This 2005 Sundance Film Festival winning documentary details the birth and growth of America’s military-industrial complex. From its beginnings, through Sept 11, to Iraq, this government-corporate partnership has taken on a life of its own. With a lust for empire, conquest and unimaginable wealth, the military industry has given the US perpetual war. Washington warned us. Eisenhower warned us. Why We Fight is your final warning.
WHY WE FIGHT is a film by Eugene Jarecki which takes an unflinching look at the anatomy of the American war machine, weaving unforgettable personal stories with commentary by a “who’s who” of military and beltway insiders. Featuring John McCain, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and others, WHY WE FIGHT launches a bipartisan inquiry into the workings of the military-industrial complex and the rise of the American Empire.
Inspired by Dwight Eisenhower’s legendary farewell speech (in which he coined the phrase “military-industrial complex”), filmmaker Jarecki (THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER) surveys the scorched landscape of a half-century’s military adventures, asking how — and telling why — a nation of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.
The film moves beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why-why does America fight? What are the forces — political, economic, ideological — that drive us to fight against an ever-changing enemy?
“Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called WHY WE FIGHT that explored America’s reasons for entering the war,” Jarecki notes. “Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it’s crucial to ask the questions: ‘Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?'”
