In this Truthout interview (by Geoffry Millard), Phil Donahue exhorts: “Don’t sanitize the war.”  Who are the perpetrators of this effort to sanitize the war?  Politicians and the media, for starters.  That effort to sanitize the bloody U.S. occupation of Iraq is the main message of the newly-released movie that Donahue co-directed: “Body of War.”

The film’s subject is paralyzed Iraq war veteran Tomas Young, who was shot through the spine in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Young’s transformation from war veteran to antiwar hero (as the movie poster boasts) is mixed well with the speech of Senator Byrd (D-West Virginia) against the resolution giving President Bush the power to invade Iraq.

In this interview, Donahue stresses that Senator Byrd was one of only 23 senators who voted no (133 members of the House voted no).  

The purpose of the film:  “We would like to put wind to the back of the anti-war movement.”