Jane Fonda: This Woman Crossed the Veterans Line

In August she broadcast at least 10 speaches to US service personal stationed in South East Asia via Radio Hanoi spewing rhetoric about wiping out illiteracy and prostitution in Veitnam and calling them war criminals. She coments on American plays being performed at the Temple Of Literature in North Vietnam. Did she even wonder at any time that the North Vietnamese might have staged that? She wants Nixon to read the poetry of Ho Chi Minh. While American soldiers were fighting and dying in the Vietnam War, this is how Jane was using her money and influence. Upon her return she tells the world press that the American POWs were being well treated and not tortured.
Still not enough.

As the American POWs returned home in 1973, they spoke out about the inhumane treatment and torture they had suffered as prisoners of war. Their stories directly contradicted Janes earlier statements of 1972. She told The New York Times "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." "I think that one of the only ways that we are going to redeem ourselves as a country for what we have done there is not to hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars … History will judge them severely." Still not enough?

In 1975, Jane went to Moscow, thanking them "for sending assistance which the Soviet people are sending to Vietnam" then she traveled back to North Vietnam with her son Troy for a celebration in her honor for her help during the war. During the celebration her son was christened after a Viet Cong martyr Nguyen Van Troi who tried to assassinate Robert Macnimara with a roadside bomb near Saigon in 1963.
Jane, Jane, Jane.

She did eventualy apologize to the the veterans – 16 years later. But behind the scenes, Jane was filming "Stanley and Iris" on location in a number of New England towns. The production efforts on the movie were being severely disrupted by protesting Vietnam veterans and thus causing serious problems in the making of the film. By the timing of the apology and by the primary reference to the New England veterans, was this a truly heart-felt apology or just another acting scene from the film to help the production efforts?
I find it interesting that not only was this apology delivered sixteen years after the fact, but it has not been offered again since .
After her heroes, the North Vietnamese communists, took over South Vietnam, they systematically murdered 80,000 South Vietnamese "political" prisoners.

Good job, Jane.
Jane Fonda was born on December 21, 1937. She was 34 years old when she made her infamous trip to North Vietnam and was in her 30’s when she participated in anti-war demonstrations and rallies. During this same time period a large number of young American soldiers, who had not yet reached their 21st birthday, were fighting the war in Vietnam and were held accountable for all of their actions. These same young soldiers were, upon their return to the United States, still not of legal age to vote or buy alcoholic beverages. Jane Fonda was an adult when she made these conscious decisions and actions, and as such, she is responsible and should be held accountable