Woody Harrelson on the War in Afghanistan
Woody Harrelson, who is in Washington for a screening of his new film "The Messenger," stopped by the set of "Washington Unplugged" with costar Ben Foster and director Oren Moverman to discuss the film and his feelings about the war in Afghanistan.
"I don't think it's up to me to tell the president anything," Harrelson said after being asked by host John Dickerson what he might say to President Obama. "But I do think it's important that he's weighing the escalation so heavily."
"I'd love to see them get out of Vietnam – rather, Afghanistan," Harrelson said, laughing at his mistake. "Well, there's a lot of parallels."
"I really don't think we have a lot of justification for being there," he said of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The Messenger" explores the experience of soldiers who tell family members that a loved one has died in combat. Moverman said soldiers and their families have become a marginalized and isolated subculture in America; the film, he said, was designed in part to shine a light on their situations.
Foster said members of the cast went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit wounded soldiers, an experience that allowed them to "see up close the results of war, rather than talk about it in a very cold way – statistics, numbers."
Harrelson called the president's trip this week to Dover Air Force Base to see fallen soldiers returning from war "huge," but Moverman, who said he respected the trip, cast it as largely ceremonial. He said both the president and the press corps need to put the focus more on the wounded and the families of the dead.
"Let's start getting the cameras on the families, let's start getting the cameras on those that want to talk, guys who are coming back," he said. "Let's listen to them, and let's start getting that story out. Because that's a buried part of the conversation and it shouldn't be that way."
Watch the interview above, along with a discussion of the off-year elections taking place next Tuesday and an interview with Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.
"I don't think it's up to me to tell the president anything," Harrelson said after being asked by host John Dickerson what he might say to President Obama. "But I do think it's important that he's weighing the escalation so heavily."
"I'd love to see them get out of Vietnam – rather, Afghanistan," Harrelson said, laughing at his mistake. "Well, there's a lot of parallels."
"I really don't think we have a lot of justification for being there," he said of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The Messenger" explores the experience of soldiers who tell family members that a loved one has died in combat. Moverman said soldiers and their families have become a marginalized and isolated subculture in America; the film, he said, was designed in part to shine a light on their situations.
Foster said members of the cast went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit wounded soldiers, an experience that allowed them to "see up close the results of war, rather than talk about it in a very cold way – statistics, numbers."
Harrelson called the president's trip this week to Dover Air Force Base to see fallen soldiers returning from war "huge," but Moverman, who said he respected the trip, cast it as largely ceremonial. He said both the president and the press corps need to put the focus more on the wounded and the families of the dead.
"Let's start getting the cameras on the families, let's start getting the cameras on those that want to talk, guys who are coming back," he said. "Let's listen to them, and let's start getting that story out. Because that's a buried part of the conversation and it shouldn't be that way."
Watch the interview above, along with a discussion of the off-year elections taking place next Tuesday and an interview with Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.
