Why We Fight

I haven't been able to locate a copy of this film either in the library or at my local (crappy) video store (not Blockbuster, more like a local chain), so I had to look it up on Wikipedia and IMDB.com in order to refresh my memory. The film was screened in the spring of 2006, when I attended it with some friends from my film class. One of my classmates, a military man who was enrolled in Clemson's ROTC, left in anger during the director's Q&A with the audience after the screening.

The film asks the question of why we go to war, and the answer is chilling: because it's good for business. This is not new, necessarily; war can distract from a failing social policy and reinvigorate the economy, as well as provide the testing ground for new innovations in science and technology. But what makes our post-WWII enviroment different, the film says, is the interconnected relationship between the military and business. It's profitable to be associated with the military, you can get exclusive contracts to hawk your wares in wartime occupation. One of my favorite quotes from the movie version of M*A*S*H is about the very American game of football: "It's the best way for us to promote the American way of life here in Asia."

I can see where my army friend would've gotten pissed; the movie says that we go to war because we can profit from it. It denegrates the sacrifices of our armed services because wars aren't fought for anything more than the almighty dollar. It's convenient to go to war when the administration's approval ratings are slipping. And, in the post-9/11 world, it's easier to mobilize people against a common enemy because then we don't have to address the thorny issues of why we were attacked. In the months after 9/11, you could be ostracized (or worse) for asking why we were attacked, as if you were opening the door to much-needed discussion of our Middle East policy and its failings. This is something that goes back beyond the Bush White House and farther into our past. Yet if you allowed for the possibility that the attackers had a point in resisting American influence, you were labeled a terrorist. Only today can we sit down from our war fever and ask the questions about not just why we were attacked, but also why we responded as we did.

To me, the parts of the film that remain in my memory are not the allegations of ties between big business and the military, but the people involved who are caught in the middle. A Vietnam vet who lost his son in the Twin Towers and supported the invasion of Iraq is now asking himself if he was duped and if he has dishonored the memory of his son. And a kid not much younger than me has to enlist because he has no other options. These are the stories that need to be told, when the history books are written about the unholy mess we've gotten ourselves into.

It's intersting to note how involved the current administration is in almost denying that 9/11 changed anything, while asking us to remain vigilant. I'm thinking about the Bush adminstration's idea to give us all "economic stimulus" checks, to spend and help out companies here at home. It's a nice way to placate the concerns that Americans have because of all the economic factors that are harming us (rising gas prices, cost of living, food prices). But it seems woefully out of touch. The film shows, to me, how it is that we got to this divide between the government and the people.