Phil Donahue (Dec. 21, 1935-Aug. 18, 2024)

I got to know Phil in 2002, when he returned to the television talk show circuit on MSNBC as the host of Donahue.

America was, at that time, collectively beating the drums of war, with the Bush administration making the case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to world peace sufficient enough to justify a military invasion.

Phil, however, thought it was important to ask questions before signing on to the government case for war. He asked his producer, Jeff Cohen, to find a voice in opposition to the war. Jeff called me, and asked if I would be the guest on Phil’s premier. I accepted.

Donahue premiered on July 12, 2002. More than a million people tuned in, making it the top-rated show in America in prime time. As Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon Magazine, “It was telling that Donahue's first guest on the inaugural show was Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector turned dove, who argued the United States today has no basis to declare war on Iraq. An ex-Marine and a proud Republican who spent years inspecting Saddam Hussein's arsenal, Ritter has been surprisingly absent from the national debate about a new war with Iraq. Donahue fixed that oversight in one night.”

According to Jeff, the decision to bring me on created a storm of controversy within NBC/MSNBC. He wrote about the difficulties in booking voices opposed to the war.

“Not every weapons expert had been wrong,” Cohen noted. “Take ex-Marine and former UN inspector Scott Ritter. In the last months of 2002, he told any audience or journalist who would hear him that Iraqi WMD represented no threat to our country. ‘Send in the inspectors,’ urged Ritter, ‘don’t send in the Marines.’

“It’s telling that in the run-up to the war, no American TV network hired any on-air analysts from among the experts who questioned White House WMD claims. None would hire Ritter.

“Inside MSNBC in 2002, Ritter was the target of a smear that he was receiving covert funds from Saddam Hussein’s government. The baseless slur was obviously aimed at reducing his media appearances. It surfaced like clockwork at MSNBC when we sought to book Ritter as a guest on Donahue.”

The famous American journalist and political commentator, Bill Moyers, asked Donahue about this in 2007:

BILL MOYERS: You had Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector. Who was saying that if we invade, it will be a historic blunder.

PHIL DONOHUE: You didn't have him alone. He had to be there with someone else who supported the war. In other words, you couldn't have Scott Ritter alone. You could have Richard Perle alone.

BILL MOYERS: You could have the conservative.

PHIL DONOHUE: You could have the supporters of the President alone. And they would say why this war is important. You couldn't have a dissenter alone. Our producers were instructed to feature two conservatives for every liberal.

BILL MOYERS: You're kidding.

PHIL DONOHUE: No this is absolutely true.

On February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled Donahue, its top-rated show. An internal NBC report described host Phil Donahue as “a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” noting that senior management worried that Donahue’s show could become “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back was my last appearance on Donahue, on January 15, 2003. I appeared side-by-side with Richard Butler, my former boss at the United Nations. 

The transcript speaks for itself:

DONAHUE: Mr. Ritter, a comment on the final point that he made-briefly, please.

RITTER: What I’ll say is this, is, I take strong disagreement with the contention that you know that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

BUTLER: Oh, come on, Scott. That’s on the public record.

RITTER: Of course it’s not. The public record actually says, with all due respect...

BUTLER: You signed the papers to me, when you worked for me, advising me-with all of your intellect and knowledge, you signed pieces of paper to me saying that Iraq has hidden weapons of mass destruction.

RITTER: Never. I signed pieces of paper to you that said we have credible intelligence information that says Iraq has it. And I asked you permission to carry out an inspection. But, understand, it’s an investigation. You just made a definitive statement that says you know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. But, with all due respect, Richard, that is never reflected in any of the documents, even the one you just mentioned.

BUTLER: That’s not true.

RITTER: It is true. I have it here tonight. Do you want to go through the document page by page and show the people?

DONAHUE: Well, probably not.

(LAUGHTER)

BUTLER: It’s absolutely established that Iraq has not accounted for...

RITTER: Bingo. I agree with that, has not accounted for. But that’s an accounting issue.

BUTLER: So, where are the 500 shells with mustard in them? Where is the 400 tons of…

RITTER: These are good questions, but do you have evidence that they have it?

BUTLER: Where are the missiles?

RITTER: Do you know they have it for a fact, that they possess it as we speak? Or is the problem that Iraq has provided an accounting that we don’t have evidence to back it up, that we can’t confirm the Iraqi version of disposition? My point is...

BUTLER: Why are you assuming such a degree of innocence on the part of the Iraqis?

RITTER: Because 200,000 Americans are going to war based upon a perception of a threat. You testified before the U.S. Senate that Iraq has these weapons. And people listened to you and they gave that credibility, when the fact is, you do not know with absolute certainty that Iraq has these weapons.

BUTLER: Scott, the United States...

(APPLAUSE)

RITTER: And I'm not going to stand by and let Americans die in combat because people like you mislead the American Congress. I just won't allow that to happen.

BUTLER: Oh, for God's sake, for God’s sake, I mislead the American Congress?

