Willing to sacrifice the children of the world?

Dual Oscar winner, Sean Penn, spent $56,000 on the following advertisement in the 19 October 2002 edition of The Washington Post.

Taking the form of an open letter to President Bush, it said:

"I do not believe in a simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil... 

Many of your actions to date and those proposed seem to violate every defining principle of this country over which you preside: intolerance of debate ('with us or against us'), marginalization of your critics, the promoting of fear through unsubstantiated rhetoric, manipulation of a quick comfort media, and position of your administration's deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim. You lead, it seems, through a blood-lined sense of entitlement... 

How far have we come from understanding what it is to kill one man, one woman, or one child, much less the 'collateral damage' of many hundreds of thousands?... As you seem to be willing to sacrifice the children of the world, would you also be willing to sacrifice ours?... 

Weapons of mass destruction are clearly a threat to the entire world in any hands. But as Americans, we must ask ourselves, since the potential for Mr. Hussein to possess them threatens not only our country, (and in fact, his technology to launch is likely not yet at that high a level of sophistication) therefore, many in his own region would have the greatest cause for concern. Why then, is the United States, as led by your administration, in the small minority of the world nations predisposed toward a pre-emptive military assault on Iraq?... You are a man of faith, but your saber is rattling the faith of many Americans in you...

Defend us from fundamentalism abroad but don't turn a blind eye to the fundamentalism of a diminished citizenry through loss of civil liberties, of dangerously heightened presidential autonomy through acts of Congress, and of this country's mistaken and pervasive belief that its 'manifest destiny' is to police the world... Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented pre-emptive attack on a separate sovereign nation, may well prove itself a most temporary medicine."

Sean Penn's father, Leo, was Jewish.