Thursday, December 15, 2005
Jihad Jane refights the last war
"Hanoi Jane" Fonda is claiming that ever since Vietnam, U.S. troops have been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy.
"Starting with the Vietnam War we began training soldiers differently," the anti-American actress says in an email to the Washington Post.
Fonda claims she learned of the policy switch in "secret meetings" she had with military psychologists "who were really worried about what was happening to our combat personnel."
One doctor, she insists, told her U.S. troops had been deliberately trained to be "killing machines."
Link.
It pains me to say it, because the TigerHawk Mom was a prep school friend of Jane, but Mom, I have to do it anyway: Jane Fonda really is a stupid bi---, er broad.
Yes, we have changed military training since Vietnam. By all accounts -- I am obviously no expert -- some of those changes have been designed to overcome a young soldier's natural tendency to freeze up and fail to pull the trigger when trigger pullin' is called for. That better training saves the lives of our soldiers. But, no, U.S. troops have in no way, shape or form "been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy." Whether one thinks that 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the beginning of the war, or 100,000 (recognizing that these casualty estimates include huge percentages that died in attacks by terrorists against civilians or in the crossfire after un-uniformed insurgents used civilians as a shield), far fewer civilians have died in this war than in any comparable fight in history. Click here for estimates of civilian casualties in major 20th century conflicts. The average estimate for South Vietnam alone is 1,500,000. (The title of my undergraduate thesis, written more than 20 years ago, was The Possibilities for Clean Counterinsurgency. Suffice it to say that from the perspective of 1983 they were few. Operation Iraqi Freedom -- which did not begin as a counterinsurgency -- has morphed into the cleanest counterinsurgency ever fought by an occupying power.)
Jihad Jane not only does not know what she is talking about, but she is deliberately ignoring evidence that substantially contradicts her assertion. She is not a principled critic of military training or doctrine, but is distorting the facts to make a political point that dishonors our soldiers and undermines our foreign policy. Since there is no chance she will be ashamed, she should be condemned.
Michelle Malkin, of course, has a round-up here.
1 Comments:
By 
John F. Opie, at
Thu Dec 15, 08:28:00 AM:
Hi -
Long-time lurker, first time poster.
Hanoi Jane is a product of a Culture of Deception. She doesn't care whether what she says is true or not, or even sensible, since it all serves a higher purpose. And she's not the only one.
//*****Shameless plug:
For more on this, take a look at:
http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com
where you'll see at least three posts on the Culture of Deception. It's got it's roots in Marxism and Hollywood, and is indicative of both the MSM and the Democratic Party.
//****End shameless plug
Best regards,
John
