"Why We Fight" Movie Review

I just finished watching the film "Why We Fight," a documentary by Eugene Jarecki. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, as I noticed that it had interviews of both John McCain and Chalmers Johnson, and followed the story of a man joining the army, and of a veteran who now forbids her children to join the armed forces. All of this made for a very balanced and nonpartisan look at what makes our nation go to war.

The backbone of this film (and many other looks at the modern military) lies in Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address, in which he warns the American people of the rising "military-industrial complex." For those of you who are not familiar with the phrase, it is the loose organization between Congress, the Pentagon, and defense contractors. This association is the recipe for the expansion of the military: Congressmen want jobs (from defense contractors) in their home districts to help their own careers, the Pentagon wants more strength and freedom (in the form of new equipment, more bases, and looser rules), and the defense contractors want more money (in the form of government contracts to make weapons of war). The movie investigates the military-industrial complex, and how it affects both the decision-making process in Washington, the media's portrayal of events, and the public's opinions.

Most importantly, Jarecki warns against the United States taking the same path as Rome, changing from a small republic, into an empire, into a superpower and oppressor. To me, this is a nonpartisan issue, one that all Americans can rally around. We do not want the government to be able to take advantage of our patriotism, our love of freedom or our families, and scare us into supporting a war against a non-threat such as Iraq. The documentary also follows the path of Wilton Sketzer, a man whose son died in the World Trade Center, who goes from hating the terrorists and supporting the war in Iraq to realizing that the government lied to support the invasion. I hope that, like Sketzer, people who watch this film will realize that obeying the government isn't the same thing as loving your country. We have to think independently about all government decisions, or else there will be another Vietnam or Iraq, both of which the government blatantly lied the public into supporting.