Why We Fight- Eugene Jarecki-2005

This film was a mainstream release with Jarecki being interviewed on Jon Steward and Charlie Rose. I am therefor surprised by its low quality. The nicest thing I can say is that it has some decent archive footage.

The talking heads consist of people we have already heard a lot from and whose opinions I do not rank Highly (John McCain, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle) as well as some nobodies. The film repeats what everybody already knows about the Iraq war with plenty of footage of dead and crying Iraqis, although no discussion or footage of Saddam era Iraq. There is some filler showing a young man signing up for the military and man-in-the-street opinions of 'why we fight' which are typically banal and pointless. We get told that precision weaponry is not that precise (correct but obvious).

What makes the film irredeemable is its clueless and paranoid discussion of think tanks. The film correctly points out that they are unaccountable to the voter. Journalists and writers of non-fiction books are also non-elected. All have the power to inform a politicians views. Think tanks span the entire political spectrum and have no power whatsoever unless a democratically elected politician decides to listen to them. Bizzarely this sinister talk of think tanks is partly expounded by a member of The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which is itself a think tank. The film sees something suspicious in Rumsfelds involvement with Project for a New American Century just because it consists of other neo-cons like him. The nadir of the film is surely the line 'What think tanks do is come up with rationalisations and new threats. Thats what they're paid to do.' The film then implies that Iran and North Korea are not legitimate threats.

You will not learn anything new about the military-industrial complex by watching this. The directors film of Christopher Hitchens book 'The Trials of Henry Kissinger' was far better. Unfortunately Hitchens, one of the more eloquent promoters of the Iraq war, is not featured in Why We Fight.

0/5