Fair Play To Sean Penn

bertiebowl

I'm sure all of you have seen pictures/reports of the Hollywood Actor/director and former Mrs Madonna Sean Penn off on a research trip to Baghdad in Iraq.

Well all I can say is fair play to Sean Penn for having the bravery to risk his reputation/career to go out to Iraq and generate publicity for his anti-war stance. Doing that kind of thing isn't terribly popular in some quarters of America.

It also set me thinking that although President GW Butthead may be an idiot, there are still plenty of intelligent thoughtful Americans around the world, and to draw an anology we also have elected our idiot leader Bertrand Aherne......

lili

to tell the true, i'm really worry about the way USA is getting bad, actually the fondamental bases of the american's constitution are scorned.

Sand

Really? Maybe he should allow the UN weapons inspections teams to tag along with him seeing as hes not going to be carefully propagandized by the upright and honest Iraqi....i hestitate to use the term bloodthirsty torturing tyrannical dictator as our Iraqi hosts are sensitive to criticism....lets us say Great Leader instead - Im sure Penn will be much braver than I when chatting with his hosts however so we can count on him to get the whole truth.

dathi1

i hestitate to use the term bloodthirsty torturing tyrannical dictator as our Iraqi hosts are sensitive to criticism....

yeah...I wonder what bastards armed him in the first place?
and.....I wonder will korea's 4 million troops fight better than the Iraqis....and I wonder when inspections will begin in Korea....and I wonder if British Petroleum will get a good chunk post sadam...straw looks like hes on to a good thing.

hallelujajordan

Originally posted by Sand
i hestitate to use the term bloodthirsty torturing tyrannical dictator as our Iraqi hosts are sensitive to criticism....

Careful, You're starting to sound like the right honorable President Bush . . . and he is a good man isn't he !! Trying to help all those downtrodden Iraqi's . . . . nothing to do with oil is it ??

growler

"there are still plenty of intelligent thoughtful Americans around the world"

unfortunately that's at the heart of the problem, most americans never leave the US (something like 95% of don't) and the ones who do are the best and the brightest, and the smart ones know this war is all about oil and has nothing to do with terrorism, burkas or human rights for the average iraqi sod.

Not entirely sure about the motivation of mr. penn either, if one was to be very cynical you could say that he's getting lots of publicity out of this also.... wonder how well it's been covered in the "free" american press ?

dave

lili

in fact, i'm not sure sean penn will get good publicity with this affair, seems the opposite.
anyway, someone famous there, had to tell what's really going on with the american intervention.
terrosrism is a benediction for some countries like USA, israel, russia, they have now the possibility to "clean" coveted places under what they call 'war against terrorism'.

BattleBoar

Hello again

Just curious of 2 things:

growler: What is your source that 95% of americans never leave the country?

lili: Where are you from?

lili

i am from france battleboar and i must admit if i was a US citizen and if my only source of informations was some US medias, i would feel threated.
as said sean penn, some US medias have a disgusting way to glorifie war.

Borzoi

Originally posted by lili
if my only source of informations was some US medias, i would feel threated..

It is a very worrying fact the low level of non-american news in the US media. There is a whole outside world that they know bugger all about.

But back On Topic, I fear that ourrespected Sean Penn will tke over from Hanoi Janes (Jane Fonda) status as most controversial American celebrity. But then again Baghdad Sean has never been shy of publicity (good or bad).

Of course I may be biased agianst him over the marrying Madonna thing

lili

whatever the personality of sean penn, what is important is what it was said.
i respect him as an actor and director.
i just wonder if USA will go into a war if this part of world was not so "interesting".
cause frankly, countries who don't respect UN resolutions don't miss on this planete. just take a look at israel.

growler

damn , an american colleague from the mid west came out with that 5% hold passports statistic last week , and neither he nor I can find anything empirical to back it up (DOH) , just anecdotal stuff such as on this thread http://home.worldonline.dk/andersa/travel/thorntree/Americans%20don't%20travel.html

interestingly, something like 44 million americans go abroad each year but nearly 30million of those go to Canada or Mexico , in a country of 280 million-ish thats not an awful lot of travellers.

I get the impression that unless you are on the east or west coast you may not be entirely aware of what goes on in the wider world, so if young sean can use his fame to educate fair play to him i suppose.

Sand

yeah...I wonder what bastards armed him in the first place?

Interesting - So if a country has any dealings with a regime they can then not oppose or criticise said regime? Indeed, even if that country was controlled by a different administration with different views on said regime?

So any of the countries which had dealings with say, Hitler prior to WW2 were then morally wrong to oppose him later?

In short, a previous american administration enlisted Saddam as an ally in the Cold War. Relevance to current events?

I wonder will korea's 4 million troops fight better than the Iraqis....and I wonder when inspections will begin in Korea.

I hesitate to use the term evil because we know it might upset our right honourable friends the media to be forthright, but a similar potential overthrow of the friendly benevolent ....let us say non democratic.... regime in North Korea would be wonderful imo - I know , them silly 3rd world eejits dont deserve things like democracy, human rights, a functionaing economy etc- theyre for Europeans- WW2 wasnt fought for nothing you know.

Not entirely sure about the motivation of mr. penn either, if one was to be very cynical you could say that he's getting lots of publicity out of this also....

Nah I believe that Penn is actually quite earnest in his beliefs of changing the world through co-operation with butchering dictatorships - hes certainly not earning brownie points with the average american as far as I can tell. Mind you, at the end of his trip hell probably be allowed to leave- was he living there youd have to wonder how long before hed be screaming for US troops to get him the hell out of there.....

I get the impression that unless you are on the east or west coast you may not be entirely aware of what goes on in the wider world, so if young sean can use his fame to educate fair play to him i suppose.

Actually I think the difference is honesty - Most americans dont know dick about the political situation in East Africa and theyll most likely tell you that. An Irish person, and other europeans, will offer a few meaningless trivia from Black Hawk Downs end credits and try to bull**** their way through it - Were smart though:D, and thank god we got an honest, caring, benevolent media here. We can trust what they say without question - wooohooo.

Lot of arrogance on the thread imo - you lads should try talking to americans sometimes, surprisingly a large number of them can spell their own names and dont have to be led by the hand like children through the big bad world.