Why We Fight Video

[grottieyottie]

It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever.

Why We Fight is a provocative new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) and winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival which is now posted at Empire Burlesque for viewing (via Google).

Named after the series of short films by legendary director Frank Capra that explored America's reasons for entering World War II, Why We Fight surveys a half-century of military conflicts, asking how - and answering why - a nation of, by and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a government system whose survival depends on an Orwellian state of constant war.

Why We Fight features interviews and observations by a "who's who" of military and Washington insiders including Senator John McCain, Gore Vidal, and Dan Rather. Beginning with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's prescient 1961 speech warning of the rise of the "military industrial complex," Why We Fight moves far beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why America seemingly is always at war. What are the forces - political, economic, and ideological - that drive us to clash against an ever-changing enemy? Just why does America fight?

Jarecki interviews people from all parts of the machinery: a grandmother who pushes missiles around a factory floor but confesses she would rather work in a toy factory, an optionless youngster signing up for the army, a Vietnamese immigrant who escaped one war and now designs bunkerbusting bombs for another, the fighter pilots who proudly delivered the first strikes in a preemptive war, a Pentagon officer who has become entirely disenchanted with the military, and a retired cop who struggles to reconcile his grief for the son he lost on 9/11 with the realization that he has been duped by the administration's lies. Also among the talking heads are William Kristol and Richard Perle.

Unforgettable, powerful and at times disturbing.