Is there a reason why we go to war? It seems that by just turning on Fox News or CNN, you can get answers scrolling across your screen. The words are always simple and straight to the point: “Liberation of Iraq” or “Fighting Terror Around the World.” The ideals these words represent appear so quaint and appealing — but how can one fight for something so intangible as “liberty,” or be against something as equivocal as “terror?”
In the army now: The sober documentary, “Why We Fight,” is a far cry from Michael Moore’s antics, delving into the military-industrial complex to attempt to understand the various reasons that the United States engages in war abroad.
There are many answers, and more questions in the urgently probing documentary “Why We Fight.” Director Eugene Jarecki, an astute storyteller, is interested in the mechanics of war — essentially who or what is pulling the strings behind the carnage, and why they are doing it.
The director pulls interviews from an array of sources: ex-government officials, relatives of Sept. 11 victims, members of the U.S. Air Force and journalists. By constructing a well-researched web of facts and testimonials, the events surrounding Sept. 11 and the Iraq war become clearer. One interview in particular with an ex-Pentagon employee is truly startling. She recounts the time before the Iraq war — that it was never a question of “if” we would go into Iraq, but rather how the government would prepare the public for such an invasion. This type of reporting was necessary but sorely missing at that critical time; Jarecki knows it, and does his best to fill in the holes.
“Why We Fight” is largely framed around one crucial line President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave at his farewell address in 1961, an ominous warning of what lay ahead for the United States: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” In modern times, the desires of the “military-industrial complex” have become hardly distinguishable from the goals of the military, which Eisenhower recognized as a system that hinges on the expansion of military conflict throughout the world.
Jarecki is horrified by this business; he shows factories that manufacture bombs and industry conventions devoted to weapons and military technology. A poignant moment has a factory worker saying that she would rather be making toys than bombs — but this happens to be the principal source of employment in her town. How can one fault her for just trying to get by?
The conservative blowhards may argue that Jarecki is a propagandist, a nut of the left-wing variety, but they would be missing the point of the film. The filmmaker is interested in the logic of war and publicizing his findings, not simply assailing the Bush administration. It can even be said Jarecki is the anti-Michael Moore. Though they both share the same aims — stopping the Iraq war and revealing all the behind-the-scenes manipulations of the Bush administration — they differ drastically in the delivery and execution of those goals. While Jarecki clearly highlights the discussion between the two conflicting sides, Moore would rather hammer the other side into the ground using theatrics to politicize.
It is disheartening to realize that companies gain from the devastation of human life; war is not only an instrument of foreign policy, but almost more importantly, a business transaction. But the higher-ups are not the only culprits, as Jarecki points out; all Americans have silently consented to the military-industrial complex. Activism is no longer as frequent and people have grown uncomfortable with raising issues in such morally ambiguous times as these. “Why We Fight” is a reminder that the truth must be sought out to create change, and only then can the public understand the rationale for war, if there is any.
