Why We Fight I
Posted By G. Scott on August 19, 2008
Frank Capra directed a series of seven propaganda films for the United States government giving the reasons for our involvement in World War II. Filled with national stereotypes and glaring omissions of historical fact (i.e., no mention made of the Soviet Union’s attack on Poland; it’s presented as if the Soviet Union came to Poland’s aid), the films were intended to make Americans more committed to the long war that lay in front of them.
In 2005, Eugene Jarecki made a documentary with the same title. This time, it took a critical look at America’s war machine.
It’s available on YouTube, and should be required watching for all. And so, in doing my part to spread the word, I’m going to embed the video here. Call it civic duty, call it padding your posts — it’s good viewing, bottom line. And hopefully we’ll get some debate going here.
Part one covers 9/11 and the resulting questions: “Who did this?” and “Why do they hate us?” It turns out, the government already “knew” the answer to the first question, and it was more than thrilled with the second question, because it is not an analytical question. It’s an emotional question.
If you’re captivated by the first part, you’ll probably want to watch the others in quick succession. I’ll be posting them here daily, so if you watch them all before they get embedded here and something gets your thinking/ranting, don’t forget to come back here to share. Better yet, just wait until tomorrow!
A key figure in the documentary is Wilton Sekzer, a retired New York police officer whose son was killed during the World Trade Center attacks. Why We Fight is, in part, the story of how his view of the war in Iraq evolved. This first part simply introduces the man and his personal tragedy of 9/11.
Chalmers Johnson, professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, introduces the concept of blowback in this portion of the documentary. Blowback is defined as “the unintended consequences of foreign operations that were deliberately kept secret from the American public, so that when the retaliation comes, the American public is not able to put it in context, to put cause and effect together.”
Under his name, when Johnson is first introduced is, “CIA, 1967-1973.” This leads one to believe that Johnson was a CIA operative — possibly even a high-ranking official. Someone really in the know. However, the best non-Wikipedia information I can find is that Johnson was “a consultant to the CIA” (source).
Does a consultant deserve the vague title/label “CIA” in a documentary? I’m not sure he does. Still, Johnson makes some striking points.
At the heart of the documentary is Eisenhower’s farewell address — perhaps the most prophetic speech ever given by a politician. In part I we only see an edited version of one portion of the speech. Th
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
Indeed — the Second World War required a mobilization of the whole citizenry of the United States that we literally have never seen since. Each and every American had to sacrifice in order to create the machinery necessary to defeat the Axis powers.
Now, we have it ready-made, like boxes of dry-goods at a wholesaler.
Also notable in the documentary is the appearance of John McCain. During the first portion, he says little of any surprise: America is the greatest force of good in the United States and we should be spreading democracy around the world. Standard conservative position. Later in the documentary, though, he shows how he earned his reputation among conservatives as a maverick.
Lastly, lest anyone blow this off as a liberal smear of the United States military, be advised: Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, and John McCain make substantial contributions to the debate.
Thoughts?
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