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• "Phil Donahue unveils documentary on wounded GI"
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Talk show host tells how he met the young man who is the subject of his new documentary "Body of War" and discusses how sanitized the war in Iraq has been. (4:14)
 

Pioneering talk show host explains how the politics of fear led the U.S. into the Iraq war and keeps Americans complicit. Full interview. (23:10)
 

Tavis: I am pleased and more honored than I can tell you to welcome Phil Donahue to this program. Back in 1967, he started a talk show on just one station in Dayton, Ohio that I used to watch every day in Indiana. That program would go on to become the successful forerunner for so many other syndicated talk shows, like this one.

Along the way, he's earned more than a dozen Emmy awards, including nine for best host. His latest project is a very personal look at the toll in the Iraq war on American soldiers. The film is called "Body of War," and is now playing in select cities across the country. Here now, a scene from "Body of War."

[Clip]

Tavis: Phil, allow me a note of personal privilege here before we start our conversation. Let me just start by saying thank you.

Phil Donahue: Well, thank you.

Tavis: If there's no Phil Donahue, there's no Tavis Smiley.

Donahue: You're very kind, thank you.

Tavis: No, I mean that. It's such an honor to have you on the program and thank you for being the forerunner.

Donahue: You're very kind to say, I thank you. You made my day, kid. I want several copies of this show.

Tavis: (Laughs) You can have whatever you want. No, I just wanted to start by just appropriately telling you how much I appreciate you laying the groundwork for us to be here.

Donahue: Thank you.

Tavis: "Body of War." Fascinating piece. I'll let you tell the story of young Tomas. How did you meet this kid?

Donahue: I was in a conversation with Ralph Nader after the '04 election, on which bus I was not a participant. I had campaigned for him in 2000 and I got off that bus in 2004 to save my marriage. My wife was hysterical that we were going to elect another - anyway, I'm in conversation with Ralph and he said, "A mother and a son at Walter Reed want to see me, do you want to go?"

"Yeah, I do." And a week later we went off and I walked in the room. Here was this young man lying there, 24 years old, cheekbones sticking out, very emaciated, whacked out on medication. And his mother told me the nature of this injury. Tomas is a T4. The bullet came down through his shoulder and if you put your hand like this, as far down as you can reach your back, that's T4. Tomas is paralyzed from the nipples down.

Tomas can't walk. Tomas can't do a lot of things. Tomas can't cough because his stomach muscles (unintelligible). His respiratory system is disabled. He has to wear ice gel. On and on - vomiting every morning, morning nausea. The closer you get to this, the more it just blows you back. And I thought the American people should see this. This is the most sanitized war of my lifetime.

We do not see the pain that's been inflicted on the families of thousands of young people in this country who've come home with catastrophic injuries - injuries that turn the family upside-down. We have blind kids, we have - certainly we have amputees, we have a lot of paralysis, spinal injuries, head. This is a massive blunder and while the American people know that there's people out there getting shot and killed and wounded, I don't think they feel it. I just don't. They don't see them.

Tavis: A couple things come to mind as you share that story. Number one, this is, on top of the 4,000-plus dead that we hear about all the time - and as we should, we focus on that 4,000-plus dead -

Donahue: Right. By the way, as you know, we were not supposed to take pictures of those coffins.

Tavis: Exactly.

Donahue: And the entire press corps said, "Okay." We've just - that's hardly original now; I think everybody's looking up and saying, "Oy, we haven't done a good job." This is about corporate media, it really is. They don't want to show this; it's not good for business.

Tavis: What do you make of the fact, though, that the Bush administration said, "We're not going to let you take pictures when they land at Dover Air Force base." The media went along, to your point, and complied with it. What do you make of that aspect of this story, that we haven't seen these pictures?

Donahue: Well first, it's an indicator of how successfully this administration has manipulated this war and silence dissent. It has been a public relation person's dream. I can't imagine doing a better job.

First of all, you had every major metropolitan newspaper in this country supported this war. Imagine - how are you going to stand up in Congress and say no when your hometown paper, the "Boston Globe," the "New York Times," L.A., Chicago - pick a paper - supported this war? Then we learn from last Sunday's "New York Times" all those generals on all those cable channels, our expert defense analysts who used to be the - they're not only meeting with Rumsfeld regularly to get their talking points, they have connections to companies that profit from the war.

Now you've got generals out there selling the war, you've got the entire media establishment selling the war, all the hosts and the people beating the biggest drum for this war, by the way, wouldn't think of sending their own kids to fight it. A lot of hypocrisy here. And boom, all of a - this president took this nation by the ear and led it right into the sword.