RITTER: You said you know where the weapons are. Where are they?

BUTLER: Please allow me to finish. There is on the record at the United Nations pieces of paper signed by you...

RITTER: I have them here.

BUTLER: ... addressed to me, saying, these people have concealed weapons. Please authorize me to go find them.

RITTER: And you signed those documents.

BUTLER: Sometimes I did and sometimes I told you no.

RITTER: Give me an example when you said no.

BUTLER: I told you no because I thought what you were doing was excessive.

RITTER: Give me an example, Richard.

BUTLER: Come on.

RITTER: No, please, in front of the people here tonight. You’ve said this many times. You’ve brought my credibility into question. I can document every time we’ve met, every time I briefed you, and every time you signed it. Please, for the benefit of the public tonight, one example of when you turned me down.

Phil Donahue cut off the debate at that point.

It should be noted that the documents I referred to were part of the archive seized by the FBI when they raided my home on August 7.

I last saw Phil Donahue at the Fighting Bob Festival in Wisconsin in 2008. He was in good spirits, and we reminisced about the time we tried to stop the war in Iraq which was, at that time, still raging.

We had both been proven right in our opposition to this war.

Those who promoted the war continued to draw large salaries in their jobs at NBC and MSNBC, while Phil and I spoke to local crowds in Chautauqua.

Looking back, Phil and I got the better of the deal.

We retained our honor and integrity.

Phil Donahue died this past Sunday.

And with his passing went one of the last honest journalists in America.

Share

Fundamentalist Evangelicals, under the influence of ultra-right political activists, generally believe, and teach, that Islam is a dangerous religion that leads to terrorism. Trumpistas used this narrative to keep the Muslims down and garner votes.

These same Evangelicals also generally believe in a doctrine known as “Christian” Zionism, which teaches that the Second Coming of Christ is inextricably linked to the state of Israel and that Christians must support Israel to hasten Christ’s return to earth. Roman Catholicism has long tried to separate itself from “Christian” Zionism but there are undercurrents in Catholic thought that seem destined to bring that Church closer to the Evangelical way of thinking.

Thus, today’s Christianity is at least open to this doctrine while most Evangelicals wholeheartedly accept it.

In keeping with this, US Christianity has, since WW II, been a solid proponent of the US government’s war machine. During the many wars waged by the US since then, pastors have stood before their congregations on Sunday mornings and prayed out loud “Lord, protect our men in uniform.”

Yet, very few pastors have ever thought to ask the Lord to protect the innocent against US bombs and bullets.

To pray for the safety of the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Syrians, etc, would have seemed blasphemous to most church goers, who have long unwittingly accepted their role as defenders of US hegemony. After all, throughout the 50s and 60s, Christians and even many of the less religious in America have taken to heart the mission of “stopping the spread of godless communism.” Even when the word “godless” is not expressly mentioned, its meaning is generally tacitly understood. US Christians also subconsciously see themselves as an embodiment of ancient Israel, the chosen people. Since they also identify modern Israel with ancient Israel, there is a tacit understanding that Israel and the US are two sides of the same sacred coin or that Israel is just really part of the US. Thus, AIPAC, the Israel lobby, is exempted from the obligation to register as a foreign lobby even though it certainly qualifies as one.

Thus, loathe as we are to admit it, religion is a key motivator behind US wars, and the “men in uniform” – or since the surge in feminist influence, “men and women in uniform,” have been seen as emissaries of God sent to save the world from un-American, and hence, ungodly, influences — though the US has lost almost all of these wars, just as the Church lost the Crusades.

Indeed the churches are de facto the most effective propaganda arm of the Pentagon, whose weapons of mass destruction have killed millions of mostly civilians, many times more than Muslim terrorists have, who have no air force.

The Bible “scholars” behind these religious Zionist teachings, while differing amongst themselves in secondary details, agree in essence that the modern state of Israel is the embodiment of the resurrected dry bones mentioned in Ezekiel 37. They also agree – with zero scripture to support them – that the leaders of Israel are led by God in their military decisions, just as the leaders of the Israelites once enjoyed divine guidance when marching to battle. The fact that until 2006, modern Israel had never lost a war was attributed by many Evangelicals to divine intervention – when in fact, it was thanks to US weapons and money and to the weakening of Israel’s Arab neighbours thanks to heavy-handed US foreign policy that suppresses states that refuse to recognize Israel.

Thanks to the unconditional support of America’s millions of fundamentalists, the US government can provide military aid to the Israelis and can ignore all of Israel’s human rights abuses, now more and more openly discussed by groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and under investigation by the ICC .

Indeed, based on the above-described religious reasoning, since 1948, the US has vetoed all UN resolutions condemning Israel’s crimes, as documented here and here.

So how is it possible for US “Christians” to ignore Israel’s endless string of human rights abuses when they directly contravene God’s commandments – including the Torah admonition to love they neighbour as thyself.

