A little tuck here and an realignment there and good as new. Nips might not be attached to the mammary glands but I doubt she is planning to nurse.
Memories of Hanoi Jane
- Thread starter ironsides
- Start date
Out of curiosity, how would you know whether or not she is annoying? I doubt you talking from previous experience so what is it? Idle speculation?
Cliffy, I would never discredit Ho Chi Minh, in fact I think he was a great man even during the war. We should have taken his letters more seriously and there may not have been a war. But as things turned out, he was a great adversary.
As for supporting a brutal puppet government, we had to fight fire with fire in those days, the VC and N. Vietnamese were no angels and for the most part taught us how to fight more effectively there.
I also respected men like Muhammad Ali who stayed and fought for what they believed in here at home. What I never respected were those who ran to other countries to avoid the draft, saying they were opposed to what we were doing in Vietnam, most of them were just cowards.
Based on her interviews and articles that have been published, she strikes me as a very annoying person.
It's possible that in real life she isn't, but I wouldn't waste any effort trying to find out, when I know real people who aren't annoying.
I fail to see how avoiding getting killed in war you don't support is cowardice. I seems real smart to me. I know quite a few and they are for the most part very socially conscious and don't mind pitching in when needed. But then most decided to stay here even after Carter offered them amnesty. Most would probably fight to protect their country from invasion.
I support my country, I never pretended to know how to make policy. In 1955 Diem against U.S. advise got rid of political parties. Since Diem was anti-communist and considering that the "Cold War" was in full swing, we supported his government. At the time, one could not even think of Vietnam becoming totally communist. Plus 11 other countries in the area also did not want that to happen. The U.S. was not alone.
I love this piece of real estate I live on too and I have always been willing to fight off invaders but I would never go to some foreign country to kill their people because our government said to. Besides, I could do more damage hitting and running in the bush than in Hummer.
It is too bad that your government had to lie to you to get you to go to Vietnam. Some people eventually saw through the BS and get the hell out of the country, not out of cowardice, but because they could not support a government that would lie to them consistently.
It is too bad that your government had to lie to you to get you to go to Vietnam. Some people eventually saw through the BS and get the hell out of the country, not out of cowardice, but because they could not support a government that would lie to them consistently.
Why we got involved in Vietnam. It was the French again. 
Just a good article.
After WWII and until 1955, France fought hard to regain their former territories in the region, but with a poorly organized army and little determination among the troops, their efforts soon collapsed. The French were finally defeated at Dien Bien Phu on the 8th of May 1954 by the communist general Vo Nguyen Giap. The French troops withdrew, leaving a buffer zone separating the North and South and set up elections in order to form a government in the South. The communist regime set up its headquarters in Hanoi under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Many North Vietnamese left the country and fled south where the self-proclaimed president, Ngo Dinh Diem had formed the Republic of Vietnam.
Between 1955 and 1960, the North Vietnamese with the assistance of the southern communist Vietcong, tried to take over the government in South Vietnam, and in November 1963 President Diem was overthrown and executed. The following year, the North Vietnamese began a massive drive to conquer the whole country aided by China and Russia.
Fearing a communist takeover of the entire region, the United States grew more and more wary of the progress of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong. Communism had become the evil menace in the United States and with expansion of Soviet rule into Eastern Europe, Korea and Cuba, the Americans were bent on stopping communism from spreading any further.
With the cold war at its height, the US leaders were worried that an attack on North Vietnam by the US would create tensions with the Chinese and Russians that would, in turn, lead to a larger conflict and possibly WW III. This created a difficult situation for the US and would eventually lead to many internal conflicts, which ultimately prevented the US from forming a firm policy for the region. The US was also faced with a number of cultural differences between the two countries, and what was considered corrupt by the US government was considered legitimate by South Vietnamese standards. It was difficult for the US to portray South Vietnam as a hard working, hard fighting democracy; corruption was widespread among officials and the armed forces. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was disorganized due to the low morale of it's leaders and their singular interest in personal gain. Therefore the US had a great deal of difficulty in holding the army together in South Vietnam and saw only one solution, that was to start taking care of things for themselves. By 1950 the US began sending their first troops, firstly in an advisory role, which slowly escalated into a full blown commitment.
The Vietnam War
Just a good article.
After WWII and until 1955, France fought hard to regain their former territories in the region, but with a poorly organized army and little determination among the troops, their efforts soon collapsed. The French were finally defeated at Dien Bien Phu on the 8th of May 1954 by the communist general Vo Nguyen Giap. The French troops withdrew, leaving a buffer zone separating the North and South and set up elections in order to form a government in the South. The communist regime set up its headquarters in Hanoi under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Many North Vietnamese left the country and fled south where the self-proclaimed president, Ngo Dinh Diem had formed the Republic of Vietnam.
