Posted on 10/30/2001 10:05:08 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub
"AID AND COMFORT":
JANE FONDA IN NORTH VIETNAM McFarland & Co. is now accepting pre-publication orders for
"Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.
Please visit www.hanoijane.net to view a flyer containing information about the book, a pre-publication order form, and ordering information. I encourage those of you who want this book to succeed to promptly forward this notice to your email lists, and to ask the recipients to promptly forward it to others, and so on down the line. Also, feel free to print, copy, and distribute the flyer/order form, and ask libraries to purchase "Aid and Comfort." I cannot stress enough the importance of pre-publication orders. For one thing, they will affect the quantity of the book's first printing. For another, pre-publication orders may influence the publisher's promotional and related efforts on behalf of the book. Thus, it will be very helpful if those of you who intend to purchase "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam order it now, and encourage others to do so. Thanks. HANK AND ERIKA HOLZER
A member of the New York Bar and a First Amendment Fellow of the National Press Club, Henry Mark Holzer is professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School and co-author of “AID AND COMFORT”: JANE FONDA IN NORTH VIET NAM. Erika Holzer, author most recently of EYE FOR AN EYE and co-author of “AID AND COMFORT”, is a lawyer, novelist, and essayist. They may be contacted at Hankholzer@aol.com.
Jane Fonda is at it again.
Nearly thirty years ago, she went to North Viet Nam and aided a Communist anti-American propaganda campaign. (See www.hanoijane.net) Now, in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, she is once again undermining the United States — this time, by blurring a crucially important distinction.
On September 20th, Fonda reportedly told an Atlanta radio station that Americans should “try to understand the underlying causes” of the terrorist attacks which, in her view, must “be dealt with as a crime. And when there’s a crime, you don’t bomb a city or a country — you use very, very clever intelligence, undercover-type operations to get the criminals and punish them. . . .” It would be a mistake, she opined, for America to retaliate militarily.
Put aside that Fonda characterized American response as “saber rattling” and “calls for vengeance.” Put aside her implication that the “underlying causes” of the attacks were poverty and hunger rather than hatred for Western values and culture. Put aside that Fonda knows nothing about intelligence operations. What Fonda is saying is that the terrorists are not soldiers to be attacked militarily, but mere criminals.
There is a profoundly important distinction to be made between an act of war and the commission of a criminal act. Indeed, that Fonda blurred this distinction is far less important than why she did.
President Bush has consistently characterized the terrorism as an act of war against the United States. By any customary definition of “war,” he is correct. War is armed military combat, regardless of whether the combatants have issued an official declaration (which, incidentally, the terrorists have done). Let Fonda tell the dead, the missing, the wounded veterans from Korea, that they were not at war with the North Koreans and Chinese Communists. Let her tell the mourners at the Viet Nam Memorial Wall that their loved ones were not at war with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. And let her tell the dead beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center that they were not killed in a radical Islamic “holy war.”
Declared or not, a war exists when armed belligerents mount an attack — as in killing stewardesses and pilots, hijacking aircraft, and crashing them into buildings filled with thousands of people.
A “crime” is very different. It is a violation of domestic law punishable by fine and/or imprisonment and sometimes death. It is prosecuted in court, and the proceedings are hedged with constitutional and other safeguards — notably, due process of law, non-self incrimination, search warrants supported by probable cause, etc.
It is this important distinction between a state of war and the commission of a crime that is being blurred by Fonda and likeminded Leftists. If the terrorist killings are not treated as acts of war but rather as the commission of mere domestic crimes, the terrorists would be entitled to the safeguards ensured by our criminal justice system — with the outcome as uncertain as O. J. Simpson’s trial for the brutal murder of two people. On the other hand, if the attacks on American soil are considered acts of war, military response, unhampered by the safeguards afforded criminals, is necessary and justified.
