Movie Review: Why We Fight.

[Doctor Sinister]

Movies: Why We Fight

Some will see it as propaganda, but it is nowhere as inflammatory as Fahrenheit 911, and draws on a wide variety of sources to attempt to show all sides of this complex issue.

Discuss this review here!

Dr. S.

[Mountain Man]

"We" - the people - don't fight. Administrations do, and they do not solicit the approval of those who do the fighting.

Why does Bush fight? Because it's good for his best supporters - Big Business and Big Oil. Bush's abysmal record on domestic issues since beginning his Holy Crusade drive that point home.

[pirateship1982]

Originally Posted by MountainMan

"We" - the people - don't fight. Administrations do, and they do not solicit the approval of those who do the fighting.

Actually Bush got Congressional approval and there would be an impeachment to be sure if most Americans weren't on board.

Originally Posted by MountainMan

Why does Bush fight? Because it's good for his best supporters - Big Business and Big Oil. Bush's abysmal record on domestic issues since beginning his Holy Crusade drive that point home.

That's pushing it. Are you saying that the whole cause of the conflict in the middle east is over oil and business? Are you saying that if 9/11 happened and there was no oil in the middle east we would have just said "@#$% happens" and gone back to our daily lives instead of retaliating like we have? I find that argument hard to believe.

Please come up with something more intricate than the tired out mantra of Iraq being the fault of Bush, capitalism, and Evangelical Christians. I'm getting tired of refuting it.

[pirateship1982]

Originally Posted by Doctor Sinister

Movies: Why We Fight

Some will see it as propaganda, but it is nowhere as inflammatory as Fahrenheit 911, and draws on a wide variety of sources to attempt to show all sides of this complex issue.

Discuss this review here!

Dr. S.

I don't see the movie as propaganda deliberately trying to undermine the War on Terror, but I do see it as a paranoid conspiracy theory. It's true we have a capitalism fueled war machine, that's why our military is the best in the world. Competing military contractors ensure that you get the best possible product for the cheapest possible price. There's nothing wrong with that. What the talking heads in the film fail to understand is that while our military contract companies can profit from war, they do not REQUIRE war in order to be successful. In order to have a military-industrial complex that needs war to fuel it's existence you need companies that are weapons-specific, that have no way of making a living outside of war. But most, if not all of our companies deal as heavily or more heavily in civilian operations than they do in military. Boeing cranked out a large number of B-52s and other such military aircraft, but how many more civilian aircraft like the 747s, 737s, 777s, and so on have they produced as well. We have business operations that are as comfortable in peacetime as they are in wartime. And since civilian products are loaded with all sorts of bells and whistles to jack the price up whereas military products are spartan and to the point, peacetime business is actually more profitable than wartime business.

As for people not being able to answer the question "Why do we fight?" - this may sound like a cliche but - they need to be taken to "ground zero". If they need an even more harrowing example of the evil that threatens us they can visit Beslan, where innocent Russian schoolchildren were massacred in cold blood by the thugs that threaten us.

I know why we fight. And I am sure that there are plenty of Americans who know as well. I'm sure the film director ran into many people who know why their country fights. But the miracle of the editing room floor is that such inconvenient opinions can be removed or, at best, presented as a minority.

[Siberian HEAT]

Originally Posted by pirateship1982

I don't see the movie as propaganda deliberately trying to undermine the War on Terror, but I do see it as a paranoid conspiracy theory.

I left it to the viewer to decide where it stands on the propaganda issue, but two of the points made by the movie were that there are fewer and fewer huge corporations handling most of the defense contracts today - suggesting that competition and fiscal responsibility were on the decline. Also the movie suggests that a larger and larger number of our scientists, and indeed common workers are ending up working for the defense industry - which is another way of saying that our society has become more dependent on the military. That is why he showed the grandma's slinging the bunker busters on the assembly line.

In my review I think I noted that he used a small sample of people who couldn't explain why we were fighting today - which makes it easier to set up his conclusions.

Interestingly enough, Ralph Peters has a piece in the next issue of Armchair General *shameless plug* in which he addresses this issue to some extent.

[Mountain Man]

Originally Posted by pirateship1982

Actually Bush got Congressional approval and there would be an impeachment to be sure if most Americans weren't on board.



That's pushing it. Are you saying that the whole cause of the conflict in the middle east is over oil and business? Are you saying that if 9/11 happened and there was no oil in the middle east we would have just said "@#$% happens" and gone back to our daily lives instead of retaliating like we have? I find that argument hard to believe.

Please come up with something more intricate than the tired out mantra of Iraq being the fault of Bush, capitalism, and Evangelical Christians. I'm getting tired of refuting it.

