It’s commendable for celebrities to use to their stardom to spotlight the plight of the downtrodden. It would be even better if they would talk about the causes behind the suffering. Angelina Jolie—who I interviewed in 2005, and thought was lovely, smart and strong—today is in the paper again for having gone to Iraq to speak up for Iraqi refugees. “Angelina Jolie gave her mighty heart to Iraqi children and refugees yesterday during a UN visit to Baghdad to draw attention to the burgeoning crisis,” reports the New York Post. “The actress said there should be a more coherent plan as the more than 2 million displaced Iraqis begin to trickle back to their homes amid a recent lull in violence.” There wouldn’t be any refugee crisis if the United States hadn’t illegally invaded Iraq; but Jolie says nothing about that. Perhaps as a U.N. ambassador she “can’t”; and yet one wonders if there might not be some way to get the sentiment aired. “If [Iraq] is not stable,” Jolie said on CNN, “it can effect the entire Middle East, and that will affect our entire world.” That pretty much sums up the Bush administration’s spin on Iraq: we have to stay there—indefinitely, it seems—in order to “stabilize” the country. But Iraq has been “de-stabilized,” to put it in the nicest terms, as a result of the United States bombing it back to the Stone Age. Jolie also posed with General David Petraeus. A picture speaks a thousand words, and it looks like an endorsement of the status quo. How many children have died because of the U.S. invasion? Who will say that out loud?

It isn’t just Jolie who needs to speak out. It’s others in the public eye. They have the attention of the entire world. And yet they have failed, most of them, over and over again now for years, to plainly, openly, fiercely, denounce this horrific war. Everyone is scared, I guess, of being demonized like Hanoi Jane. It’s sad that the Rove-ian-esque spin doctors still seem to wield this much power—particularly when most Americans don’t want the war in Iraq to continue. What we are doing there on a daily basis is as bad or worse than whatever was done in Vietnam. If you don't believe it, ask an Iraqi refugee.