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LOS ANGELES - Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, whose movies voiced the frustration of the Vietnam War generation, today unveiled a political ad calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
But those expecting a broadside from the man who made the searing anti-war films Platoon and Born
on the Fourth of July some 20 years ago may be disappointed.
The 30-second television spot, sponsored by the MoveOn.org political action group and VoteVets.org, features a simple but impassioned plea by John Bruhns, a former infantry sergeant who fought in Iraq during the 2003 invasion and its aftermath.
"We were told to liberate these people. They were shooting at us," Bruhns says to camera. "To keep American soldiers in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, being attacked by an unidentifiable enemy, is wrong, immoral and irresponsible."
Ron Kovic, the author of "Born on the Fourth of July" who was shot and paralysed in Vietnam, supplies a brief voice-over, saying "Support our troops. Bring them home."
The ad will air nationwide on CNN starting on Thursday for a week. It appears just after the veto by President George W Bush of a bill from the Democratic-controlled Congress that would have set dates for withdrawal of US troops in Iraq.
Stone, 60, who fought in Vietnam in the 1960s, was asked to direct the ad for MoveOn.org, which says it has 3.2 million members in the United States campaigning for an end to US involvement in the four-year-old war.
Although Stone does not appear in the ad, he said the parallels between US involvement in Iraq and Vietnam were obvious.
"I made three movies about Vietnam and I thought it was behind us," he said on Thursday. "This is a bad summer repeat of a war that happened 40 years ago. We must listen to the soldiers who are coming back."
Stone is one of only a handful of directors to tackle the events of September 11, 2001 and the fallout of the attacks.
His 2006 feature "World Trade Center" was seen as a surprisingly patriotic film that focused on police officers sent to rescue those trapped in New York's twin towers but who ended up buried in the rubble themselves.
Asked if he was planning a movie about the war in Iraq, Stone said; "It's not my generation's war."
"I'd like to do a picture about the politics behind it though. I find that fascinating."
- REUTERS