Phil Donahue: Bush used other people’s kids to prove he’s tough

[phantom power]

Phil Donahue, who was fired from MSNBC for speaking out against the Iraq war, explained Monday night that making a documentary about a young paralyzed veteran was akin to a “spiritual experience.”

His 2007 documentary “Body of War” told the story of veteran Tomas Young, who joined the Army following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Young ended up being sent to Iraq, were he suffered a gunshot wound that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Donahue said on Current TV that catastrophic injuries were being hidden “behind the closed doors of thousands of homes in this country and nobody sees it.”

“It is awful, and we are running around, ‘The brave troops, the wonderful troops, oh the troops, nobody’s more wonderful and brave than our troops.’ The troops come home and the VA doesn’t call em back. We’re underwater with pretense. We think if we say it, it’s true,” he added.

Donahue had some particularly harsh words for former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, who both pushed for the Iraq war.

“These are the guys who can’t wait to prove their tough and use other people’s kids to make the case,” he remarked. “The more you examine this, the more you are just outraged by the hypocrisy, the rah-rah of the media.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/08/phil-donahue-bush-used-other-peoples-kids-to-prove-hes-tough/

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/07/176509136/after-years-of-struggle-veteran-chooses-to-end-his-life

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318/

[malaise]

1. Well the children of the 1% don't join the army

so move along

[phantom power]

2. One of the evil and cowardly moves I'll never forget was deploying the national guard...

to avoid a military draft. Not that the 1-percenters don't have ways to avoid such things, but they knew a draft would force the kind of gut-check on those bullshit wars that Americans would say "no" to, just like in Viet Nam.

[malaise]

3. That was sickening

and then came Katrina

I hope the children of the middle class and working class have learned that they do not give a flying fuck.

[Initech]

17. As far as the upper 1% is concerned we're expendable to them.

[xtraxritical]

20. Expendable, hell they SELL them down the drain, Haliburton profits go up.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

21. BUSH AND CHENEY ARE PROFITEERS AND USERS

WHY AREN'T THEY IN PRISON

[Mira]

37. COULD you and I please find the answer to that?

Two issues I want resolves to before I die:
The Hague for the bastards who forced the unnecessary invasion of Iraq and the destabilization in the Middle East.
and
Investigation (or just take the obvious proof) of GWBush being put into the White House twice without being properly elected.

[duhneece]

39. We are soul mates

Mira, you and I want the same things...and we have lots of DUers as company.

[hodger]

40. Right on!!!!!

Exactly to the point. Link those two failures to those that Actually killed JFK, and got away with it. Oh...to live with dishonesty...and learn to survive.

[valerief]

23. I thought after Vietnam, parents wouldn't let their kids enlist.

I was wrong.

These kids, during service and then after for Blackwater, protect the ruling class.

[Myrina]

24. ... and its only going to get worse ...

.... in so many cities, devastated by job-flight and now the closing of public schools and the impossibility of affording a college degree, joining the military is alot of times the only option these kids have to feed themselves or their parents/siblings/spouses.

[malaise]

26. Same here

[Kolesar]

4. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose noted how the Dallas Cowboys got national guard slots

...that were so hard to come by.

They noted that late in the war, the Army started calling up mildly retarded men who had been rejected in the initial screening. They put them in units that went into the most dangerous assignments and got killed. Ivins was quite active in that antiwar effort.

[MurrayDelph]

5. Molly Ivins also used to tell how young George Bush would pick a fight

"Hey, let's you and him fight!"

[AnneD]

18. Then and Now...

Roger Stauback was given a verbal that once he finished his tour in Nam as required per his Naval Academy education, he would be the Cowboys QB. He studied the play book in his spare time.

I don't remember if Tom Landry had a back up QB, but he knew a leader when he saw one.

The Cowboys haven't been the same since.

[lindysalsagal]

30. Ivins: "GWB was born on 3rd base, and thinks he hit a triple."

We won't ever forget you, our dear Molly!!!

What I wouldn't have given to hear what she would have said about Mittens......

[Hekate]

16. Wounded national guard troops were sent to places like Fort Knox and warehoused

Seems they had their own medical system, not integrated into Walter Reed and such, so they just got dumped. As with so much else done by Baby Caligula and his enablers, there were no actual plans in place to deal with the aftermath of their grand and glorious schemes.

Shit. Remembering that has just about ruined my day.

