CCIP]

Three issues come up here also:

1) What exactly would the legal and constitutional basis for prosecuting/jailing someone like that would be? As I said, it sounds to me like for all its worth, and an idiot though she may be, it seems to me like Fonda was within both her constitutional rights and was not breaking any international laws either when she made her visit.

2) The parallel being brought up to modern jihadists is faulty - the Ho Chi Minh government might not have been the nicest people in the world, but they're an entirely different thing from what ISIS or Al Quaeda might be and were not an illegal entity, and certainly not in Hanoi.

3) The biggest logical fallacy here, which I think is a dangerous one, is the imposition of military discipline / military codes on independent civilians, especially in (what by all legal norms was) peacetime. She did not make a pledge of service and she owes no duty to the State Department, Pentagon, or anybody else like that - just like any other private American citizen. She's free to exercise her constitutional freedoms, and be considered an idiot for it for all we care. The moment that the American government starts penalizing its private citizens under military codes in peacetime is the moment the country will, by definition, become a military dictatorship.
So please, for the love of all that's good, don't ask why your government didn't jail Fonda - be glad that she wasn't, and hope that idiots like her never will be!

[Onkel Neal]

On point 2, CCIP, I didn't make a comparison to the jihadists. I could see where the North Vietnamese were coming from, and if the US had stayed out of the aftermath of the French's bid to regain control of their colony, Vietnam, communist or not, would have been much better for it. Even after the North Vietnamese took over the country, it didn't take long for them to realize that their communist dream was a bust and start edging towards capitalism.

Why does everyone keep calling Jane Fonda an idiot?

[nikimcbee]

Why does everyone keep calling Jane Fonda an idiot?

I think you are still under Barbarella's spell.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

On point 2, CCIP, I didn't make a comparison to the jihadists.

But others did.

Why does everyone keep calling Jane Fonda an idiot?

Even she admits the AA-gun photos were a stupid idea. I agree that her visit was a bad idea. I just don't agree that she should have been imprisoned for it, or suffered any official consequences.

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I think you are still under Barbarella's spell.

Who wouldn't be?

The first movie I remember seeing her in was The Tall Story, with Anthony Perkins and Ray Walston.