Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

bob the moo We all have our answer for the question about why we are fighting a bloody civil war in Iraq and why we went there in the first place. The easy answers are oil, freedom, clear and present danger, WMD's, lies, spin, whatever however this ignores the fact that regardless of who was in the White House, American military might has rarely not been dispatched to some part of the world to enforce democracy and protect the American way of life. Jarecki puts together this film as his thesis on the wider theme of North American military might applied across the globe.When Eisenhower stepped down as US President he warned about the increasing power of those involved in the business of war and, coined the phrase "the military-industrial complex". Decades have gone by but it seems that the things that concerned him have only continued – perhaps to the point where the "military-industrial complex" is no longer anything that you could point to but rather just an air of power and influence that is visible in actions far removed from the factories that make the weapons and ammunition. With this in mind, it at once seems a difficult and an easy task to make a film on the topic – if it is like air then you know it is there but nailing it to the wall is near impossible.Jarecki does a good job in overcoming this challenge as he builds a convincing picture of the rise of the military might where commercial interests play a massive role in directing the political will. It is an argument that will split the audience down political lines – I appreciate what Jarecki said about the topic being beyond political allegiances but this will play best to a liberal audience and will frustrate those who still (still?!) support the war in Iraq with the attitude of going to other places where they are against America and "kicking their asses". However, this is not really his fault because it is impossible to have a discussion about the drivers to war without focusing on the modern wars in Afghanistan and, most importantly, Iraq. And, as many are coming to realise, it is difficult to discuss the Iraq situation in almost any terms without being critical of the Government (including Congress) that brought it about.Another downside of Jarecki spending so much time on Iraq is that it prevents him actually achieving the goal he set out to do, which was to look back at the rise of the military complex and its influence on the decision to go to war – true Iraq is a bit example of that but it is not the root nor the branch, it is just another new leaf on the tree that Eisenhower saw as a growing sapling in his time. I came away from the film yet again annoyed about the reasons for this bloody war and the blowback from it (I watched this film at the end of a weekend that saw two failed car bombs in London and a suicide attack on Glasgow airport) but what I really wanted was to feel depressed about the wider problem and understand how it has been building and why it has been building. As it is, Jarecki doesn't use enough material pre-Bush and too many of his points are tied up in the emotion of the current conflict (in Iraq but also political conflict). By doing this he runs the risk that few viewers will be coming to the film with a clean slate, ready to listen – I imagine most people come in with their minds already made up (which I suspect is why the votes on the site are so high – he is preaching to the converted).It is still an interesting film though and is depressing because I have no doubt that business influences all aspects of Government and have seen little to convince me that military spending would be any different. However, like many others, Jarecki gets bogged down in the issue over Iraq and his film becomes more about that than the wider historic picture that would have made for a more compelling and less controversial way to make the same argument.

Lee De Cola Ever since Michael Moore brought us the dramatic documentary of Flint Michigan versus General Motors, nonfiction film seems to have gone downhill. This important movie contains one fundamental message: the United States has evolved into a military/industrial/political empire based on the development, production, and marketing of war technologies. In effect the US has built upon the Soviet model by using the power of capitalism to take the command economy to a higher level. But the message of the film is confused with overly dramatic editing and music (the advertising model), cute but distracting subplots (a kid joining the army, an angry dad's growing cynicism), ahistorical sequences and cutting that left me amused but confused. There's no substitute for developing a story and clearly telling it, and when the story is as important as this one, there's no excuse for substituting drama for straightforward narrative. Finally, as an expert in information architecture, I was especially disappointed to see not one graph or table demonstrating the relative and absolute growth of the new imperial military economy. Someone needs to tell this disturbing story clearly, with the facts laid out, letting the drama of an unfolding global disaster express itself.

virek213 Just three days before his time as President was to end, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell address to the nation; and in it, he warned us all of a potentially grave threat within the very bowels of the United States government: "In the councils of government, we must guard against unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex."It is those words of the great five-star general who had helped lead America to victory over Nazism in World War II that are at the heart of writer/director Eugene Jarecki's compelling documentary WHY WE FIGHT. The film takes its title from the seven-part series of films made by director Frank Capra in the 1940s to boost troop morale during World War II. But unlike Capra, Jarecki gives us a penetrating look at the dangers to our democracy and our freedom that can become a reality en if the alliance between the two unholy pillars of defense and industry are allowed to swamp our nation. Jarecki interviews members of Eisenhower's own family, as well as political heavyweights like Arizona senator John McCain, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol, and former CIA official Chalmers Johnson, and what we are witness to is the way the military/industrial complex, combined with right-wing think tanks, has come to shape American foreign policy, and in more than a few ways the thinking of the American people themselves, in ways that over the last sixty years have had catastrophic consequences for our nation. As an example, we look at the CIA's covert involvement in the overthrow of Iranian president Mohammed Mosadegh in favor of the Shah, which gave birth to the rise of the Islamic extremist movement; and we also see our involvement with both Osama Bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, which led us to the quagmire of present-day Iraq and the horror that erupted on September 11, 2001. The 9/11 aspect is detailed in an interview with a former New York cop who lost his son in the World Trade Center, and then lost his confidence in the government when the connection between Saddam and 9/11 was found out to be false.The staggering power of the military/industrial complex, as detailed by Jarecki, reaches all the way into the halls of Congress and, in more than a few cases, right to the front doors of the American people as well. It is a frightening thing to know--and it is inevitably something that right-wing pundits will certainly attack Jarecki for in WHY WE FIGHT. But a lot of the ammunition Jarecki uses for his arguments comes from exactly some of those same neo-conservatives themselves in the film. Even more, Jarecki shows how, after the debacle of Vietnam, the government sought to control what the media could show about America's war efforts (no soldiers in coffins or body bags) in order to keep support for American military activities high among the public at a calamitous cost to the nation.WHY WE FIGHT is a terribly sober and complex film that offers no easy answers, because none exist. And yet, as it comes to its end by returning to Eisenhower's famous farewell address, it reminds us that while a strong military may be needed, its influence in America at large needs to be kept in check in the future, lest we fall into the same militant attitude that destroyed past superpowers, many in our own lifetime.

