November 2, 2005

I finally got to Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight this morning. The film is quite good. But like most of the political documentaries of the last couple of years, is a lot better when it is on an objective course about the past than it is when it beats a drum about the war in Iraq.

According to the press notes, the thing that I found most compelling in the film is also the thing that inspired Jarecki to make it in the first place, the powerful exit speech by Eisenhower as he left his presidency. The film tells us that this speech is where the term "military-industrial complex" was coined. But more importantly, the speech is a stern warning against allowing America's military to become more of a business than national calling. There is also a commentary on the idea that a nation that maintains a standing army will feel compelled to use its standing army.

The only problem I have with this film is that it spends so much time on the current Iraq conflict (with no mention of the first operation) without really having the perspective to answer the questions. The bigger question of why we fight is really a brilliant and provocative conversation. I wanted more of that. Was there a military budgeting purpose in Korea… in Vietnam… in Grenada… in Panama? Did the power and influence of these companies grow over time? What are the landmarks? How did the end of the Soviet Union change the way military suppliers operated? Have we simply shifted from a cold war to a needed series of hot wars?

The problem I have with the Iraq connection is not even the accusation about Bush lying. It is the lack of adherence to the hypothesis of the movie. If he lied, why did he lie… why are we fighting? And are we there based on the central argument in the movie… that we fight because there is a complex web of people, institutions and businesses that are sustained by America going to war? I don't have an answer to that… but unfortunately, either does Jarecki. So what we get is the same old heart tugging about America going to war for the wrong reasons… but there is no answer "why?"

The thing is, by leaving a lot of the Iraq stuff out, the film could have been even more effective in setting people seeing the film up to ask the hard questions instead of leaving feeling as though they had already experienced answers, when in act, they have not.

But besides this, the film is insightful, informative, and dramatically willing to stir up long unstirred pots. It really is a kissing cousin to Errol Morris' The Fog of War, which I think is a superior film for very much the same reasons why I think that Why We Fight has limitations. It is all perspective. And you can lead an audience to insight, but when you smash their faces into the bowl, you may not be very effective. On the flip side, Why We Fight is really one of the very best of the Bush era docs, again, for the same reason. It may be preoccupied to reminding us of what is happening now, but it isn't obsessive compulsive.

E-ME.