A massive blunder. This war is not fair to the American troops, and the people in our film - Kathy, Tomas's mother; Tomas. IVA - the Iraq Veterans Against the War, MFSO - Military Families Speak Out. They believe one more death in this war is morally indefensible.

Tavis: I want to come back to the actual movie here in just a second. Before I do, though, you've talked -

Donahue: Excuse me, Tavis, can I explain what's going on here?

Tavis: Yeah, sure. Sure, please, go ahead, go ahead.

Donahue: These are Gold Star Family people. Watch them touch you. They have for a moment - they allow themselves to believe that they're touching the loved one whom they will never touch again. He came home from their war, and these loved ones did not. They can't keep their hands off him. This woman gives him a kiss.

When you see this kind of pain, and they're holding a cardboard picture of their loved one, and Tomas comes up and for a moment, he's a surrogate for the loved one in this picture, and they touch his warm face, it's like I'm touching my loved one now.

That was the toughest scene for me in this film - filmed brilliantly, by the way, by Ellen Spiro, who was the co-director with me in this film. There she is right there.

Tavis: Yeah, there she is. When you - and this is a perfect segue, because now you're talking about everyday people, these people who get a chance to touch Tomas as a surrogate, to use your word - it's a good word. This is where I wanted to go. You've talked about the government; you've talked about the government's culpability here. You've talked about the media's complicity here.

What about everyday people? You're showing us stuff that we haven't seen, but we ain't stuck on stupid. As American people, we know that this thing has gone awry and how much are we to blame for a lot - I thought it was "we the people." How much are we to blame for allowing this to go forth still?

Donahue: Well, I think that's a central question, Tavis. Not that many people have asked it of me. The answer is not in our stars; it's in ourselves. This administration, claiming to spread democracy, has dismantled the one we have here at home. And they kept telling us, the dissenters, that we don't love America.

We've come to realize, after three and a half years of filming this movie, we love America more than they do. We believe in the Bill of Rights. We believe a woman's home is her castle. We don't think we should be rummaging around peoples' email without a judicial warrant. People in cages for years with no lawyer, no habeas, no phone calls.

This is not the country my parents raised me to pledge allegiance to. And the American people, to your question, have stood largely mute while this is happening. There's a lot of hypocrisy here. Democracy, democracy, oh, democracy - less than half of us vote. And then we deify the troops. Oh, the troops, the brave troops, the courageous troops - you can't say troops without saying how wonderful and brave they are.

When the troops come home, the VA doesn't call them back. Now this - we seem to be talking to ourselves. If we say it, it's true. And it isn't, we're failing in many, many ways, including failing to meet the demands of the Constitution. Only Congress can declare war. Stop skirting this - Congress finesses this demand so they're not held responsible if it goes wrong.

Tavis: So two quick questions: what are you going to do when we look up in a matter of hours and there are two new, fresh clips of Phil Donahue on YouTube, one of them with Phil Donahue saying, "We love America more than they love America," and what are you going to do when that second clip pops up that too many of us deify the troops?

Donahue: Oh, you mean take out the -

Tavis: Yeah, you know -

Donahue: You mean they'll take half the -

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter) You know it's going to happen. They're going to say, "Phil Donahue told Tavis Smiley that we love America more than they love America."

Donahue: Obviously I'll be waterboarded. I don't know, what happens to people who - you're right about that, though. (Laughter) Half of that will - well, I'm old, I got a little money, my kids are grown - what can they do to me?

Tavis: Back to the documentary, on a serious note, what really struck me, seeing Tomas in his wheelchair, was how he got in the wheelchair. You describe beautifully - beautifully is the wrong word. You described in graphic detail what his injury is. But tell the story of what happened to him, how he got shot.

Donahue: He's in the back of a - I don't know if it's a five or a 10-ton truck, I'm not sure, I don't know trucks. But there's, like, 26 guys in it, and they're all crammed in, they can't even aim their AK-47. And he's going through downtown Sadr City, his first mission. No top, no canvas, nothing - fish in a barrel. The bullet came down through his shoulder - how it missed an artery, I don't know - and exited T4.

Paralyzed immediately. He dropped his - he went to pick up his gun and he couldn't get his hands to move. His hands now, he has arms and his brain is as good as it's ever been, and it's a great brain, by the way. This young man is a very bright light. He's an unusually insightful kid. I say kid; I'm old enough to call him a kid. He's now 28.

