HOLLYWOOD - An angry Sean Penn has made a rare TV appearance to demand Americans fight to get their troops sent home from Iraq.
The reclusive movie icon appeared on Thursday night's Larry King Live show on CNN and stated he could see no worth in keeping U.S. soldiers stationed in the Middle East war zone.
Penn, who hit headlines when he made two fact-finding missions to Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003, insists President George W. Bush should follow former leader Richard Nixon's example--when he pulled troops out of Vietnam--and seek "peace with honor."
A physically anxious Penn said, "I think the American people have a choice...It's about an eight-to-10-year proposition of Iraqis and Americans and others dying in Iraq, the same amount will be dead of Iraqis, innocent, in 10 years without the Americans as there will with the Americans there; we'll just have more Americans dead.
"So, shamefully we have to... it's what Nixon called ‘peace with honor,’ to get out of Vietnam.
"I think that, you know, ‘cut and run' is something that's meant to make people feel like cowards if they do it. Well, we did make a mistake. It is time to pull our troops out.
"It's time to rebuild our military because we've got a bad world and they've (politicians) inflamed terrorism around the world... so what's happened there (in Iraq) is a civil war that's going to get worse with us or without us; it's time for us to strengthen ourselves and to try to help them through diplomacy and with money."
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