ResoluteGrunt Part of the problem with this documentary is that it uses selective information to support its pre-existing intent. There were even several times when I thought the film was produced by duplicitous Frenchmen. For example, the film does not adequately explain the role of the United States, and most especially that of the US military, in providing the lion's share of the defense of Old Europe over the past half century under NATO cover. This very long and colossal American commitment, which inexplicably continues today, fifteen years after it should have ended, allowed Old Europeans the freedom to evolve a very different view of military matters than did Americans -- sort of like children don't begin to comprehend all the sacrifices made by their parents on their behalf. I myself spent a total of fifteen years of my life in Old Europe, including West Berlin during its darkest days, as a professional American soldier, and I very rarely enjoyed any of it. On the contrary, while the Old Europeans were soaking up boatloads of American tourist dollars, I, with two university degrees and four language fluencies, was usually considered a paid servant of the privileged Old Europeans. The fifteen years I spent in other regions of the world were immeasurably more rewarding and worthwhile, both to me and to my nation. Almost all of the problems I encountered elsewhere in the world had direct Old European roots.Furthermore, it is today well known among American military circles that one of the largest defense contractors in the world doing major business inside the United States today, with an astounding 23 different major facilities, is a German-French consortium that seeks to make up in the United States what profits cannot be made from stingy Old European governments. The French government, which did not have to place anything on the line in Cold War NATO when it was needed most, is today a major shareholder in that Continental defense consortium, which also sells major advanced military hardware to countries like China -- sort of like the free-riding French and the Germans playing both ends against the middle, as usual to their enormous benefit. Such little known matters have long been facts of life for knowledgeable Americans, facts which make the overall picture about "American militarism" enormously more complicated than the average observer might imagine.The net result is that Old Europeans do, in fact, want a very powerful US military, but only one on their tight leash, using weapons they manufacture and sell, and only to defend Old European interests - as their free lackey that keeps on giving and giving. Everything else the US does as a fleeting temporary single superpower on the world stage can be routinely condemned, safe in the knowledge that their citizens do not know the whole story, nor do they care to know the whole story as long as they are safe and secure and with the knowledge that a responsible adult America never returns their criticism. (For cowardly Old Europeans, the US is the safest whipping boy in human history.) A major Old European political task since 1990 has been to somehow create situations and/or fears which require the US to continue carrying the burden of conventional Continental defense long after the Old Europeans should have assumed all of that requirement alone, plus finally stepping up to their just responsibilities in the Third World and most especially in the Africa they so ruthlessly exploited.American military leaders know that Old European and American self-interests began diverging dramatically as soon as the Warsaw Pact imploded in 1989, and that they can no longer count on continental Old Europeans to make an equitable contribution to their mutual defenses, regardless of that anachronism still inexplicably called "NATO", other than just enough embarrassing tokenism to earn them a seat at the American military command table in a tail-wagging-the dog tragicomedy – mainly to impress their citizens back home. Due to very different and evolving self-interests, such a "mutual" concept has become for the US solely a one-way street, with everyone else except the British playing silly little vote-getting games for their individual domestic consumption. However, major internal demographic changes rapidly taking place in the United States, plus external political changes rapidly evolving in Asia, will inevitably wean the Americans away from a knee-jerk commitment to defend Old Europe and force their government to view other regions of the world as justifiably of much greater importance in the coming century. Old European and American interests are gradually and inexorably diverging, and will inevitably continue to diverge at ever greater speed. Old Europe was the last century's story; to knowledgeable Americans the Continent is rapidly becoming ancient history no longer germane in today's world. It is long past the time for the Europeans to begin standing on their own feet, without the "permanent" American crutch, and whipping boy.Most naive Americans still think they have "allies", but this is mostly a political illusion. Everyone loves the underdog fighting his way up, but everyone always loves to hate, and blame, the Top Dog - and most especially one that never bites back. As long as America remains the Top Dog, she must always be fully prepared to go it alone, wherever and whenever necessary. A rising China, not Old Europe or America, will irreversibly alter global dynamics, and soon, while Old Europe continues its long, slow, inevitable, self-made decline. Until the US relinquishes its title as single superpower, it must responsibly assume that it has no friends, and that literally everyone is a potential enemy. Such natural human stories have been repeated a thousand times throughout the history of mankind. And most American military students know well the story of the British Empire."Why We Fight" is worth viewing, but only if the viewer knows and keeps the whole in proper perspective and understands the film-maker's intent.