"Why We Fight" (Documentary) (2005) - Movie Review

Iraq War has been dealt with so many angles, dimensions, what not and the great tragedies as been created by the humans is a scar in the deteriorating tissue of social self interest and the dynamics of economics, is an indication of its enormity. Rightly the title evolved from the propaganda film made during the World War – II by Frank Capra, this time the context of the question “Why We Fight” as we hear and ask it becomes a quintessential question in the current world, and it reflects the sadness left, even after years of war and its incumbent flavour of freedom, liberty and democracy.

Written and directed by Eugene Jarecki, it is one another study on the concept of war, its driven mentality even long before the Iraq War happened. It starts out with the farewell speech of Eisenhower in 1961 voicing his concern over the building of the military and its possible hydra growth in the coming future. His scare is true and his fear happened. This is now a multi billion dollar industry with named corporation which attracted and made me feel like a loser to not get to work during the fresh peek out of graduation. It is the geeky feel of doing something extraordinary but when analyzing it objectively it is the passion of control, the power of it and the money which follows it. The econo-control as I would term sources out in this war, the power to control the economics, inter related and inter dependent element created by the evolution of humans to drive the world. The director though concentrates mainly on the United States of America on its “intervention” starting from the mid 20th century.

It does not put a firm iron hand with solo voice of activists. It takes most though of people who are anti war. But we see the retired army official and their open admission of conflict of values with the ongoing planning and execution of the war. Then we see a father who lost his son during 9/11 attacks and wants to find closure or plainly vengeance. His anger directed in all wrong directions, understandably and he resumes sanity but asks himself and to others the inability of reasoning and finding the truth. It is the deceived feeling of succumbing to the salesman skill of the government in selling the war. Enemy and evil are the words constantly used to address Saddam and Iraq. The good being born as the saviour and the hammers of righteousness is taken with full force into a country. End is known now which we know through another breathtaking documentary towards the post war scenario in Iraq “No End in Sight”.

We see the young man joining the army coping for his mother’s loss and to manage his financial needs. Then we see the interviews of the pilots who carried on the first attacks over Baghdad in 2003 which along with future missile attacks missed many targets killing innocent civilians. But as the veteran of Vietnam War correctly explains the feeling of shooting down from helicopter shading and masquerading the persons on the ground as objects is an acute sensation of the truth and the psychological lift of the military personnel. It is a job and it is a war, how funny we give terms for it to carry on the massacre which sounds legal and does not implicate the atrocity which gets carried on.

Saddam once as an ally developed out of control and the US government alleges him of having developing military strength which in turn is the manufacture of nuclear weapons. But the same development continues in the US itself covertly or openly and it is termed as defense strategies. And for that sake, any country out of its protection has its specified financial flow in building the defense system of it. Does it mean every other country is a threat? Yes, it is true because we live in a world where people look for comfort, the peace in having the weapon of aggression. We want guns under our pillows for a serene sedation from the reality.

It is an ecosystem of economics. This is the persona of the humans to acquire and produce authority every where, with unbound limitations under the covert clouds of liberation. Rightly finished by the retired Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, it is the failure to identify one’s true self in abiding to their judgment and questioning the existence and actions going against it. “Why We Fight” is another study of us modulated and manipulated by the view of politics, media and money. But more than any of those is the belief in living in denial which makes us to still scold in the darkness in search of an enemy to blame for the failure.