Between 1955 and 1960, the North Vietnamese with the assistance of the southern communist Vietcong, tried to take over the government in South Vietnam, and in November 1963 President Diem was overthrown and executed. The following year, the North Vietnamese began a massive drive to conquer the whole country aided by China and Russia.
Fearing a communist takeover of the entire region, the United States grew more and more wary of the progress of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong. Communism had become the evil menace in the United States and with expansion of Soviet rule into Eastern Europe, Korea and Cuba, the Americans were bent on stopping communism from spreading any further.
With the cold war at its height, the US leaders were worried that an attack on North Vietnam by the US would create tensions with the Chinese and Russians that would, in turn, lead to a larger conflict and possibly WW III. This created a difficult situation for the US and would eventually lead to many internal conflicts, which ultimately prevented the US from forming a firm policy for the region. The US was also faced with a number of cultural differences between the two countries, and what was considered corrupt by the US government was considered legitimate by South Vietnamese standards. It was difficult for the US to portray South Vietnam as a hard working, hard fighting democracy; corruption was widespread among officials and the armed forces. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was disorganized due to the low morale of it's leaders and their singular interest in personal gain. Therefore the US had a great deal of difficulty in holding the army together in South Vietnam and saw only one solution, that was to start taking care of things for themselves. By 1950 the US began sending their first troops, firstly in an advisory role, which slowly escalated into a full blown commitment.
The Vietnam War
Juan, that is simply not true.
Americans were well aware of the casualties of the war. The Tet Offensive, in which the USA destroyed the Viet Cong and gave the North a huge military set-back was also the turning point...........it was the cause of rising casualty figures, well reported in the US media. It was just that which made LBJ announce his refusal to run for a second full term, and it was the catalyst for a growing anti-war movement.
I don't really see where a bunch of Americans surprised at choreographed multiple actions was a real set-back for Ho. Seems to me Tet was the wake-up. The US realized the real millstone around its neck wasn't the North
Jane is not worth this debate, nor is prolonging the war. It is over and the U.S. and Vietnam are now military allies. So time to pick something else.
Much more than Jane 'Hanoi' Fonda, the responsibility of poisoning the mind of the American public rests on the shoulders of the male, mustachioed, American variety of Tokyo Rose, Walter Cronkite.
He is the REAL criminal, who - knowing that the gullible believed that what he said was gospel - stubbed his country in the back, spreading his garbage on national TV.
Walter Cronkite was the typical worth of a cronkite as ably demonstrated in a Bugs Bunny cartoon: a nothing and a nobody.
He is the REAL criminal, who - knowing that the gullible believed that what he said was gospel - stubbed his country in the back, spreading his garbage on national TV.
Walter Cronkite was the typical worth of a cronkite as ably demonstrated in a Bugs Bunny cartoon: a nothing and a nobody.
Those old three-networks-full-of-truth days must have really irked "the Establishment" for the likes of the most trusted man in America to become so reviled by some of them.
...and that's the way it was.
...and that's the way it was.
YJ what have you been reading? Jane Fonda was anything but misguided. She knew what she was talking about
and she wasn't afraid to tell everyone what she knew. Compared with all the lies coming from the American
government, what Jane said was a breath of fresh air.
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.
“American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression”, announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.
That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: “President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and ‘certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam’ after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.”
But there was no “second attack” by North Vietnam — no “renewed attacks against American destroyers.” By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media…leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.
The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an “unprovoked attack” against a U.S. destroyer on “routine patrol” in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 — and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a “deliberate attack” on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.
The truth was very different.
Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers — in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force.
“The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam…had taken place,” writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were “part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964.”
On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf — a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam.
But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to “retaliate” for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.
Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to “freak weather effects,” “almost total darkness” and an “overeager sonarman” who “was hearing ship’s own propeller beat.”
One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot’s vice presidential candidate. “I had the best seat in the house to watch that event,” recalled Stockdale a few years ago, “and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets — there were no PT boats there…. There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.”
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.”
But Johnson’s deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, “went to the American people last night with the somber facts.” The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to “face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities.”
An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media “described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat’ — when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North.”
Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media’s “almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information” — as well as “reluctance to question official pronouncements on ‘national security issues.’”
Daniel Hallin’s classic book The “Uncensored War” observes that journalists had “a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn’t used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats.”
What’s more, “It was generally known…that `covert’ operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time.”
In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution — the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam — sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only “no” votes.) The resolution authorized the president “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
The rest is tragic history.
Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget “our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.”
Schanberg blamed not only the press but also “the apparent amnesia of the wider American public.”
And he added: “We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”
Additional External Links Pertaining to the Gulf of Tonkin Events:
“Over 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam-era transcripts released this week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee highlight the fact that several Senators knew that the White House and the Pentagon had deceived the American people over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.”
The lies have never stopped coming. Only difference is that the media has been bought out and are not questioning the BS. We have been lied to about everything the government has done since and that includes the Canadian government which is a bought and paid for subsidiary of the US.