Hi char,

Quote:
iowan15: "And untold thousands of South Vietnamese (and Cambodians and Laotians) are dead because the US government DID 'take the advice of people like Jane Fonda' thirty years ago."

char: "This is dead wrong. We have had a thorough airing of Cambodia on GZ previously; the killing fields were an eventual result of our destabilizing the Sihanouk regime. The US killed most of the Vietnamese and Laotians by escalating its involvement and upping the firepower repeatedly. What were we doing there in the first place? If our guys couldn't beat their guys, that should have been that. Two million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans had to die because the "peaceniks" were not listened to, but Johnson and McNamara were. It's totally bogus to claim that Jane Fonda ordered the withdrawal of US forces anyway. Nixon did, and was not even a fan."


Of course Jane Fonda didn't order any withdrawal. She had no authority to do so. But she was anti-war and, eventually, the anti-war position of 'people like Jane Fonda' prevailed. Presumably, that saved the lives of many American soldiers who likely would have been killed had the US not pulled out. The South Vietnamese, on the other hand, didn't fare so well.

Quote:
iowan15: "Untold thousands of American troops who did come home from Vietnam were treated with disdain and contempt by 'people like Jane Fonda'."

char: "I question that charge. The right wing libel machine constantly alleges spitting incidents and the like, but I never saw any."


Question it to your heart's content. What you saw or didn't see is not the determining factor.

Quote:
char: "I and my fellow Vietnam era protestors recognized that those guys were sent there to do a job, and were not freelancing. It's the same in Iraq. It is not the fault of the troops that their leaders made extremely poor decisions."


Good for you. I'm happy to hear that you had "We Support the Troops' bumper stickers and t-shirts available at the rallies.

Quote:
iowan15: "American POWs languished in North Vietnamese prison camps while Ms. Fonda was giving her 'advice' that the North Vietnamese were not the monsters they were being made out to be and laughing it up with North Vietnamese anti-aircraft units."

char: "Fonda has apologized for her foolishness."


Good for her.

Quote:
char: "McNamara has apologized for his too."


And good for him. I don't see any good reason to take either of them seriously when it comes to foreign policy and/or military issues.

Quote:
char: "Fonda's mistakes did not kill anyone;"


I'm sure the familes of the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who perished at the hands of the North Vietnamese after the US withdrawal take great comfort in that thought.

Quote:
char: "McNamara's killed hundreds of thousands. (The North Vietnamese were hardly monsters. If they were, then what were we? It was, after all, their country we were bombing.)"


Fonda was clear that there as no mistreatment of POWs by the NV and all such claims were propoganda. Talk to John McCain about his captors.

Quote:
iowan15: "Jane Fonda squandered her right to be taken seriously a long time ago, though I see that she's still an icon of yours."

char: "Not really. Someone here on the right used her name in another lame attempt to smear her and the left, and I went with it to point out that her prescriptions were in every case better for US troops than those of your icons Nixon and Bush."


You don't say?

Quote:
char: "You guys never re-examine your prejudices concerning Fonda or "peaceniks", so a sober reassessment of what we advocate is beyond you and you revert to old stereotypes, true and not-so-true, rather than engage the central point."


What is there to 're-examine'? What is Jane Fonda saying today that is different from her 'advice' of 30 years ago? In what significant ways have her positions changed?

Quote:
char: "That is that the US military leadership (insofar as they are free to speak), the people of the US, the CIA, world opinion, the Iraqi people, and soon the US Congress are all on record as opposing this surge and in favor of beginning withdrawal from Iraq forthwith."


I have no idea what the Iraqi people want. As I've said elsewhere, I'd be in favor of having a referendum and vote by the Iraqis on the issue of continued US presence. If the Iraqis vote in favor of the US leaving, then I think we should begin a withdrawal from Iraq. And if the Congress was really serious about their opposition to the surge, they'd deny funding for it.

Quote:
char: "However, Bush and a dwindling corps of dead-enders is willing to kill a few hundred more US troops if it might present a slightly higher chance that they can be proven not so wrong about Iraq. Then these people have the gall to claim to be the ones who support the troops. It's ridiculous--always was--and is not at all honest or admirable."


Well.

Quote:
char: "It is you guys who spits on the troops in the way that counts: cheering on their death and dismemberment."


With respect, that's about the silliest bit of tripe I've ever seen you post. And that's no small feat! :)

Quote:
char: "You've rationalized this to yourselves somehow, even as the occupation has worn on and on and the invasion has been shown to have been a tragic error. That's fine for you, but people are dying over there. You could help stop that, but you don't, and you crab at those who are trying to stop it. It's just weird.


Then all that is necessary for your position to prevail is to convince your leaders in Congress to defund the war. No money, no troop surge in Iraq. The US Congress is now under the leadership of 'people like Jane Fonda'. Tell 'em to get to work, char. Defund this thing NOW. After all, that's what the American people want, that's what Jacques Chirac wants, that's what the CIA wants, right?

later, bud. iowan15