It was a U.S. Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, who warned that generals and contractors — the so-called “military industrial complex” — were becoming a menace with an agenda for a perpetual war mentality.
And over the years — as Eugene Jarecki notes in Why We Fight, his documentary on why the U.S. needs to be at war — Democrat and Republican presidents alike have had itchy trigger fingers.
So is it possible for Americans to have a dialogue on their country’s apparent predilection for war without it becoming a shouting match between right and left?
If it is, then Jarecki’s film may be the right platform for that discussion. Devoid of Michael Moore-style clownishness or self-aggrandisement, the film is deceptively temperate in its delivery — belying the force of its polemicism and the power of its images.
Jarecki is no poster boy for bland objectivity, as evidenced by his previous film The Trial Of Henry Kissinger. But Why We Fight (the title is taken from a famous WWII propaganda film by Frank Capra) posits that the issue transcends the U.S. political system. Instead, the rush to war is seen here as dictated by a combination of powerful billion-dollar contractors and thinktanks — the very people Eisenhower warned against (in a message reiterated on camera by his son and granddaughter).
And you don’t have to believe the “usual suspects” — Gore Vidal, Dan Rather, Gwynne Dyer, etc. — herein. Why We Fight has fascinating perspective on the “war establishment” by Rep. Sen. John McCain and influential conservatives like William Kristol and Richard Perle, the latter of whom is scarily fatalistic about the U.S. public ever regaining control of the machinery.
Why We Fight spreads itself far and wide in search of supporting stories. There’s a woman supporting her family with a factory job making “smart bombs” and a young man with a checkered work record enlisting for “financial security.” The most emotionally-affecting: A veteran, ex-cop and father of a 9/11 victim who goes from gung-ho to a sense of betrayal as 9/11 gets swept under the rug by the Bush administration as rationale for the Iraq war.
Though Why We Fight begins and ends with Eisenhower, it is, for Jarecki, all about Iraq. Footage familiar to regular viewers of The Daily Show — Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, Dick Cheney’s quote on Meet The Press: “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators,” etc. — are left to speak for themselves.
Why We Fight is the best sort of polemic — direct and powerful, with a message that could and should transcend politics.
Bottom line
The flipside of Michael Moore. Director Jarecki is no Bush-supporter, but his film avoids politics as usual, enlisting influential Republicans like William Kristol and Richard Perle, and blames the U.S.’s extra-governmental “system” for the country’s need to wage war. Great footage, too, of Donald Rumsfeld glad-handing Saddam.
(This film is rated PG)
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