Category Archives: Woody Harrelson

The real fun of the Oscars isn’t the cut-throat competition for the little gold naked man but guessing who will make the biggest idiot of himself.  The Academy Awards show has a fine tradition of...

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We debated whether to rank “The Messenger” as “abhorrent,” but there are some lightly positive things about it. The more we thought about this movie after seeing it, however, the more the...

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In an interview published November 11 at Salon.com, titled, "Woody Harrelson on war, death, LBJ and Obama," by Andrew O'Hehir, actor Woody Harrelson, who stars in the new film, The Messenger, recounts his conspiracy theory that America invaded Afghanistan not because of the 9/11 attacks, but because Chevron wanted to overthrow the Taliban and build an oil pipeline. Harrelson:

The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains?

Harrelson, known for being anti-capitalism, continued: "It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism."

He also made known his concerns that Barack Obama could become another LBJ because of an unwillingness to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and opined that while JFK was "one of our last great Presidents," Jimmy Carter "was pretty great, too."

After suggesting that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were about "resources," the interviewer asked him to clarify, and Harrelson continued:

Iraq's about the oil and Afghanistan's about a pipeline. It always has been. They started building a pipeline as soon as there was a moment to do so. They started building a pipeline to the Caspian Sea, that's always been their directive. The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains? So we're going to bomb Kabul, bomb the cities? That's absurd. It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been, not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the November 11 interview from Salon.com:

Q: So you think both Iraq and Afghanistan are wars over resources?

A: Iraq's about the oil and Afghanistan's about a pipeline. It always has been. They started building a pipeline as soon as there was a moment to do so. They started building a pipeline to the Caspian Sea, that's always been their directive. The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains? So we're going to bomb Kabul, bomb the cities? That's absurd. It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been, not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism.

It does feel sometimes like our government suffers from some kind of amnesia or OCD. It's like they keep making the same foreign policy mistakes and just hoping it won't turn out quite as badly the next time.

I'm hoping that other countries look at us and say, "OK, there's the government and then there's the people." Granted, you'd like the will of the government to be conjoined with the will of the people. But it's the same way I've made the evolutionary step of looking at the war as separate from the soldiers. When I look at Russia, I don't look at Putin as representing the Russian people. I'm sure they'd love to get him out of there. Regardless, the Bushes and their various oligarchies have gotten us into a situation that's just very unfortunate.

Q: At least at this point, it appears that Obama is pushing onward with the war in Afghanistan. Is he just constrained by geopolitics? Is he simply not free to say, "Look, we're not going to do this anymore"?

A: I think there's a lot of persuasive and powerful people around Obama. For a president to make his own decisions, I think that's a rarity. Even someone who we think of as our guy -- this is a guy with integrity, a guy who cares, for the first time in a long time -- in the Oval Office, even with him we don't really know who's pulling the strings. I think of every president as being a marionette. Whether he's any different, I don't know. Certainly his military advisors all want him to prosecute this war to the end, just as they did in Vietnam with LBJ.

It's just too depressing, I think we're going to have to hit the streets. Obama has the chance of becoming JFK or LBJ. I think JFK was one of our last great presidents, although I thought Carter was pretty great too. LBJ could have been a great president if he hadn't gotten bogged down in war, but that was quite a war to get bogged down in. Notwithstanding the fact that the war was wrong and they were talking about the Red Scare and the domino effect, if you go and read the Pentagon Papers they were also talking about rubber, tin and oil. They killed 2 and a half million people. What was it all for? In Korea they killed 4 and a half million. Like, we're liberating these people?

Earlier this year, I rented and re-watched the entire series run of Cheers. Towards the end of the series, the hayseed junior bartender Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) decides to run for city council....

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There are some filmmakers whom movie fans turn to for serious, introspective fare, like Oliver Stone or Lasse Hallstrom. Others are counted on as masters of the fantastic, like Steven Spielberg or...

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Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," invited on former Cheers star Woody Harrelson to promote his new movie, The Messenger, and also talk Afghanistan war policy. The Zombieland actor announced that he was opposed not only to the war in Iraq, but also to the fight in Afghanistan as he compared it to Vietnam and advised that Barack Obama should "pull those troops out," to which Matthews chimed: "It doesn't look like he's pulling out. He's not gonna follow the recommendation of Mr. Woody Harrelson it looks like...although he might be better off doing that." [audio available here]

The following is the relevant exchange between Matthews and Harrelson as it was aired on the October 27 edition of "Hardball":

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this, the war. I mean we’ve got two wars going now, one that hopefully is settling down, we’re coming home next year from Af-, from Iraq. But the other one looks like we might be beefing up. Your feelings about it?

WOODY HARRELSON: Well I’ve been pretty vocal about how I feel about the war which is I’m against it. I think it’s, I think the reasons that we went to war were pretty obvious and I think that, the thing that happened for me, though, during the course of the filming of this movie, I got to spend a lot of times with the people in the Army. And I really came to love the people that I met and I felt they were heroic. They’re not making any money, they’re putting their life on the line every day and they’re doing it out of the love of their country and I really was knocked out by them. And I felt like in the end I, I, I loathe the war but I love the warriors. So it was a big thing for me.

MATTHEWS: Well the great contradiction is that we keep hearing stories like General McChrystal says more troops and in a weird way, the guys out there who are risking and giving their lives under orders, are, are getting confused with the people giving the orders. I mean it seems to me the challenge is to give them the right orders. To give them the right mission, the right wars to fight. And that’s the civilian’s job. That’s the-

HARRELSON: I think there is a lot of similarity between what’s happening now and what happened with LBJ. It’s an unpopular thing that’s happening over there and I think that, I think, what I would love to see is they bring the troops home. Because I think it’s not a war they should not be fighting.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of Barack Obama’s predicament? He has, he ran and said that was the "necessary war." That, that Iraq was a mistake, that we didn’t have to do that. But this one we went into chase the Taliban so we could get rid of them because they allowed al Qaeda operate? Well? And his challenge now is the military guy over there McChrystal saying, "I need another 40,000 troops." If he doesn’t give him the 40,000, he’s not giving his guy enough to carry out the mission he gave him.

HARRELSON: Yeah I mean there are a lot of parallels between this and Vietnam and I, I just hope, you know what LBJ, I think probably what LBJ should have done was pull those troops out earlier even though it seemed like that wasn’t the move at the time. And I think that’s what should happen here. But then again I’m just an actor.

MATTHEWS: You’re also humble. Thank you. You’re right about LBJ. We will discuss the rest of this issue as the time goes on here. But you’re dead right about LBJ. I don’t think we gained anything from ‘68 and on. That war just continued and we ended up pulling out the same way we would’ve pulled out in ‘65. Anyway thank you, Woody Harrelson. Good luck with this movie. The movie is The Messenger. It’s obviously heavily freighted with importance right now as this war continues and perhaps gets escalated some time, it looks like now between the 7^th and the 11^th of this month the President is gonna call up for something, perhaps up to 40,000 more troops, somewhere in between. It doesn’t look like he’s pulling out. He’s not gonna follow the recommendation of Mr. Woody Harrelson it looks like. Up next, although he might be better off doing that.