Bush on the silver screen

America's filmmaker Oliver Stone on Friday joined hundreds of thousands of Americans whose aim is to fix the image of America in others' eyes, a picture which is heavily affected by the outgoing President George W. Bush policies outside the United States borders.

At the Mideast premiere of his movie "W." in Dubai, Stone said the outgoing U.S. president is a man with "a giant ego" and "boneheaded arrogance," Barbara Surk writes for the Associated Press.

"I hope many people in the Middle East and in South East Asia see it and really understand how George Bush came to be and who he is, and understand the United States is not an enemy," Stone said at a press conference before the red-carpet gala showing of "W."

"He is not a nice man," Stone also said. "He's a man with a giant ego and boneheaded arrogance. I empathize with him, but I don't sympathize with him," he added.

I agree with you Stone, the United States is not an enemy, but at the same time you and other Americas have to excuse those who hate America and all Americans for the deep wounds and unbearable sufferings they have endured due to Bush's foolishness and some other U.S. officials.

It is your duty and the people like you to approach the world, especially the Middle East with such ideas to make them able to see and understand the other face of America and its people.

Wish your film all success and hope you can make it available to all Iraqis in Iraq although we don't have a big cinema to play it but I think there will be a solution for that.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Behind-the-scenes players

An interested and must-read article by the Mother Jones' Anthony Fenton on how Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, Iraq's first post-war U.S. administrator and a small group of former U.S. military leaders, officials, and lobbyists are pouring fuel to the fire in disagreements between the central government and the Kurds.

They are using their deep connections in Kurdistan to help Canadian companies to have access to some of the region's richest oil fields by mediating oil deals between these companies and the Kurds to whome Garner was charged after the 1991 Gulf War to secure their region, a position which enabled him to develop good relaions with the Kurds.

Since 1991, Garner was frequently seen on TV flanked by the two Kurdish guerrilla leaders, Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani as he was wearing their traditional flowing cloths.

The Kurds' oil deals, at least 20, with western oil companies have been since last year one of handfull sticking issues between the Kurds and central government and the main obstacle in adpoting Iraq's long-awaited oil and gas law which is designed to govern Iraq's oil and gas resources and to regulate the foreign investment in this field.

kassakhoon@gmail.com