Sean Penn Enlightens Us
Sean Penn appeared on Larry King last night and had a few things to say! Here is the transcript of the show.
KING: Getting any better? The military now controls itself.
PENN: No. It’s — I think — to me the situation is pretty simple. I mean, the devastation of the situation is pretty simple. Right now, you know, what these party clowns like Don Rumsfeld could be described as, as far as I’m concerned, except for the enormous damage he’s done this country and mankind — and our president — and saw that they’re getting out there and they’re beating this drum, to drown out, as they did in 2002, to drown out other — in that case it was Enron. Now we have another situation, so this war on terror, boom, boom, boom. Drown out the reality of what’s really happening.
I think the American people have a choice. In my idea, it’s about an eight to 10-year proposition of Iraqis and Americans and others dying in Iraq. The same amount will be dead of Iraqis, innocent, in 10 years without the Americans as they will with the Americans there. We’ll just have more Americans dead.
So shamefully, we have to — it’s what Nixon called peace with honor, to get out of Vietnam.
I think that “cut and run” is something that’s meant to make people feel like cowards if they do it. Well, we did make a mistake. It is time to pull our troops out. It’s time to rebuild our military because we’ve got a bad world and they’ve inflamed terrorism around the world. I think that’s very clear to most people.
So what’s happened there is a civil war that’s going to get worse with us or without us. It’s time for us to strengthen ourselves and to try to help them through diplomacy and with money.
KING: But when the president says we should support emerging democracies, because democracy is better for the world, is that — isn’t he right?
PENN: I think he’s devastated our democracy. I think you have to start with our democracy. He’s made us divided. I have a lot of very good friends who are Republicans, who are right-wing Republicans. And when you are with people and you talk to people as people, and not as Republicans and Democrats, you find that’s why his numbers are down. Because people have common sense. They’re going to vote in a few months, and they’re going to say, well, are we going to be suckers again? Are we going to be suckers to partisan policy and politics and all of that stuff?
By the way, no Democrat that doesn’t have a plan to get our troops out of Iraq should be voted for. Not one of them. You know, there’s got to be some courage expressed, and that’s what I’m worried about is we’re not going to have good choices.
He was just warming up:
Back to Iraq. Would you leave? Just leave?
PENN: Well, I think there are three Iraqs. Or there are four Iraqs. And I think that there is something — you know, I’m not a military strategist, but that puts me on par with our military strategists. So I think that you have Kurdistan. We have an obligation to the Kurds there. You’ve got Sunnis and Shiites, who once got along. You have Iran. Iran is definitely beating us, and we’re very, very stupidly taking the bait, or exploiting the opportunity to take the bait. I never know how diabolical to see these people — they’re either diabolical or stupid, these people being our government.
But I think that there are probably some very legitimate notions about maintaining some kind of military support for the Kurds during a time of stabilization that will have to happen within that country. But we — where once upon a time, there were no al Qaeda or other foreign fighters in Iraq, we have now certainly brought a terrible, terrible, devastating human situation that it can’t be solved military. KING: What do you mean …
PENN: I think, yes, we should definitely start getting our kids out and saving their lives.
KING: What do you mean by taking the bait in Iran? What bait are we taking? Trying to get the U.N. to sanction them?
PENN: Well, sanctions is a great …
KING: Trying to prevent a nation that might be a great problem from having nuclear bombs.
PENN: I was just in Havana this last Christmas and I sat with Fidel Castro for an hour and a half. And I have, let me say, very mixed feeling about Fidel Castro, but not so mixed about his politics, which I largely reject because of the way that he functions.
However, as a believer, I have mixed feelings in his belief in what he does. There are many things to admire. It is very clear that he believes that he is still standing in Cuba because of our sanctions, because of what is in effect in Cuba, an embargo, because of the fact that French ships, or whoever wants to trade with Cuba, if they dock in Cuba they can’t use that trip to then come to port in the United States, it’s six months more.
Sanctions have only ever done two things. They have helped leaderships use the United States as a scapegoat, and I say the United States, not the U.N. and they’ve been able — and they’ve devastated the people of those countries.
KING: Except they worked in South Africa.
PENN: The sanctions were part of what worked in South Africa. I think also you had a situation in South Africa where the United States policy had a humanitarian vested interest. That’s rare.
September 15, 2006 - 08:02 AM on September 15th, 2006
Sean Penn is traitor he went over to iraq and rubbed elbows with a war crinimals and frankly we should boycott his crappy movies i mean hit them where it hurts the most right in their bank account:mad:
September 15, 2006 - 08:59 AM on September 15th, 2006
Sean Penn is an idiot. He looks like he’s smoked way too much pot in his life and that does degrade brain function. As he put it, he’s no military stategist. He needs to sit down and shut up and let the people who don’t make their living residing in a fantasy world do their jobs. Same thing goes for the vast majority of the actors in Hollywood. Except for Fred Grandy (Gopher from Love Boat), Marcia Cross (Bree from Desperate Housewives), and Fred Thompson (County Prosecutor from Law and Order) I don’t know of any of them that have college degrees to speak of. Of those three, Fred Thompson is the best educated being an attorney before going into acting and serving as a Senator from Tennessee since. Of all the actors in Hollywood, I respect his opinion above all others.
While I’m certain that there are professors out there who disagree with everything that the Conservatives do, I have little respect for people who insulate themselves from the real world by hiding in academia. While the idiot professor who claims that the Government blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has the right to make such idiotic, outlandish claims, he should be FORCED to support his claims with the same evidenciary arguments that he had to make to recieve his Doctorate. If he is unable to do so, he should be told to sit down and shut up, or lose his job. His idiotic comments on nationally syndicated shows like Sean Hannity is bringing discredit to his employer. Does anyone honestly think that were he not a professor, he’d have kept his job had he used his position to lend credibility to such an outrageous claim? I can tell you that most real world employers would not tolerate having an employee make such claims while using their name to bolster his credibility. He’d have been called on the carpet the first time, and fired the second time it happened. It would’ve been a VERY one sided discussion with his boss. Instead he’s a university professor that it takes an act of God to fire no matter what his actions as long as he didn’t lie on his resume or plagiarize his thesis.
September 15, 2006 - 09:05 AM on September 15th, 2006
What I found amusing about his pontificating was the fact that he said Bush divided the country yet Penn used this terminology:what these party clowns like Don Rumsfeld and you know, I’m not a military strategist, but that puts me on par with our military strategists.