Why We Fight

Why we Fight…"because we need what Eisenhower called an ‘alert and knowledgeable citizenry’ to compel change, to improve the public’s ability to monitor those in power" (Jarecki)

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We are today, in Jarecki’s words, " …caught in a vortex of spiraling militarization and moral and economic bankruptcy, and [we] feel remote from and powerless to change those forces [therefore] we tend to hunt for heroes and villains, rather than study roots of the problem. I wanted to make a film that goes beyond the focus on the individual."

Why We Fight, in my opinion, brought to mind the very sentiments that most Americans feel today in regard to the war we are fighting in Iraq…feelings of coercion, manipulation, resentment towards the (unethical) rhetoric many feel was used to get society’s assent to the war, and most importantly feelings of naivety and a pondering as to WHY we are fighting? Are we doing good or are we progressing evil?

These questions are never easy ones to answer and even harder than answering the questions are asking them. To voice these questions aloud is to be unpatriotic, and to be unpatriotic is to be un-American, and to be un-American is to be the "other." And we all know that the other is always on the receiving end of America’s military-fiscal state.

In a British history class that I took last fall there was one quote that remained in my conscious. One quote that resonated America today more than it ever resonated Britain, in my opinion. The quote went something like this: "The sun never sets on the British Empire." This is the mindset that empire, war, and industrialization brought to British society and this is the mindset that many American’s (especially America’s government) believes is true of our country today. The sun never sets on America because we have our hands everywhere. We are “big brother” to the rest of the world and we are watching. If we see something that we don’t approve of…we punish. We punish and we punish hard. We have the means (weapons) to reprimand the rest of the world and consequently that means we have the power to have our voices heard. We are America. What we say matters. It is all that matters. If you disagree, ask our "guns."

How unfortunate...or fortunate. Who really knows?