Bush got "approval" from a Congress and Senate controlled by his own party - and neither Congress nor the Senate consulted those to whom they were responsible - the American public. In fact,. Bush has been very careful to stay within the fringes of emergency power acts that do not require him to obtain further approvals or to consult the American public.

From the day he got his first job, Bush has been immersed in the oil industry, and he remains strongly tied to it. Stick around for another year-and-a-half and watch where he gets his highly paid and totally symbolic board chairmanships. The seed never falls far from the tree.

Do a little figuring - it doesn't matter how rough your figures are - on the total amount of fuel used to train, sustain and fight the Iraqi war, and ask yourself where that fuel came from. Note the dramatic rise in consumer costs brought about by the unrest in the Middle East, and ask yourself who profits.

When all else fails, follow the money.

In any event, the issue at hand is "why we fight" - specifically in this case why we are fighting this particular war, and how the "military-industrial complex" originally defined by Eisenhower figures in, which I believe it does very significantly.

As for your somewhat odd statement about Evangelical Christians, that's obviously your sore point, not mine.

I have voiced my opinion, you obviously disagree, and so it goes. I won't change your mind; you won't change mine, but I enjoyed trading opinions with you. It's a shame you didn't enjopy it, too.

[Kurt Steiner]

I picked this documentary up a month or two ago on a whim an thought in an interesting film. Didn't strike me as overly liberal or paranoid; however, there were some segments that I thought were needless and pointless jabs at the War in Iraq. For instance, the whole segment that dealed with the inprecision of guided weapons and the innocents who were killed in a particular strike. War is war and un-intentional death occurs. We should just be glad that we don't area bomb like we used to in WWII.

Overall though I thought this a thought provoking film that attacks the American Military-Industrial Complex. Whenever their is tension in the world someone is making money. Follow the money trail and perhaps you will find other forces at work, forces that are not looking for peace but more clients. After all, nothing sells news or bullets better than a war.

[Siberian HEAT]

Originally Posted by Kurt Steiner

For instance, the whole segment that dealed with the inprecision of guided weapons and the innocents who were killed in a particular strike. War is war and un-intentional death occurs. We should just be glad that we don't area bomb like we used to in WWII.

I agree. It didn't say how many physical targets were hit, only that the political targets (eg. Saddam and his henchmen) were never killed due to a precision strike. This could be for other reasons than the bombs just missed by a few extra feet.

[pirateship1982]

Originally Posted by Siberian HEAT

I left it to the viewer to decide where it stands on the propaganda issue, but two of the points made by the movie were that there are fewer and fewer huge corporations handling most of the defense contracts today - suggesting that competition and fiscal responsibility were on the decline. Also the movie suggests that a larger and larger number of our scientists, and indeed common workers are ending up working for the defense industry - which is another way of saying that our society has become more dependent on the military. That is why he showed the grandma's slinging the bunker busters on the assembly line.

In WWII all of our common workers were working for the defense industry. And in peacetime those workers went back to cranking out automobiles. The nice thing about a free economy is that our businesses are flexible. It's true more and more people are working for the defense industry which is expanding. In such unsettling times this should not be surprising. It is true that we do have weapons specific industries but they are still vastly in the minority, most of our economy and job market is still in civilian enterprises.

I might have overreacted a little, but I am so tired of the anti-American garbage put out by these "documentary" companies that I have an itchy trigger finger.

[Siberian HEAT]

Originally Posted by pirateship1982

I might have overreacted a little, but I am so tired of the anti-American garbage put out by these "documentary" companies that I have an itchy trigger finger.

No problem at all. In fact, I'm glad we have different perspectives on the movie. If nothing else, the movie does a good job of setting up points for dicussion and it does a fairly good job of staying away from sensationalism for its own sake. It does have a few zingers though, such as the bit about Japan not being allowed to surrender until the US could "test" the A-bomb on them.

[pirateship1982]

Originally Posted by MountainMan

As for your somewhat odd statement about Evangelical Christians, that's obviously your sore point, not mine.

It was made in reference to your Holy Crusade remark and it's insinuation that the "religious right" was a culprit of this war. And yes, the constant bigoted tearing down of Christians in this country as being responsible for every social and international ill is my sore point. That's why I don't put up with it in this forum.

[pirateship1982]

Originally Posted by Siberian HEAT

It does have a few zingers though, such as the bit about Japan not being allowed to surrender until the US could "test" the A-bomb on them.

They must have missed the part where the Japanese military leadership tried to stop the Emperor from surrendering, even after we dropped the two nukes on them.