Very simply, by smugly reminding themselves that the accusers are “unsaved” or “lost” and could not possibly have the spiritual discernment to see that Israel’s every move is the implementation of a divine directive. US Evangelicals pride themselves in being privy to this divinely transmitted knowledge about modern “Israel”, which has, however, no basis in scripture, reason, logic or fact and tramples on Christ’s teachings.

And this is the tragedy not of Christianity itself, but of an interpretation of the scriptures that is not at all in keeping with Christ’s teachings.

Nonetheless, despite the Evangelical insistence that “Christian” Zionism is based on scripture, the texts from which their teachings are derived are cherry-picked completely out of context from various and sundry unrelated passages scattered all over the Old and New Testaments and often contradictory to the Zionist doctrine itself.

Ezekiel's prophecy of a dead Israel that is miraculously resurrected like bones of a long dead cadaver, that would re-assemble themselves and acquire a suit of flesh, tendons and skin, prophesies that the resurrected Israel – whose members have been, for example, led into captivity and then liberated and returned to their homeland, would be obedient to God’s decrees (Ezekiel 37:24).

And yet, Evangelical fundamentalists are the first to admit that today’s secular Israel is not in any way obedient to God’s decrees, at least in their family-friendly anti-abortion and pro-family views. In fact, if we consider the Torah commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), there simply is no way we can honestly see Ezekiel’s prophecy as referring to modern Israel, which in 2021, slaughtered 68 children in an air raid, and many more before that. I refer the reader to the historical documentary Born in Gaza, in which a young Palestinian testifies that he, as a child, and his pals, while walking along a beach, were specifically targeted by an Israeli war-plane that swooped down and fired at them, killing several children, then turned around, came back and fired at the survivors, killing more of them. Only a handful survived. This was more than collateral damage of a war. If we want to be honest, it was genocide.

It is reminiscent of the infamous USS Liberty incident.

Ezekiel himself was exiled by the Babylonian conquerors, so it is logical to assume that he was referring in his prophecy to the return of himself and his fellow expats to Judea, which happened in 587-6 BC. The more devout Israelites that returned home at that time were more likely than today’s secular Israel to have answered Ezekiel’s description of the dry-bones Israel, which was in fact resurrected when Persian king Cyrus, who had inherited the Judean captives from Babylon in the conquest of that country, liberated them.

So why do so many Evangelicals cling so devoutly to a Zionist doctrine that hangs from such a tenuous web of cherry-picked scripture?

The doctrine was first popularized by Cyrus Scofield in his highly popular Reference Bible, which was full of annotations, many of which were products of his imagination. For example, in his annotations on Ezekiel 38, he birthed the popular myth that Russia would attack Israel in the latter days, thereby contributing greatly to the already thriving Russophobia prevailing in the US and Europe.

Scofield, apparently himself a Russophobe, used the flimsiest of excuses to identify the prophesied attacker, which Ezekiel named Gog and Magog, as Russia. He said the names Meschech and Tubal, appearing in the passage, were a “clear mark of identification” because they sounded like Moscow and Tubolsk. The problem is that Moscow doesn’t sound enough like Meshech and Tubal doesn’t sound enough like Tubolsk to make this crystal “clear,” and besides, Tubolsk was never an important enough city to use as an identifier for Russia, which, of course, did not yet exist in the BC. Scofield was clearly just making it up. And yet, when I was growing up in the Bible belt, local fundamentalists declared that the Scofield Bible was inspired by God.

Further, Scofield wrote that Gog and the leader Magog were places located in Russia.

Not even close, as it turns out. According to Ezekiel, Gog is a place and Magog is a leader of it. And in fact, Assyrian court records identify Gog as a place in what is now Turkey, not Russia.

Another reason the resourceful Scofield figured Russia must be the culprit was that, in his words, “Russia and the northern powers [none specified] have been the latest persecutors of dispersed Israel.” Perhaps, at least in 1909 when the Scofield Bible was first published, but then Scofield had never heard of the Third Reich that was yet to come. Otherwise he’d have been obliged to pick Hitler for the role.

This haphazard guesswork approach to scriptural exegesis makes Scofield’s conclusions about the modern Israel all the more questionable to un-indoctrinated people.

The assignment of Russia to the Gog and Magog prophecy was clearly just a contrivance not different from Scofield’s imaginative tale of Israel, which served the Zionists’ purpose at the UN in 1948, when Israel became a nation after European Jewish terrorists ethnically cleansed Palestine by slaughtering dozens of men, women and children in places like Deir Yassin, and after the US, imbued with “Christian” Zionist lore, pressured other nations to vote for the statehood of an entity whose inhabitants were almost all Europeans who had never seen the Middle East before the Zionist mass exodus and settlement of land once home to thousands of Palestinians.

Israel has been slaughtering Palestinians ever since, with America’s tacit blessing.

To understand the terroristic founding of Israel it is necessary, as a bare minimum, to understand the history chronicled in the documentary Al-nakba. (See below)

Noam Chomsky on “Christian” Zionism