Jane Fonda is now "Jihad" Jane

Please check out my op-ed piece in today's Orlando Sentinel: "Hanoi Jane" becomes "Jihad Jane". If you don't receive the paper, the article can be read at www.orlandosentinel.com under the "Opinion" tab. If it is no longer available at that address, the article is re-printed below:

"Hanoi Jane" Becomes "Jihad Jane"
Chuck Grist
Special to the Sentinel
February 1, 2007

When I was a young teenager, the boys loved the sexy Jane Fonda in “Barbarella”. After I became an American soldier and a Vietnam veteran, she was “Hanoi Jane” to all of us. We were disgusted when she became a revolutionary and a communist sympathizer who sat on North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns and gave aid and comfort to our enemy.

Now Hanoi Jane has become “Jihad Jane” and she has decided that the terrorists of the world who cut off people’s heads and blow themselves up to kill innocent men, women and children are not as bad as the Americans who have liberated tens of millions of people since September 11th. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard her criticize the terrorists of the world.

When a Fox News reporter asked her, "What do you think about what happened to the 3 million Vietnamese and Cambodians who died after the U.S. troops left Vietnam?" Fonda replied, "It's too bad that we caused it to happen by going in there in the first place."

By blaming the United States for the millions of post-war murders in Southeast Asia, she proved to the world that she has never changed her radical philosophy. The killings after that war were the result of purges by her communist friends in Vietnam and by the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Obviously, the apologies she made in the past for her actions during the Vietnam War were only because of book and video deals or to promote a movie.

Fortunately, the average American is too smart to believe that Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn or Tim Robbins are anything more than struggling celebrities who would do almost anything to get their mugs plastered on television. When Robbins was unable to give an intelligent answer to a question, he suggested that the reporter enlist in the military.

These so-called “movie stars” have the depth of a saucer of milk. They are shallow individuals who don’t understand the scope of the threat facing the world. To blame the vast majority of deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan on the United States is to admit they don’t watch the news. Our soldiers are killing insurgents and jihadists; the bad guys are the ones killing innocent civilians on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul with their improvised explosive devices, car bombs and suicide vests.

While there have been mistakes and tactical errors in waging the war on terror, if Osama bin Laden says the third world war is raging in Iraq, I believe him. We can’t pretend that our enemy has not made that country the front line in the war on terror.

No matter how “famous” the Fondas and the Penns may be, even they cannot ignore the tsunami of blood sweeping across the world in the form of Islamic fundamentalism. This evil is being promoted and inspired by various entities, but the most successful has been Iran. Now that Tehran says it wants to increase its military and economic support for Iraq, we only have to look at Lebanon to see what could follow. The Iranian-supported terrorists of Hezbollah have no intention of letting a secular and democratic Lebanese

government survive and they are the model for fundamentalists in Iraq like Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Sadr is also supported by Iran and he is part of the current political process only because it suits his purposes for the moment.

As a veteran of Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom, I am waiting for the “celebrities” like Jane Fonda to make their trips to Iraq and Afghanistan for photo opportunities with the insurgent leaders. I can already picture Fonda holding an AK47 and wearing a suicide vest as she becomes cozy with the terrorists.

After “Jihad Jane” and her Hollywood pals sit on Haifa Street sipping tea with the insurgents, I hope they are permitted to leave with their heads.


NOTE: SFC Chuck Grist is preparing to mobilize for the third time since September 11th. He can be contacted at TheRangerCop@aol.com or through his on-going blog at www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com.

Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel


I am supposed to be on active duty as of today; I'm still waiting on the written orders. Well, the Army is a little busy right now....

SFC Chuck Grist