George Bush is a war criminal.
But it's very rare that anyone
actually confronts him about
that fact or
confronts him about the fact that
he started a pre-emptive war in
Iraq that led to civilians dying,
of course, and US soldiers dying.
But Mike Prysner decided to take
the opportunity when Bush
was in Beverly Hills.
This is a wonderful video.
Let's take a look.
>> Mr. Bush when are you going to
apologize for the million Iraqis
that are dead because you lied?
You lied about weapons of mass
destruction.
You lied about connections to 9/11.
You lied about Iraq being a threat.
>> You said you'd behave yourself.
>> You sent me to Iraq.
You sent me to Iraq in 2003.
My friends are dead.
[INAUDIBLE] You killed people.
You lied.
You lied about WMDs.
A million Iraqis are dead because
you lied.
My friends are dead because you
lied, you need to apologize!
Apologize!
>> So again, that was Mike Prysner.
He is an Iraq war veteran.
He now does great work with
Abby Martin for the Empire files
please support that show.
It's really excellent work.
But I have to say it was gratifying
watching that it was satisfying
because during the Trump
administration, there's just
been this effort to launder
the reputation of George Bush.
And we can't let that happen.
Donald Trump might have been
an awful president.
But in terms of foreign policy,
what the Bush administration did
with the illegal spying,
with the illegal torture with
the preemptive war, I mean,
the list goes on and on.
We can't launder the reputation of
George Bush and Bush administration
officials who signed off on those
awful policies that
have had lasting ramifications.
Not just for civilians in
Middle Eastern countries but
also here in the United States,
where trillions of dollars have
been wasted on these failed wars.
>> Yeah, so what bothers me so
much is that the mainstream media
is so horrible that it forces
a good person to shout at Bush, and
then it makes it appear like,
that guy is unhinged.
He's talking about a million
Iraqis that were killed.
But a million Iraqis were killed.
There's different estimates,
by the way, some as low as a couple
100,000 civilians dead because of
that war and as high as a million.
So he's right about the facts.
The reason he has to shout is
because nobody with a mic will say
it, at least on cable news.
So right now on the so
called liberal channel,
MSNBC, they are all aflutter about
Nicole Wallace.
My God, she's such a hero of
the resistance.
She was the communications person
for George W Bush.
She's part of the monsters that
created the Iraq war and
got all those people killed.
>> Yep. >> But
now that she's considered a liberal
on MSNBC,
John Bolton would say the treatment
of him was at least mixed.
But some when he went turn on Trump
we're like,
John Bolton is Americas hero.
No he isn't.
John Bolton's a monster right?
But all those guys even Kristol
>> Kristol another example
>> Bill Kristol,
David Frum they're all celebrate
Jennifer Rubin all celebrated by
mainstream media celebrated by
democratic politicians.
My God Bill Kristol is
on our side now.
No thanks.
I don't want him.
And I don't want you to
come back and
tell everybody that Bush was great
just because Trump was a monster.
It doesn't make Bush any better.
So all that Keith Oberman talk
about I'm sorry I ever said
anything bad about George Bush.
Are you crazy about Bush?
No, he was awful.
And he actually got look, Trump was
a bigger threat to democracy.
But Bush got more people killed.
>> Absolutely.
>> That's a fact. >> Absolutely.
I want to read a statement from
Mike Prysner.
He says this nearly 20 years ago in
July of 2002.
I sat behind then president
George W Bush as he gave a speech
to my army unit,
the 10th Mountain Division.
Less than a year later
I was in Iraq and on Bush's orders
as part of the US invasion.
Tonight as Bush spoke at a so
called.
Distinguished speaker series event
in Beverly Hills with the cheapest
tickets starting at over $500.
I again watched from the crowd
before confronting the event.
Primarily I demanded he apologized
for the 1 million or more dead who
are only dead, because of his
lies and his crimes ,and the lie.
The biggest lie was that,
Iraq was holding or hiding,
weapons of mass destruction,
which of course was not true.
No weapons of mass destruction were
found, the estimated number of
people by the way, who died during
the Iraq war is murky.
As Jake had mentioned earlier, but
a 2018 study by Brown University
shows the cost of the war.
So the US military suffered 4550
deaths, US contractor deaths,
nearly 3800,
Iraq National Military deaths.
41,726 and by the way, I want to
know one other thing as you look at
those numbers, there are unreported
numbers as well in terms
of drone strikes and signature
strikes that were carried out.
The wiped out civilians,
entire families as they were either
at funerals or weddings.
It's just the cost of war goes
beyond the financial price.
The civilians who died should
not be forgotten and
the reputation of Bush and Bush
administration officials should not
be whitewashed or laundered.
Just because Donald Trump happened
to be more overt in
his incompetence and his cruelty.
Bush might have said some polite
things but his policies,
the policies he carried out were
incredibly cruel and vicious.
>> And he gets credit for
speaking out once or
twice against Trump.
But why does he do that?
Because Trump attacked Jeb Bush and
continue to attack George Bush on
some of his policies, its personal,
he's not doing anything right
out of principle.
It's just all about his stupid ego.
And the one thing I'll disagree
with Anna is weapons of mass
destruction was actually a smaller
lie, then erected 9/11 that was
gargantuan grotesque lie
>> True >> And our mainstream media
is the worst of the worst.
So here's a stone cold fact that
is indisputable,
69% of Americans when we invaded
Iraq thought Saddam Hussein had
personally done 9/11, now what is
that that's a failure of the media.
The Republicans like Bush and
Cheney lied about a 24/7 while they
came from the general area that did
9/11 Iraq, right?
The media was like,
I can't tell the truth.
I don't know who's
telling the truth.
What am I a reporter?
No, I'm just going to print it,
print it print it.
I'm going to say it on TV.
I'm going to let them say it on TV.
I'm never going to challenge them.
Chuck Todd,
all the rest of those guys.
They were cheerleaders for
these wars.
They let them lie.
And so seven out of 10 Americans
thought that Saddam Hussein had
attacked us when he had an our so
called allies the Saudis had
attacked us.
And now we're about to see the 9/11
commission 20 years
later the report that
tells us very likely, according to
insider information that the Saudi
government did finance some of
the people who attacked us on 9/11.
But we helped the Saudis we helped
our own attackers, and
we attacked Iraq instead why?
Saudi's already had an oil
deal with us.
Iraq did not have an oil deal
with us.
That's why Bush sent Mike's friends
to go die so that his political
donors could make an extra buck.
And then he yells at him at
an event for political donors,
who all paid at least $500 for
corruption and bribery, which
the same mainstream media goes,
I don't see it.
They're all bribing Republicans to
get exactly what they want.
No, the real problem is that guy
who's yelling.
He's not being civil
enough >> Yeah,
I think it's pretty uncivil.
When you look at the civilian
deaths and I want to just end on
this because you guys deserve to
know the numbers,
about 400,000 civilian deaths were
probably attributable to
the conflict between 2003 to 2011.
About 240,000 of them a result of
violence and
160,000 from war related causes.
That takes us only to 2011.
In the seven years since IBC
estimates there were
182,000 additional deaths resulting
from the conflict in
Iraq just among civilians.
So the human cost alone,
I mean, for anyone who thinks it's
cute to launder the reputation of
George Bush.
Just don't forget what he did.
[LAUGH] Again, his rhetoric might
be different from Trump, but
his actions certainly speak louder
than words.