LOS ANGELES, 1 June 2003 — Sean Penn has issued a damning indictment of President George Bush, the Iraq war, and the American media — in the shape of whole page advertisement in Friday’s New York Times.
In a long and reflective essay, the film actor warns that the US flag is in danger of becoming “a haunting banner of murder, greed, and treason against our principles”.
Penn visited Baghdad before the war and was vilified in the US for doing so. In the ad, he pours scorn on the motives for the war, which he suggests is now mainly benefiting US business. Although the New York Times does not give details of how much has been paid for a specific ad, a member of its advertising department said yesterday that a similar “advocacy” ad would cost $125,647.
In the essay, Penn mocks President Bush’s recent landing, dressed as a fighter pilot, on an aircraft carrier off California.
“He seemed quite pleased with this, his military service,” writes Penn. “He likes it better now than when he was a member of the Texas National Guard, when in 1972 he simply failed to show up for duty for over a year in wartime.
“I certainly wouldn’t want to remind him that, were he AWOL in a time of war, that would amount to treasonous desertion.”
Describing the attacks on him after his Iraq visit, Penn wrote that he “experienced first hand the repressive condition of public debate in our country...I was beginning to feel the price paid by a citizen exercising a position of dissent.” In a lawsuit, Penn has claimed he was dropped from a film project because of his anti-war statements.
He went on: “Our flag has been waving, it seems, in servicing a regime change significantly benefiting US corporations.” He takes a sideswipe at the newspaper in which his ad appears for its “unchallenging” coverage of weapons inspections: “We see chaos in the Baghdad streets but no WMDs.”
He concludes: “Osama Bin Laden’s agenda is being furthered by our fear, promoted by the invective language of media and a Congress that shamefully cowers from criticism.”
