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Pastimes : POW/MIA...just another spit in their face! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Barney who wrote (108)	6/22/2000 11:22:00 PM
From: ManyMoose	Respond to of 111

I'm afraid this is an old story, but it's still true. Here's something more recent, followed by ABC's response to my email about the issue you mention: (I'm neither a POW nor a veteran, but by God both groups deserve our respect.) BQ's View ... With Radio America's Blanquita Cullum Fonda Can't Go Home Again, Unless It's To Hanoi ... June 22, 2000 ? Jane Fonda wants to go home again ... She was quoted in O, The Oprah Magazine, as saying her biggest regret was having that photo taken in 1972 with her on the anti-aircraft rocket-launcher in Hanoi ? She is quoted as saying, ?It was the most horrible thing I could have possibly done? ? She has regrets ? Sounds as if she has hopes of putting the Hanoi debacle behind her and returning to a normal life ... We?re wondering if Americans can forgive Jane Fonda for her actions during the Vietnam conflict ? We're wondering if Fonda will be able to go home again ... ? Jeff Jacoby provided some background on Fonda's trip to Hanoi in a recent article in The Boston Globe, and after reading it we were asking, was it just youthful indiscretion?? Was she just doing something dumb because she was a Hollywood starlet and a bimbo? ? And married to Tom Hayden? ? ... Well, first of all she was 34 years old ? And, yes, I kind of wonder if she was a bimbo, because she is reported to have said the church she most related to at the time was Jim Jones' People Temple ? That was before the mass suicide in Guyana ? This tells you where she comes from ? The church she related to most was the Jim Jones cult ? Supposedly for his sense of what life was all about ? ... Fonda was honored by the American Association of University Women for speaking out for Justice ? But they never really got into what she said on Radio Hanoi in 1972, when she denounced U.S. imperialism ? She had flown over to assist the North Vietnamese war effort ? The rocket-launcher that she so gleefully mounted was used to shoot down U.S. pilots ? She was providing aid and comfort to a dictatorship that was at war with the United States ? She was providing aid specifically to demoralize American prisoners of war ? ? POWs in Hanoi were tortured and forced to listen to Fonda?s speech ? She said in one Hanoi broadcast that she was speaking particularly to U.S. servicemen ? ?I don?t know what your officers tell you, but your weapons are illegal and the men who are ordering you to use these weapons are war criminals according to international law,? she was quoted as saying ? The quote continued, ?In the past in Germany and Japan, men who committed these kinds of war crimes were tried and executed? ? ? Fonda delivered these remarks in Hanoi as part of a propaganda tour that is rarely spoken of today, and I think it?s very interesting as I look back at this article by Jacoby ... Fonda did more than just applaud North Vietnam?s anti-aircraft weapons ... she climbed into the gunner?s seat, donned an enemy helmet and peered through the gunsight as if she were preparing to shoot down an American aircraft ? ... It was very upsetting knowing that an American celebrity was doing that kind of thing ? But that was not the worst of it ? POWs were tortured for refusing the meet with Fonda for propaganda photos ? A Navy Lt. Commander was hung by his broken arm from a hook in the ceiling until he agreed to take part ? A civilian POW was forced to kneel on a concrete floor with a heavy metal bar laid against his extended arms ? Every time his hands sagged he was whipped with a bamboo cane ? ? Later when the POWs came home and told what they had suffered in Hanoi, Fonda called them hypocrites and liars ? ... She did say once that she was sorry for the men who were in Vietnam ?whom I hurt,? but this was in 1988 when veteran?s protesting in New England were delaying the production of a movie she was making ? ? We talked with Mike M. McGrath, a retired Navy Captain from the U.S. Navy who is a former POW and president of Nampows, the organization of former prisoners of war in North Vietnam ? He said that when Fonda came to Hanoi in 1972, treatment of prisoners had improved ? They had basically stopped the torture and were fattening the prisoners up for eventual release ? ... But when Fonda showed up they needed the prisoners to go up in front of her for the propaganda photos ? They were able to coerce about five or six people to go, but they needed an extra person and tortured the Navy Lt. Commander who had the broken arm ? ... McGrath has a transcript of the speech Fonda gave on Radio Hanoi ? A speech that he listened to in his cell ? It basically followed the North Vietnamese propaganda line, that they were a peace-loving people and innocent victims of the Americans, who supposedly were bombing their dikes, churches and schools ? ... McGrath and his fellow prisoners were hurt that an American would turn against American fighting men who were serving and dying in Vietnam ? Fonda was encouraging Americans to desert and turn against their officers ? Turn against their commanders ? And cross over to what she called the People's Liberation Army ? ... Americans in general are just disappointed that any American would contribute to such propaganda during a time of war ? People keep sending me e-mail saying they can?t stand Jane Fonda, for what she did and what she represents ? ? I don?t think it?s enough for her to say that she is a reborn Christian ? I think she has to have some accountability, even under the law ? POWs were left behind who would never go home again ... ? Jane Fonda can?t go home again, unless it?s back to Hanoi ? ----------------------- See Mike McGrath's website at nampows.org. Listen to BQ on the Internet at radioamerica.org. Call BQ at 1-800-510-8255. E-mail her at bq@bqview.com. See previous commentaries from BQ. Contact Webmaster@bqview.com ¸ Copyright 2000, Cullum Communications. All rights reserved. ------------------------------------- Here's what ABC said last year after I wrote them a message about Hanoi Jane. Special not a 20/20 segment. This program will not re-air. Thank you for writing. Best wishes, ABC News 20/20 -----Original Message----- From: jdellen@alaska.net [mailto:jdellen@alaska.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 11:53 PM To: ABCTV.News.20.20.Online@abc.com Subject: On Air from = jdellen@alaska.net name = James D. Ellen subj = On Air Question = Regarding Barbara Walters' program on great women: Your inclusion of Jane Fonda among these great women is inexplicable and inexcusable. By her treasonous behavior in the Vietnam War, she killed many Americans, made many more suffer, and prolonged the war. Let Vietnam give her an award; perhaps she would deserve one from them. From Americans, she deserves only condemnation. If Barbara Walters wants to feature Fonda, it should be on a special devoted to the most treasonous and reviled persons of the 20th Century.