He's a great spokesman. He's a warrior turned anti-warrior, and when he talks you can't take your eyes off him. He is now at the center of this effort to bring his fellow soldiers home, including his brother, who's in Iraq. Nathan is in Iraq. You see Tomas's mother standing next to her son in the wheelchair, embracing her second-born son, who's leaving for Iraq.

When Ellen filmed that and I saw that for the first time, I - they go off to war, (unintelligible) and a little voice says, "Bye, Daddy," well, I see this, it's just the personal pain of this war that you do not see.

Tavis: What gets me as you continue to explain this is as now know, as the audience knows, he's on his first mission - first mission - he has not fired a bullet. He hasn't done anything. He's just getting there. He's on his first mission, and on his first mission he ends up being paralyzed for life, ends up being in a wheelchair for life.

And yet to your point, Phil, he is a warrior - quoting you now - a warrior turned anti-warrior. How does Tomas process deciding, after hearing the president speak after 9/11 that he wanted to enlist, and so he enlists and he goes over, and on his very first mission he's paralyzed in a wheelchair for life. How does he process that?

Donahue: First of all, the light bulb went on for Tomas Young when he was at basic at Ft. Hood. He said, "Why am I going to Iraq? I signed up for Afghanistan." Too late now, he's off, five days, and bingo, he is shot. Tomas came home, first of all dealing with his new life. His pills have pills. Tomas's pills have pills to correct the side effects of his other pills.

Every day, morning nausea. Tomas felt that the attack on Iraq was a mistake in the first place; certainly a blunder. Iraq never attacked us; Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, period - nothing to do with 9/11. And I think there are millions of Americans who are going to go to the grave believing they did. That's how effective this campaign by the administration has been.

And Tomas saw this up close and he came home and he joined Iraq Veterans Against the War - by the way, increasing numbers of military people are standing up to say hold it, now, third and fourth visit to - the longer you - the more often you are returned to that battlefield the greater the chance of head problems when you get home.

Tavis: What does Tomas now think of the president who first inspired him to enlist?

Donahue: He thinks he's a rootin', tootin', shootin' west Texas sheriff who has turned his back on the Constitution, has engaged, along with Vice President Cheney and all the rest of them in the politics of fear. Saddam is coming - you see it in our film, you see these - the members of the House and Senate took talking points from the White House and read them. "A smoking gun will become a mushroom cloud."

Reading them. "The longer we wait, the more dangerous he's going to become." Ted Stevens of Alaska stands up in them idle of our film and says, "History will show that the countries who stopped Saddam Hussein saved the world." This is the hysteria that this president was able to generate in cooperation with just about the entire American corporate media establishment.

Now we learn, with all the generals giving all this advice - war, war, war, spin, spin, spin, Saddam is outside your window, he's under your bed, he's going to kidnap your children - and you can feel the heartbeat of the nation start to accelerate, and we walked right into a blunder that is going to rattle around this nation for the rest of this century.

Tavis: You've mentioned Rumsfeld, I think I heard you say Cheney, you certainly said Bush, we got Condoleezza Rice, and then you - that's on one side. Wrong hand; that's on this side, the right side. You've mentioned then in this conversation Congress. Let's unpack that. It's not just Congress, Phil; Democrats in Congress gave the president the authority to do what he has done.

What do you personally make of that? It ain't just Congress, it's Democrats in Congress. Some of your friends, some of my friends.

Donahue: Are you kidding? Our movie is an equal party abuser. In other words, everybody takes the hit here. You see Hillary supporting this war, you see Kerry supporting this war. Only 23 senators voted no. And it was Robert Byrd who gave the most eloquent - he's now 90, longest-serving member in the history of this nation. Nobody's served in the Senate longer. He passed Strom Thurman a couple months ago.

He looks at that C-Span camera and you see this in our film. "I plead with the American people -" he's got that Parkinson's - "I plead with the American people, let your voice be heard. The life of your son may depend upon it; the life of your daughter may depend upon it. Tell this leadership you don't want this resolution rammed through this Congress before the election."

It was - I watched this live and I thought, wow, nobody's listening to this man. And he had this radical idea that you should obey the Constitution. Only Congress can declare war - that's not what they did - and how cynical to have this vote three weeks before an election, and as they carried Tomas Young up the steps of the Capitol in his wheelchair, you hear Bob Byrd say, "This will be a blotch on the Congress and the executive department forever, to take a political vote to send our young men and women to possible death or serious injury for a political vote."

