Oliver Stone Directs TV Spot Calling for US Withdrawal from Iraq

Oliver Stone is one of the most politically-minded filmmakers working today. Naturally, this also makes him one of the most divisive. His most recent project promises to be just as controversial as his earlier work. He has made an ad calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It's a 30-second spot, sponsored by the political action groups MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org. The spot features former infantry sergeant John Bruhns, who fought in Iraq during and following the 2003 invasion. Bruhns speaks about his time there in the ad, closing with: "To keep American soldiers in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, being attacked my an unidentifiable enemy, is wrong, immoral, and irresponsible." The ad ends with a brief message from Vietnam vet Ron Kovic -- the subject of Stone's Born on the Fourth of July and the author of the book on which it was based. You can view two versions of the ad here, as well as interviews with Stone and Kovic.

You can see the ad on CNN nationwide starting this Friday, and it couldn't come at a more timely point in the history of the war. Last week, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill from Congress that moved to set dates for withdrawing US troops in Iraq, and to end our involvement in the now four year-old war. When asked if he might ever make a movie on the subject, Stone answered, "It's not my generation's war...I'd like to do a picture about the politics behind it though. I find that fascinating." Stone's experience fighting in Vietnam is what made his three films on the subject -- Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Heaven and Earth -- so powerful. He feels the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq are difficult to ignore, saying: "I made three movies about Vietnam and I thought it was behind us. This is a bad summer repeat of a war that happened 40 years ago. We must listen to the soldiers who are coming back."