What does Iraq have to do with 9/11?
By the way, whether celebrities are for or against the war should have exactly as much relevance as whether left-handed glass blowers are for or against the war.
Celebrities as a group are no more qualified to have opinions on the war than any other citizen. And in fact, I would say that their opinions are LESS valid, because A) they tend to be not very well educated, at least outside of fine arts educations, and B) They live in a distorted world, surrounded by ‘handlers’ and entourages, and sheltered from the consequences of their own decisions. Take Martin Sheen, for example - one of the top hollywood ‘anti-war’ activists. He flunked his college entrance exams, and moved to New York to act. As a young man he was pretty screwed up, and almost died on the set of Apocalypse Now due to heavy drug and alcohol abuse. Then he became rich, and totally isolated from the concerns of average people. Why should I take his opinion on anything seriously?
Can’t believe no one has mention Charlie Daniels yet, or R. Lee Ermy.
So let’s see, he struggled with college, had drink and drug problems and his wealth excludes him from the concerns of your average Joe.
You’re absolutely right; no one with that kind of background could possibly have anything of value to say about US foreign policy.
He didn’t ‘struggle with college’. He didn’t GO to college, because he flunked his entrance examinations. This means that struggled with GRADE SCHOOL.
George Bush on the other hand, who I believe you are alluding to, has a degree from Yale, a Masters from Harvard, flew fighter jets in the military, governed one of the largest states for two terms, and ran several large businesses.
Martin Sheen did lots of drugs and alcohol, and pretended to be other people for his whole life.
Yeah, their qualifications are exactly the same…
Martin Sheen has a right to his opinion. But it carries no more weight with me than the opinion of my plumber, who probably has the same level of education, but at least has to suffer the conequences of his own actions.
David Letterman has said on his show that he can’t think of a reason why not to “take out” Saddam Hussein. And judging by the jokes in his monologue, I would guess Jay Leno agrees with him. Leno, if you’ll remember, went to Saudi Arabia to entertain the troops during the Persian Gulf War.
And Letterman went to Afghanistan to support the troops just a couple of months ago.
Sam Stone,
Okay hands up, I went for the cheap gag.
However I would like to discuss this further as you seem to be allowing your dislike of Sheen’s opinons to colour your impression of the man.
To avoid dragging this thread further off topic I suggest we continue this here.
I hope this is acceptable.
It is spurious to suggest that people who don’t support ill-concieved hostile action by a superpower against an independent nation, do support a vicious dictator.
“You’re either with us or against us” is an idiotic and oversimplified attitude to take towards foreign policy.
I agree. Which was the point of my post.
It’s easy to folow the dotted lines - war is bad, so people who are against war are good, so people who are for war are bad. People (and I include myself) who think invading Iraq is a good idea do not favor war; we just think that going to war, while certainly bad, is better than the consequences of not going to war.
It is spurious to suggest that the proposed action against Iraq is ill-conceived or hostile and in this case it IS very obvious that most of the celebrities that have come out against it think more of Saddam and his government than they do their own. By their actions they most certainly ARE supporting a vicious dictator and if their aims were accomplished (which, thank God, is highly unlikely) they would be condemning the people of Iraq to further years of suffering.
He was an actor before he was a Senator, so I guess he sorta counts.
Only in America!