And that's what it was. Three weeks before an election, how do you stand up in the mood of the country in October 2002 and vote no? Only 23 senators; 133 members of the House did. By the way, most people of color voted against this war.

Tavis: Absolutely. So now we are in another election to replace the guy in the White House who made the decision to go to war. What's your sense of how this issue has been treated or not treated by the candidates in this race for the White House?

Donahue: They don't want to talk about it. They're not sure - obviously we have the Democrats are going to get out a lot faster than John McCain appears to be getting out. They're deer in the headlights, too. And here we went to the Moon; we can get out of here without jeopardizing the well-being of our troops. We certainly have the ability to assemble a coalition of nations, which is what Bush should have done in the first place.

We don't like the United Nations, what is that, communism? And so marginalize the dissenting voice - what do you want to do, sing "Kumara?" This is what they do to you. We have no respect for diplomacy in this country. We've become a warrior nation. We bombed Grenada, for god sakes. And the American people have stood mute.

And by the way, we're watching all this on television. So it's up to us. We can have - if you want, you can have a Mussolini and we'll find him, (laughter) he's around somewhere, and he'll decide what's good for us behind closed doors. Really, if you put the Bill of Rights to a vote, there are people in this administration who'd vote no.

Even free speech is kind of a quaint idea, you know? It's not really very practical. Shh - during time of war, you have to shut up and sing. And what Tomas is saying, what we're saying, the producers of this film are saying, you don't shush Rush, don't shush us, don't shush Tavis. Come on, that's the whole point of the First Amendment. Let's hear from everybody.

And by the way, if we're not going to use our free speech, stop sending all these people to war to protect our way of life. Hell, at the center of that is free speech. If we're not going to use it at a time when we're going to war, stop wasting their blood. Stop sending them over there. And we will, we'll get somebody who - our trains will run on time and he'll listen on our phone calls and we'll be fine with that.

Tavis: There are two or three things that occur to me as I sit and listen to you talk, and we're not quite done with this conversation yet - almost. In no particular order, one, your passion is as fever-pitch now as it ever was; number two, and I say this with all respect, you are as good on TV now as you ever were; and number three, a question: it must really eat you up when you turn the television on nowadays that you or somebody like you isn't on TV every day.

I'm listening to you talk and I'm serious, I'm watching you and I'm listening to you and I'm thinking that that voice, that voice is missing in television. You must hate watching TV these days.

Donahue: Well, first of all, things have happened since I was on MSNBC in October of 2002. Keith Olbermann, you're still out here, so everything doesn't suck, if you can put it that way. Otherwise we're just going to get so cynical that it doesn't matter what I do, and we're all going to take guitar lessons and live under a car top and just quit, as a lot of people did after Vietnam.

We think that there is hope. We think there are voices emerging. By the way, the people who could always speak out against this war were the people who were funny. Franken, Daily, Colbert. These people were - Imus. These people were, with no nuance, against this war, and they didn't lose their programs.

If you were Moyers or in my case, PBS saved Moyers but they certainly roughed him up when he was trying to say, "Wait a minute, there are other views here." And I was, of course, given the gate at MSNBC before the invasion, which was January - which was March of '03.

Tavis: There's a CD that comes along with this movie as well, it's called "Body of War." And what's cool about this is that Tomas, who we've been discussing, actually chose some of his favorite songs, and the songs he wanted.

Donahue: He did.

Tavis: He chose the songs on the soundtrack.

Donahue: Yeah. Well, Eddie Vedder wrote our signature song, and that was a break. I had met Eddie on the Nader bus, and then just a little over a year ago I met him again. I said, "Eddie, I'm doing an anti-Iraq war documentary." He said, "You want a song?" Just like that. (Laughter) I grabbed him. He came to my house a week later, watched our film, went home, called Tomas, talked to Tomas for over an hour, and in four days in an MP3 file I got our film - a signature song for our film for free.

Tavis: The movie is called "Body of War," the CD by the same name, "Body of War." Produced, directed -

Donahue: Bruce Springsteen's on there, John Lennon -

Tavis: Everybody's on here, Springsteen - yeah, everybody's on this thing. Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Cornel West, Lupe Fiasco - some of everybody. Everybody but me.

Donahue: BodyofWar.com, by the way, Tavis, is our website - BodyofWar.com.

Tavis: He's still the best. (Laughter)

Donahue: And you're a pal for letting me top off here, man.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you come on.

Donahue: I mean it; I do thank you, my man.

Tavis: Thank you again for the trail you blazed, and thank you for this work.

Donahue: Thank you.

Tavis: Good to see you.