Replies

Dec. 31, 2002

Kissinger, Ivins and Indochina
Star-Telegram

Molly Ivins' Dec, 12 column, "Adding insult to injury," was the most outrageous yet. For her, any truth that isn't leftist is a lie.

Ivins recently appeared on A&E's Biography of the Year program, which honored President Bush. She said of the president, "There isn't much there." Coming from her, it was a compliment because it means that he isn't a communist.

Now she has called Henry Kissinger a war criminal. She added a dose of nonsense by tarring all Christians with Nazism. To Ivins I say: Adolf Hitler wasn't a Christian. To lump everything but the kitchen sink into a condemnation of Christianity is ludicrous.

Had we shut down North Vietnam, we wouldn't have this revisionist history that is going on. People like Jane Fonda's ex-husband, Tom Hayden, led protests against the war, and if ever there was a leftist, he was one. I'm sure that Ivins was or would have been in the same loony groups that protested the war, mostly to cover their own skins.

It's typical of a leftist to blame America and anyone else, but not the communists. The Khmer Rouge was a bloody communist organization, and to say that it was Kissinger's fault that it reaped a bloodbath in Cambodia/Laos is a typical communist lie.

Ivins is all over the map, and somebody should hold her accountable. No wonder history is distorted by the likes of her.

Thank heavens that George W. Bush rather than Ivins' buddy Ann Richards won the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race. "Not Much There" Bush hasn't lost since.

Isn't it time for Ivins to retire? Her credibility is worse than the description she tried to hang on Kissinger.

Alan D. Shaffer, Mansfield

Once again, the shrill voice of the far, far left is projected by columnist Molly Ivins.

As a Navy pilot, I sat on an aircraft carrier in the Tonkin Gulf, not allowed to fly because one of Ivins' heroes, Jane Fonda, was cruising around North Vietnam, betraying the POWs who put their faith in her to pass notification home to their loved ones that they were still alive.

Ivins' tirade against Henry Kissinger was another left-wing smoke screen, a la James Carville. You all know how that works. Say something loudly and long enough, and it magically becomes fact.

The left-wing Democrats don't want you to remember that Vietnam was the Democrats' war. First John F. Kennedy, then Lyndon B. Johnson.

Johnson and his fellow war criminal, Robert McNamara, were the ones who failed to rescue a dear friend of mine from the South China Sea after he was shot down by the Red Chinese in international waters while on an unarmed ferry flight.

The reason? Because it was too "politically sensitive."

Those two men, thousands of miles away, left Lt. Joe Dunn to die in the water at the hands of the Chinese. This Texas boy will wear Joe's bracelet until the day I die because that Boston Irishman was one of the finest men I ever knew.

All the wasted lives in Vietnam because of the cowardice of those two men is swept under the carpet of history in the "war we lost." In truth, it was the war we were not allowed to win.

Ivins' attempt to blame Kissinger for the deaths of all those Asians who fell to the communists under "the domino theory" was pathetic.

If Kissinger is guilty, I would have no problem in giving him up if he is properly charged. I do object to communist kangaroo courts that would love to murder those who have successfully opposed them.

It's time to fish or cut bait, Molly. If you can prove something, have at it. If you are just desperate to find something to feed your socialist readers, then stand by for people to call you out.

Quoting books by left-wing writers as fact won't get you anywhere in today's world. The public is getting smarter. They demand responsible reporting, not left-wing dogma.

James Wellman, Granbury