Why We Fight
I recently rented the movie, Why We Fight. It's the Grand Jury Prize winner from the 2005 Sundace Film Festival. The movies starts off with the farewell address of Dwight Eisenhower. In it he warned against the newly developing military-industrial complex. You see, we felt it nessecary to create a standing army after WWII and it was therefor nessecary to develop a military industry. The movie tries to explain why America has gone to war focusing on the current war with Iraq. The most interesting point was the comparison to the wolrd opinion of America just after 9/11 and just before our invasion of Iraq. We went from having the entire world behind us, including the middle east, to being the most hated country in the world. The largest, world wide protests in history were staged before the invasion of Iraq. The movie goes on to pose the question, "Why did we invade Iraq?" It goes back to the 1950's when the prime minister of Iran was upset that the British were basically ripping them off. He wanted more for their oil. The British ask us to do something, so we send the CIA over there to overthrow their government. Since we specialize in establishing oppresive regimes, we establish one there that is eventually overthrown and replaced by the religous, strongly anti-American government they have now. Fearful of this government, we support another oppressive regime in their neighbor, Iraq. I don't want to give the entire movie away. I recommend watching the movie it will make you think twice about why we went to war.
posted by Just a blogger @ 8:09 PM
3 Comments:
"Why We Fight" is easily one of the best political documentaries I have watched in ages. It organized a lot of things I already knew but was glad to see disseminated in a concise movie and I'd urge anyone to see it in order to understand not just the Bush years, but the years preceding it as well.
I often feel like a lone voice when I speak my mind not only about the reality of the Cllinton Years, but the wrong direction our country has been headed in for the last 60 years (well, there's always Gore Vidal for me to buddy up with), so this movie was soothing in that respect.
Have you seen Fog of War? I caught parts of it and I want to see the rest.
Fog of War is excellent, as is anything by Errol Morris. My favorite, favorite, favorite movie by him is Mr. Death, just an amazing piece of work about an amazing piece of work . . .
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