Why We Fight (2005 film)

Infobox Film
name = Why We Fight

---

image_size =
caption = Theatrical Poster
director = Eugene Jarecki
producer = Susannah Shipman
writer = Eugene Jarecki
narrator =
starring = Joseph Cirincione Richard Perle Chalmers Johnson John McCain
music = Robert Miller
cinematography = Etienne Sauret May Ying Welsh
editing = Nancy Kennedy
distributor = Sony Pictures Classics
released = January 20, 2005
runtime = 98 minutes
country = France United Kingdom Canada United States
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website = http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight
amg_id = 1:318889
imdb_id = 0436971

"Why We Fight" (2005), directed by Eugene Jarecki, is a documentary film about the United States's relationship with war as a business. The title refers to the World War II-era eponymous newsreels commissioned by the U.S. Government to justify their decision to enter the war against the Axis Powers.

"Why We Fight" was first screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival on 17 January 2005, exactly forty-four years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address. It won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, however, it received a limited public cinema release on 20 January 2005, and then was released, rated PG-13, on DVD on 27 June 2005, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

ynopsis

"Why We Fight" describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military-industrial complex and its fifty-year involvement with the wars led by the United States to date, especially its 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The documentary asserts that in every decade since World War II, the American public was told a lie, so that the Government (incumbent Administration) could take them to war and fuel the military-industrial economy maintaining American political dominance in the world. Interviewed about this matter, are politician John McCain, political scientist and former-CIA analyst Chalmers Johnson, politician Richard Perle, reporter William Kristol, writer Gore Vidal, and public policy expert Joseph Cirincione.

"Why We Fight" documents the consequences of said foreign policy with the stories of a Vietnam War veteran whose son was killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and who then asked the military to write the name of his dead son on any bomb to be dropped in Iraq; and that of a twenty-three-year-old New Yorker who enlists in the United States Army because he is poor and in debt, his decision impelled by his mother's death; and a military explosives scientist who arrived to the U.S. as a refugee girl from Vietnam in 1975.

Contributors and representatives

Politicians

Senator John McCain
Elected to the United States Senate in 1986, he is a former U.S. Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war.

Richard Perle, "Chairman, Pentagon Defense Policy Board (2001–2003)"
A leading authority on national defence and security, he has worked the U.S. Government for three decades, and is an architect of the G. W. Bush Administration's foreign policy. As a writer, he regularly is published in conservative news publications.

William Kristol, "Editor, The Weekly Standard"
An influential man in U.S. politics since the 1970s, he founded the "Weekly Standard" magazine in 1995, and co-founded the Project for the New American Century think tank in 1997.

Charles Lewis, "Centre for Public Integrity"
Founder, and ex-executive director, Centre for Public Integrity — non-profit, non-partisan "watch-dog" organisation established in 1989 — investigating and reporting their research about U.S. public policies

Civilians

Joseph Cirincione, "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
A senior associate and Director of the Non-Proliferation Project, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., he is a writer, lecturer, and expert commentator on weapons proliferation and national security matters for the news media.

Gwynne Dyer, "Military Historian"
He is a military historian, writer, and journalist who has worked for the Canadian, British, and American militaries. He published books, articles, information papers, and a radio series, about international affairs.

Susan Eisenhower, "Grand-daughter of President Eisenhower"
Journalist, writer, and news expert, she is a senior fellow at, and the Eisenhower Institute's director of programs. She is serving a third appointment to the Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) of the National Academy of Sciences.

John Eisenhower, "Son of President Eisenhower, Military Historian"
A military historian member of White House staff during his father's administration. He is a retired Brigadier General (AUS) and served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium, 1969 and 1971.

Chalmers Johnson, "Central Intelligence Agency 1967-1973, Political Scientist"
With a fifty-year career in foreign policy, he is President of the Japan Policy Research Institute. An academic at the University of California, he has written many articles and books.

Wilton Sekzer, "Retired officer, New York City Police Department / Vietnam veteran "
His son was killed on 9/11. After the attacks, he says the Bush Administration made him believe Saddam Hussein was responsible. He e-mailed every military branch, asking if his son's name might be written on a bomb to be dropped on Iraq. Later, he is uncertain if he should regret his actions, after hearing President Bush claim he does not know from where people got the idea that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks.

William Solomon
After his mother's death and much in debt, this twenty-three-year-old New Yorker signed a six-year Army enlistment contract and then deployed to Iraq on 10 January 2005, for 18 months, as a helicopter mechanic. In 2006, he rotated to the U.S., to the 1-52nd Aviation Battalion, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

Frank "Chuck" Spinney, "Retired Military Analyst"
An Air Force colonel's son, he is a Lehigh University-schooled mechanical engineer (class of 1967), and worked in the U.S.A.F., in Ohio, before working in the Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation in 1977. He became a harsh critic of the Pentagon, later known as the "Conscience of the Pentagon", when he attacked the spiraling spending increase in the report "Defense facts of life", published in 1982, later known as the "Spinney Report", which earned a cover on "Time" magazine.

Gore Vidal, "Author of Imperial America"
Writer, playwright, screen writer, novelist, and essayist, he has written books on American foreign policy explaining the American empire.

Military participants

'Fuji' and 'Tooms'
U.S.A.F. stealth aeroplane fighter pilots 'Fuji' and 'Tooms' dropped the first bombs on Baghdad city, starting the Iraq War in 2003. They say they were unaware that flawed intelligence guided their bombs, until months later, when they heard of a misdirected bombing strike and the significant, consequent human collateral damage.

Colonel Richard Treadway, "Commander USAF Stealth Fighter Squadron"
Vice-Commander of the 49th Fighter Wing of the U.S. Air Force, he has been in service since graduating from the United States Air Force Academy in 1979. He flew twenty-one combat sorties in Iraq, in 1991.

Colonel Walter W. Saeger, Jr., "Director, U.S. Air Force Munitions Directorate"
Director of the Air-to-Surface Munitions Directorate, Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill Air Force Base in Utah. He manages a munitions stockpile and equipment valued at more than $17.5 billion dollars.

Karen Kwiatkowski
A retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose duties included working as a Pentagon desk officer, and for the National Security Agency.

James G. Roche, "Secretary of the Air Force"
As the twentieth Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, he is responsible for its efficient functioning, policy formulation and implementation of the orders and instructions decided by the president and the secretary of defense.

Anh Duong
Fleeing Saigon in 1975, Anh Duong says she, "felt forever-indebted" to her American rescuers. So, when the Pentagon ordered development of a new bomb to use in Afghanistan, she applied her explosives expertise to meet the bomb order; the result was the thermobaric bunker buster bomb.

DVD commentators

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, "Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell"
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S.A.,ret'd) left government with Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2005. From 1984 to 1987, Col. Wilkerson was Executive Assistant to Admiral Stewart A. Ring, U.S.N., Director for Strategy and Policy (J5) USCINCPAC. In the 1990s Col. Wilkerson was Director of the U.S.M.C. War College, Quantico, Virginia. He has written much about military and national security affairs in mainstream and professional journals. cite web
url = http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.html
title = Interview transcript of the PBS program NOW with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson about pre-war intelligence
date = February 3 2006
accessdate = 2007-08-08
publisher = Public Affairs Television]

ee also

* Military-industrial complex
* Military Keynesianism

References

External links

* [http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight "Why We Fight"] official site at Sony Pictures Classics.
* [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/4176/58/ Interview with director Eugene Jarecki] at "Now Playing" magazine.

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