Based on this war/crime dichotomy, the radical Islamic terrorists would stand a far better chance in our criminal justice system than on the receiving end of the military’s smart bombs and special forces operations. That is what Fonda and people of her ilk want: an escape hatch for the terrorists. And that is why, when she equates the killing of thousands of Americans by the soldiers of radical Islam with the domestic crime of murder, and when she rails against a military response to an act of war waged against the United States of America, Jane Fonda stands exposed as being soft on terrorists.
"This is Jane Fonda. During my two week visit in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, I've had the opportunity to visit a great many places and speak to a large number of people from all walks of life--workers, peasants, students, artists and dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls, members of the women's union, writers.
I visited the (Dam Xuac) agricultural coop, where the silk worms are also raised and thread is made. I visited a textile factory, a kindergarten in Hanoi. The beautiful Temple of Literature was where I saw traditional dances and heard songs of resistance. I also saw unforgettable ballet about the guerrillas training bees in the south to attack enemy soldiers. The bees were danced by women, and they did their job well.
In the shadow of the Temple of Literature I saw Vietnamese actors and actresses perform the second act of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, and this was very moving to me--the fact that artists here are translating and performing American plays while US imperialists are bombing their country.
I cherish the memory of the blushing militia girls on the roof of their factory, encouraging one of their sisters as she sang a song praising the blue sky of Vietnam--these women, who are so gentle and poetic, whose voices are so beautiful, but who, when American planes are bombing their city, become such good fighters.
I cherish the way a farmer evacuated from Hanoi, without hesitation, offered me, an American, their best individual bomb shelter while US bombs fell near by. The daughter and I, in fact, shared the shelter wrapped in each others arms, cheek against cheek. It was on the road back from Nam Dinh, where I had witnessed the systematic destruction of civilian targets-schools, hospitals, pagodas, the factories, houses, and the dike system.
As I left the United States two weeks ago, Nixon was again telling the American people that he was winding down the war, but in the rubble-strewn streets of Nam Dinh, his words echoed with sinister (words indistinct) of a true killer. And like the young Vietnamese woman I held in my arms clinging to me tightly--and I pressed my cheek against hers--I thought, this is a war against Vietnam perhaps, but the tragedy is America's.
One thing that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I've been in this country is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; he'll never be able to turn Vietnam, north and south, into a neo-colony of the United States by bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go into the countryside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb that is dropped only strengthens their determination to resist.
I've spoken to many peasants who talked about the days when their parents had to sell themselves to landlords as virtually slaves, when there were very few schools and much illiteracy, inadequate medical care, when they were not masters of their own lives.
But now, despite the bombs, despite the crimes being created--being committed against them by Richard Nixon, these people own their own land, build their own schools--the children learning, literacy--illiteracy is being wiped out, there is no more prostitution as there was during the time when this was a French colony. In other words, the people have taken power into their own hands, and they are controlling their own lives.
And after 4,000 years of struggling against nature and foreign invaders--and the last 25 years, prior to the revolution, of struggling against French colonialism--I don't think that the people of Vietnam are about to compromise in any way, shape or form about the freedom and independence of their country, and I think Richard Nixon would do well to read Vietnamese history, particularly their poetry, and particularly the poetry written by Ho Chi Minh."
Un - freaking - believable!
SR
At the end of her little parade, she handed the little pile of notes to a NVA general standing at the end of the line...several of the POWs were beatin' and tortured to death because of it, others were so badly beat they are crippled today.
This woman discraces America and American fighting men. She should be shot by firing squad in town square.
JMHO
SR
In other cases, leftists here in the states ran checks for the Vietnamese on information that had been extracted from prisoners. they would let the captors know if the information was false.
SR
Hanoi Jane is a TRAITOR to America. She is still and always will be the Hanoi Jane that she was during the Vietnam war.
No one should forgive her ever, and IF there was true justice in this world she would be dealt with as any traitor to America should be. Hard ,fast and swift!!!!!!!
A few monts ago on A&E there did a biography of Gregory Peck. He was asked about his friendship with Jane Fonda and how did he feel aout her activities during the Vietnam War.
His reply was that he agreed with her completely!
Hanoi Jane and anyone agreeing with her is no different then she is. Total communist and traitor !
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