[rhett o rick]

32. Irony Alert. Georgie Porgie the DimSon avoided the Viet Nam War by joining the National Guard.

Of course his Poppy pulled strings. But he avoided combat because the National Guard was reserved to protect the county and deal with national disasters. The National Guard wasnt sent into combat. Georgie, when president, decided to send the National Guard to fight and die.

There is a special place in hell for the Bush Crime Family.

[pasto76]

7. no no no no lemme set you straight. NOBODY joins the military

your short post is an attempt to dodge responsibility of the left as well. less than one percent of our country joins the military. Means that as well as our beloved 1%, 98% of the 99% dont either. That why nobody cares. which is ok if thats what you want to do. I get tired of so many people on our side of the aisle pretending that because they didnt support the wars, that means they support the troops. I think that if half a percent of the lefty outrage about any number of issues were focused on veterans issues, we could clear up the year and a half backlog in the VA.

just to be clear, if veterans issues are low on your priority list, you can do that. Just dont pretend on some anonymous internet post to care and call it good. That actually makes our situation worse.

[malaise]

10. One of my nephews is a veteran of the illegal Iraq war n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

13. But the 1% don't even travel in circles where they might KNOW someone whose kids enlisted.

That's the real bubble.

(This is of course unless one gets familiar with the 'help' and that just leads to no end of unpleasantness, not the least of which is having to listen to stories of their children. )

[young_at_heart]

6. How do they sleep at night?

They don't seem to have any problems with what they did....why is that? Normal people might feel a tinge of guilt about all the suffering they caused.

[Auntie Bush]

12. They have no empathy and are evil sociopaths with no remorse or sence of quilt

That's why they can sleep like a baby at night. Bastards!

[Mnemosyne]

19. Sleeps like a baby and paints puppies, nice life for a war criminal. nt

[2ndAmForComputers]

36. I think they would have difficulty to sleep at night...

Last edited Wed Apr 10, 2013, 11:30 PM - Edit history (1)

...if they had to spend a day WITHOUT causing anybody's misery.

I am convinced these people don't have zero empathy, they have negative empathy. They'll gladly spend $1,000 to prevent one poor person from obtaining $100.

If they were purely selfish, it would be an improvement.

[grasswire]

8. thank you Phil Donahue

I hope he continues to speak out.

[joeybee12]

9. Go Phil! knr

[broadcaster75201]

11. Draft rich kids. Wars end. Period. NT

nt

[Dash87]

14. In drafts, rich kids almost unanimously don't get drafted.

When they do, they get token positions far away from real danger.

[caledesi]

25. You are SO right! nt

[UTUSN]

15. R#35 for, hie thee back onto the t.v., Phil!1 n/t

[Solly Mack]

22. K&R

[Lugnut]

27. K&R! n/t

[Union Scribe]

28. His firing was a shameful episode.

Phil is good people.

[calimary]

29. TOTALLY!!!

I STILL love Phil Donahue.

And yes. He WAS fired from MSNBC - the weasel thinking there was that - "rah rah rah for WAR!!! We can't have this naysayer on the air objecting to that!"

FUCK THEM!!!

[daybranch]

31. Ohio

We need you and love you here in Ohio. Come back and help us fight the Gerrymandering and the attacks on our citizens. It is time for you to move into public service as a Senator or representative. We need honesty, we need you.
Speak out. Come here to dayton, to Columbus, to Youngstown, to Cincinnati. We want you and need you to hep us fight the evils of Kasich.

[grantcart]

33. The title alone says it all.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

34. This needs to be said over and over. Criminals, posing as commanders...

Ty, Mr. Donahue. Your outrage is shared among many.

Thank you, phantom power, for the OP.

[HiPointDem]

35. he's a mass murderer. that whole crew deliberately sent young people to be killed on the basis

of lies that they *knew* to be lies, lies that they had a hand in creating to justify war.

they are mass murderers, pure and simple, worse than any of the murderers hyped on the entertainment 'news'.

[4bucksagallon]

38. To be fair to George W.

There were no attacks on American soil, by the VC or NVA while he was in the ANG. ROFL! Now on to that other coward Ted "the diaper" Nugent isn't he supposed to be in jail or dead this month?

[duhneece]

41. Phil nails it with this comment

So few words to describe what Bush did. Phil is eloquent beyond belief.

[raccoon]

42. Addicts are like that: "We think if we say it, it’s true,” he added. "

Which is why, when dealing with addicts (or anyone else), you watch the ACTIONS not the words.

Whoever said talk is cheap was a genius.