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

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."

Since the documentary, Young has lost the will to live. The suffering veteran plans to remove his feeding tube and stop taking medication in the following months.

But before passing away, Young decided to pen an open letter to Bush and Cheney last month. The letter, which quickly went viral, accused the two men of committing war crimes and being responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans.

Watch video, courtesy of Current TV, below: