Eugene Jarecki: Why We Fight (2006)

[Chris Knipp]

Eugene Jarecki: Why We Fight (2006)

Why we need this movie

Review by Chris Knipp

This film by the brother of Andrew, who made the controversial Capturing the Friedmans, has been blasted as an inferior version of the "collage" or "montage" form of documentary, which is to say a documentary that mixes footage from a wide variety of sources. As if "montage" were not the basic element of film. In full grumpy mode, New Yorker film critic David Denby even says (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/060123crci_cinema) it's time to put an end to this kind of documentary altogether:
Isn’t it time to retire the collage method of making documentaries? A phrase or two clipped out of some policy expert’s discourse, followed by a bit of stock footage of jet fighters lined up in rows, followed by some candy-sucking kids hauled by their parents to a convention-hall weapons show, and, wham!, you’ve got an indictment of American militarism and imperialism. Except you don’t; you don’t have much of anything but tawdry film-editing technique. That's more an example of tawdry film-criticsm technique than of anything in this film. The "collage method" doesn't really denote a distinct category of documentary, and the method isn't objectionable. Even if all the footage of a doc is by the same director/photographer, it's quite likely to include interviews and shots of a lot of different people and places. A historical doc is going to have to use old footage. And how varied the elements in a film are depends on the subject and outlook. Jarecki's subject is a very broad, but also very important one.

What Denby's possibly really annoyed by is Jarecki's blanket opposition to American militarism, which leads the filmmaker to come at his topic from a variety of angles and rely on many and varied voices. He uses not only solid authorities like retired Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who observed the cooking of intelligence data in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion ("We elected a defense contractor as vice-president," she also comments); super-patriot and moral stalwart Senator McCain, who has serious reservations about a lot of what the Bush administration does, but jumps when Cheney calls; anti-imperialist polemicist and data-gatherer Chalmers Johnson, who served in the CIA and has a devastatingly comprehensive sense of the US's pursuit of global dominance; a slightly wacky but often truth-telling ranter, the venerable Gore Vidal; a bereaved New York ex-cop who feels stung for getting his WTC-victim son's name on a big bomb dropped in Iraq and then immediately afterwards seeing Bush on TV claim he'd never said Saddam had WMD's; Bush making that claim; Rumsfeld and Cheney and Richard Perle cynically fudging; a Kellogg, Brown, and Root huckster at a military trade fair cynically hawking his services; a 23-year-old who's joining the army for the perennial reason that he's got nothing better to do; a variety of Iraqis who've seen the "collateral damage" first hand, like by having their wives and children killed and maimed. This is not a smart president, a rustic in a kuffiya says, and this bomb that hit my house was not a 'smart missile.' If this mélange of voices is the "collage method," it's a damned effective and relevant one.

The fact is that Jarecki isn't a stunning, in-your-face polemicist like Michael Moore, who can carry off even wilder and more provocative "collages," though Denby didn't like Fahrenheit 9/11 one bit either, even while acknowledging its effectiveness. Films like these are too political for the politics of critics reviewing them to be anything but highly relevant. If you're strongly opposed, like myself, both to US aims at global domination and to the current administration's uniquely blatant and illegal ways of pursuing them, you're likely to feel, as I do, that Jarecki's film can only shed light on a subject that is often clouded.

How that clouding goes on is one of Jarecki's many relevant topics: he chronicles the way the media and Congress were deceived -- and decciving -- in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. How We Fight's "collage" gives ample evidence of lying, prevarication, and cynicism on the parts of Messrs Bush, Rumsfeld, Perle, et al. Is cutting in their blatant lies another example of "tawdry film-editing technique," like the pictures of delighted parents and children at outdoor displays of new bombers?

For those of us who've been concerned for a while about what's going on with US policy, there's undeniably a sense of déjâ vu at times in Why We Fight; but that's because what Jarecki presents is historically correct. He starts out notably, and bookends his film, with Dwight D. Eisenhower's speech when he retired from office in 1961 warning about the "militaryindustrial complex." Originally the speech writers included Congress in the nexus, and the film corrects that omission by dwelling on the essential role of Congress, adding that there is a new element, the think tanks, which formulate policy more than the executive branch now -- policy that promotes war, because its aim is, on the right, global dominance. If a bomb has parts from every single state, as Chalmers Johnson says, then representatives of every state will have a stake in its continued manufacture. "When war becomes this profitable," he says, "reasons are always going to be found to start a new one."

Much has been made of Wilton Sekzer, the retired NYC cop, who wanted revenge after 9/11 and got a 20,000 pound bomb inscribed "in loving memory" of his son who died in the WTC. Sekzer is an average Joe, and a profoundly sympathetic man. There's no questioning his patriotism and faith in his leaders -- till he got burned. Some have said Sekzer is out of place in this film, that he grabs too much attention. Others say he is the heart and soul of it. In fact he, like the young recruit whose mom has died and who doesn't have the motivation or maybe the funds to continue school and therefore joins the army, is just another of the human pieces in a vast inhuman puzzle for which Chalmers Johnson has the documentation in 2006 and to which Ike had the key in 1961.

Posted on Knipp's website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=530)

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
In full grumpy mode, New Yorker film critic David Denby even says it's time to put an end to this kind of documentary altogether: That's more an example of tawdry film-criticsm technique than of anything in this film. The "collage method" doesn't really denote a distinct category of documentary, and the method isn't objectionable.What Denby's possibly really annoyed by is Jarecki's blanket opposition to American militarism

He wouldn't be the first critic to dishonestly mask his reasons for disliking a film. You've expertly dismantled his overwrought rationale for panning it. I don't know Denby or read his reviews so I can't comment on his politics.

He uses not only solid authorities like retired Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who observed the cooking of intelligence data in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion; a bereaved New York ex-cop who feels stung for getting his WTC-victim son's name on a big bomb dropped in Iraq and then immediately afterwards seeing Bush on TV claim he'd never said Saddam had WMD's

Ms. Kwiatkowski and Mr. Sekser's stories of disillusionment provided for me the most resonance and emotional impact. On the other hand, the ample screen time devoted to the two fighter pilots who ran the first bombing mission in Irak has a weak "we do what we're told" payoff.

a 23-year-old who's joining the army for the perennial reason that he's got nothing better to do

Like you said at the conclusion, perhaps he doesn't have the motivation or the funds to finish school. I wish this issue was explored further within Why We Fight. It would seem that making it easier for youths to achieve higher education would interfere with the military objective of maintaining a certain level of enlistment without resorting to an unpopular mandatory draft.

For those of us who've been concerned for a while about what's going on with US policy, there's undeniably a sense of déjâ vu at times in Why We Fight; but that's because what Jarecki presents is historically correct. He starts out notably, and bookends his film, with Dwight D. Eisenhower's speech when he retired from office in 1961 warning about the "militaryindustrial complex."

Initially the film seems to be saying that we fight because, since World War II, our domestic economy has been structured around war. That our brand of capitalism demands expensive bloodshed, carrying the implication that nothing short of a systemic overhaul is required to avoid the same type of collapse that befell former empires. Increasingly Why We Fight focuses on the current conflict, in which the culprits of the whole charade are Republicans. I wish the film had kept its focus on the ravenous monster identified by Eisenhower which has been fed for decades by both major parties. As is, the film often seems to facilitate the illusion that a Democratic administration would improve matters significantly.

[Chris Knipp]

a 23-year-old who's joining the army for the perennial reason that he's got nothing better to do

Like you said at the conclusion, perhaps he doesn't have the motivation or the funds to finish school.
I believe he actually says he doesn't have funds for school now, and the death of his mother seems also to have left him at loose ends.

I should point out that like Rosenbaum who has said so, I admire Denby's style. Like everybody on The New Yorker, he writes very well -- so when he has something worthwhile to say, he says it clearly and eloquently. I critiqued him specifically because his writing and the place where it appears command attention and therefore a falsification on his part is dangerous and needs somebody to question it. He's an intelligent man who lives at the center of cultural events in some sense (despite blind spots) and I would consider myself provincial and uninformed if I didn't read him. I would advise you to take a look at his reviews (you probably do, since you check the reviews and know a lot about metacrictic vs. rottentomatoes--The New Yorker is usually on metacritic's line of main evaluations) and also at his equally adept and wittier by-weekly alternate in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane, whose assessments are perhaps more accurate and better informed than Denby's, as well as much more fun to read, even when they're maddeningly frivolous-sounding. When I said Denby was in "full grumpy mode," it's because I've seen him in person and he does seem to have become very grumpy.

I agree that it's misleading to imply a democratic administration wouldn't get us into wars as a republican one would; quite the contrary. Clinton got us into Kosovo and bombed Iraq. FDR got us into WWII, Truman got us into Korea, Kennedy got us into Vietnam and LBJ kept us there, etc. But it is justifiable to imply that no other admistration in modern history has had more warlike principles or pursued more overtly imperialistic policies than the current one. There is a difference, but it is not an absolute one, rather one of degree. It's inevitable for a polemical and committed anti-war film with contemporary documentary content to refer to current events and current leaders. There's just no way out of it. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't and people wouldn't be as much interested in watching it. I don't think Jerecki lost track of his basic points and did return to them at the end, but he might hve returned to them more focefully; what polemical film is perfect? Well, maybe a few are.

Thanks for your detailed comment.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I believe he actually says he doesn't have funds for school now, and the death of his mother seems also to have left him at loose ends.

Yes, that seems to be the correct interpretation of what he says. I am particularly interested in what motivates young people to enlist which, I propose, often includes a certain amount of ignorance of the facts and self-delusion. But I wish there was a follow-up question to the statement below, particularly regarding his access to financial aid and the policies behind any difficulties in obtaining that kind of help.

"A lot of the stuff that I've been going through recently with my mother's death, my financial hardships and my inability to complete my education...those three main problems are all gonna, plain and simple, just gonna be solved by my enlistment in the military".
(Jason Solomon)


I agree that it's misleading to imply a democratic administration wouldn't get us into wars as a republican one would; quite the contrary.

Perle says towards the conclusion:
"We're not going back to where we were. I find, one of the sillier ideas, is the notion, and you hear it all the time, that American foreign policy has been hijacked by a handful of people and as soon as they're out of there we're gonna go back to the way it was. They're wrong about that because we're not the same people any more"

I found it frustrating that Jarecki let's statements like that (and others like Chalmers Johnson's on the collapse of empires) go unexplored. On the other hand, the material about the pilots and a Vietnam-born bomb factory employee yields nothing substantive.

The topic is immensely important and the film is good overall, but I wish it was better.

[Chris Knipp]

Good for you to find the exact quote of the kid. Yeah, that is what he said. I think "at loose ends" says it all. They go because it provides structure. I was in the army and I got a lot out of it despite all the silliness and I have to admit I liked the structure myself. It's kinda nice not to have to decide what to wear and when to get up. His mother dying probably knocked the hell out of his sense of structure, maybe she told him every move to make, anyway he just didn't have any strong plans and the army had plans for him. You're going to come up short on motivation and at that age I had no plans myself.

I realize you feel you could make a better movie but this one was pretty decent, I think--the filmmaker doesn't have to dot all his i's and cross all his t's when he's presenting a lot of information and people's views: let us do some thinking on our own, let the subjects sort themselves out, it's a way of throwing out a lot of the ideas that are in the air. I've read Chalmers Johnson, I have his two books, so I was happy that he got heard, and I had no problem with a lack of "commentary" on the commentary he or Perle provided. I guess also sometimes ideas are "explored" simply by being juxtaposed with other ideas that contrast with them.

[Johann]

This film was powerful, important and right on the money.
I went through some pretty angry emotional waves while watching.
In a nutshell, it shows how fucked up the United States government is and why all of the important decisions are determined by powerful corporate interests.

There is nobody flying the plane. I've said it before.
There is nobody whatsoever making any decision that helps the country or its citizens in any way, shape or form.

Are Americans aware yet of how bad this situation is?

This film blew me away with it's candour and point-blank statements about what is going on and why it has been allowed to flourish.
President Eisenhower warned of it, we're now
LIVING IT. Those clips of Americans working at bomb factories...holy shit man. They are caught in the complex- they must work to put food on their table yet they work to build weapons that kill. One lady had a son in the army!: Some days I'm OK, some days I cry rivers...

It's all here: the Bush Administration's WILLINGNESS to go to war, no weighing the decision on their part, no deep regret over the idea of sending America's sons and daughter's to die- War's on the menu, and the whole gang is HUNGRY!
Memo's on how to maintain support for the war!
The disastrous rise of misplaced power!
People making policies who have zero accountability to the voters!
Political actors not wanting the public to know a damn thing!
The military industrial complex so fucking pervasive that it's invisible!

It's all about contracts folks, not war or Saddam or Bin Laden.
Contracts for now, contracts for the future.
It's economic colonialism, through and through, free markets, mining other countries' markets and resources.
Yes, war is THAT profitable.
And there will be more "wars" in the future.
Expect it during your lifetime. More war, more economic rape, more lives destroyed, more lies, more mismanaged clusterfucks and evil. It's guaranteed bubba.
Follow the money trail. Then you'll get your reasons for war.

A recurring thing in the film is the question to regular folks:
Why do we fight?
The answers range from your stock "for freedom" to "I honestly don't know". Nobody seems to know why the fuck the U.S. goes to war. But after this film you'll know.
And you'll stay the fuck away from a recruiting station if you're smart. As it was pointed out so finely in the film, if you join the military, you are not joining for freedom or defending the awesome virtues and values of your nation but in fact helping the powers that be pursue an illegal, immoral agenda that has no correspondence with "freedom". You would be part and parcel of "helping spread democracy" by the point of a bayonet while making your leaders insanely rich. Now get out there and be all you can be!

The film highlights the fact that the U.S. government doesn't want it's citizens asking the big question: What was the motives of those who carried out 9/11?

Becuase if you start to delve into that question, you start to implicate the government of some stuff that you weren't supposed to know about. You'll dive into a matter that is way beyond you. And if millions of people start doing it, then "CRAWFORD, WE HAVE A PROBLEM..."

The film is simply brilliant, and everybody in the known world should see it.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm not sure middle Americans or republicans or red staters see documentaries like this. Most people know it's anti-war and go see it only if they are likely to agree. The result is preaching to the converted. The answer to your question correspondingly is that Americans in general do not know what is going on. The vast majority rely on the mainstream media, and you know how they served us on the run-up to Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan and all the other hundreds of US government actions that the public didn't agree to.

That said, such a film is still super-valuable, because it galvanizes the constituency and provides us with information and arguments to fodder debates and discussions.

I wish you'd pointed out the movie's good and bad points a bit more and not spent quite so much time addressing the reader directly with your own views using the movie so much as a springboard for a Hyde Park Corner speech. By the way notice you used "it's" for the possessive "its" a couple times. Spell-check catches that but I'm not suing spell-check here any more then you are!

But as always, your spirit and intensity are welcome.

Ever look into the writings of Chris Hedges? His book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and other related writings and speeches might interest you.

[Johann]

The good points are:

- Mr. Jarecki never loses his point throughout the whole film. He doesn't go on wild tangents or down rabbit holes with his presentation. He's been criticized for using too many *really old* stock footage clips but that vintage clip of Halliburton's is quite appropriate. I can't think of any edited clips of old footage that led me astray. The film is intelligent, and it assumes the viewer is too.

-The articulation of the speakers in the film. You have some powerful insiders telling you some alarming things and it's hard to argue with what they're revealing. I was wondering if the CIA now has a hit out on former L/Col karen Kwiatkowski. She impressed me the most, with her testimony of what it was like in the Pentagon in the run-up. Totally condemns the Bush Administration on how and why it's foreign policy changed.
remember that talking head?:
What happened?
Just the experience of September 11th?
or is there something else going on here?
Take stock.

Remember my hero Gore Vidal? he's in the film too:
We are the United states of amnesia. We remember nothing. We remember nothing. Everything is a blank. We have no history. We remember nothing on Monday morning.

- I also love how Jarecki makes his points with editing. The pro-war goofs will be quick to say that he's deliberately placing Bush's speech clips in bad contexts, but he's absolutely right.
And for some real laughs, watch John McCain jump after he's lulled into admitting that if corruption was rampant then he'd have the gov't investigate then someone says: Cheney's on the phone!. Look at McCain's reaction! Holy dogshit!

The main point Jarecki drives home is the U.S. government mentality: "We're the boss. It has to be this way on planet earth. We're the boss.Anybody who defies the U.S. will be punished. We do what we want. You'd better not be against us- you will lose".

They TOOK OVER.
Even more than they did at the height of the cold war.
Quite in the open.
Quite brazenly told the world that they'll do whatever in &^%$'s name they want, thank you very much. And if you even think of going against it, you're a terrorist, just like the evil doers who threaten the freedoms that we defend.

The bad points are:

None. I am hugely grateful that films like this exist.
If only something could be done about this insane situation...

Bush was here in Ottawa today.
I don't even wanna tell you what the vibe is here

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for your list of the good points, Johann. I'm sure there are some weaknesses. I may have mentioned a few and so did Oscar. I think the title itself is good. WHY WE FIGHT. Why do we fight?

--TESTOSTERONE, animal instinct of man, innate violence, desire to play the hero

--EMPIRE ("full spectrum dominance"): it shows we're the big cheese, scares all the little guys, spreads US control

--PRIVATE PROFIT war is immensely profitable for its suppliers

--IDLENESS: nothing better to do for the young, uneducated, unfocused, desperate, irnorant

--PATRIOTISM (misguided, in most cases)

--PROTECTION: to shield ourselves from real threats

WHAT? What are those? Did you say "threats"? It's hard to conceive of any threat to the United States that presently could be warded off by war. That is the problem: the "war on terror" is not a war, and terrorism can't be stopped by war.

I'm sure a more conservative viewer, writer, website would have more urgent explanations for WHY WE FIGHT. But like Denby concealing his real reasons for not liking the movie, they would very often be concealing their real reasons for wanting to fight, such as supporting a powerful right wing government.

Incidentally, isn't the US tendency to create little dynasties--Roosevelts I and II, Bushes I and II, and now potentially Clintons I and II--an indication of an innate authoritarian tendency?

The fact remains that the democrats have gotten us into more wars and Clinton (Mr.) was responsible for unprecedented amounts of bombing.

[Chris Knipp]

Johann, I too am an admirer of Gore Vidal and his phrase, THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA is painfully true and central to an understanding of the mess we are continually in. The phrase "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" I see was actually stated differently by its author, the philosopher, George Santayana: what he said was
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But of course if you can't remember it, you can't learn from it.

[Johann]

You're right that the film isn't "in-your-face" like Michael Moore can be, but it's extremely effective to me, whether or not Jarecki is employing "inferior collage or montage".

It works, and once you start watching, that inferior montage takes on more meaning. His juxtapositions and presentations have a singular purpose: to expose something that is harming the world. It's a film that aims to educate in a time when the info we need to fix the problem is withheld from us.

If the U.S. (as we all know) is all about protecting its citizens from evil doers, then this film is the most patriotic thing to come down the pike since the declaration of independence. Hallelujah Sistah!

Evil doers like Cheney and Rumsfeld are shown in clips that confirm without any doubt how retarded and tunnel-visioned they are.
I let out a couple near-screams when I heard Cheney say he doesn't know anything about what Halliburton does, how he has no connection with Halliburton at all as V.P.
Right. Good one Dick! You should hit the Comedy Store stage!

Those sinister shots of Rummy laughing like a dipshit:

Yes! The President is right on some things! Everybody knows they have weapons of mass destruction- everybody KNOWS they have 'em. God are you press people stupid...

Gore Vidal is the man. If more people read him then more people would understand the United States.
He's right about what's going on because he loves his country so much- same with Hunter thompson. These are men who care so much about their country that they spent a great deal of their lives writing about it, mythologizing it. But the U.S. is not the U.S. of Thompson or Vidal- it's the U.S. of BUSHCO. (registered trademark)

Nobody seems to care about what harm this man and his Administration have wrought. Nobody seems to want to do anything.
One of the most devastating scenes for me in Why We Fight was the scene on the floor of Congress- the empty Congress. The one where the speaker points out that you can hear a pin drop... That scene right there said it all.
The man is looking for answers and there's not a soul in Congress who's listening or caring.

Hunter S. Thompson was A-1 accurate, A-1 on the money about what the U.S. has become: a soul-less, vacuuous, all-encompassing greed machine, a greed machine that won't hesitate to kill it's own citizens, because war is good business.

It's GREAT business, in fact: Invest your son, yourself, your whole life to making the elite richer than they ever imagined.
THAT is being a true patriot.
THAT is being a fucking American.

[Chris Knipp]

You are the Hunter S. Thompson of FilmLeaf, Johann.

But remember, when you address yourself to me, that I am always in English teacher and editor at heart, so stop writing "it's" when you mean "its," please!


protecting it's citizens No!

Sorry, short of time. . . I hope Why we Fight is having a good life as a DVD.

[Johann]

So sorry...I'm so weak..

I carelessly left spelling to fend for itself- my keyboard was smoking after that post. Had to let the thing cool off. (ha ha)

Memo to self:
Must. Get. Spelling. Right.

[Chris Knipp]

Good excuse!

A common confusion, which I'm guilty of too, but as one becomes more aware of it, it's a problem that takes care of itself on its own.

[cinemabon]

Chris, I know your feelings regarding the current administration, views probably shared by a majority of Americans, including myself. However, you made some statements above I noticed today as I read this column...

"Clinton got us into Kosovo and bombed Iraq. FDR got us into WWII, Truman got us into Korea, Kennedy got us into Vietnam and LBJ kept us there, etc."

I'd like to point a few things out historically speaking. Clinton responded to pressure from Europe to enter Kosovo. We stayed out and because we did, genocide took place. FDR did not 'get' us into WWII. We were attacked, and I might add, viciously. Attacks went on all that week, not just at Pearl Harbor, but ships were sunk and other bases in the Pacific were bombed by the Japanese. Our delay into WWII cost Europe its freedom, England countless lives, and extended the holocaust. Kennedy did not 'get' us into Vietnam. Eisenhower, at the behest of the French government, requested US troops as 'advisors' to help quell Vietnamese resistance to their authority (the French Indochina War). During that period, Ho Chi Min came to America begging for help in gaining their independence from the French. No one in congress would speak to him. Advisors convinced Eisenhower that if Vietnam fell, all of SE Asia would fall under communism, otherwise known as the Domino Theory. Kennedy inherited the mess, and with people like Robert McNamera, escalated our involvement. LBJ turned it into an all out war, which was never formally declared. As for Harry Truman, he had the great misfortune of having a war hero, MacArthur, dictate terms from the battlefield. Ultimately, Truman fired MacArthur, however it was too late, and it took Eisenhower's diplomats to negotiate peace.

Bush and Iraq are a very different story. From the beginning he conspired with Rumsfeld and Cheney to create this problem and fight this war. This war has artificially inflated this economy. When the war funding is cut, as it must be eventually, the stockmarket and the boom will hit the skids, ridding a necessary evil that Bush created. But whoa to the president stuck with that mess. The prosperity 'we' have experienced for the past two years is paid for with the blood of American soldiers. Remember that upper class America the next time you walk into your ocean side condo.

Speaking of docs... I look forward to Ken Burn's "War" this fall.

That is all... (aka MASH)

[Chris Knipp]

I know the stories of how we got into those wars. I cannot debate their valididity with you or discuss the domino theory, which was never credible. However, I think democrats falsely assume that republicans are war mongers, when in fact more democrats have gotten us into wars. Perhaps an earlier intervention would have prevented the millions and millions of dead in WWII. But the whole war might have been prevented without American intervention, which is another story. Did Pearl Harbor justify the millions of Americans who died in that war? Were the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary? Should it have happened? Could the Japanese have been forced to surrender earlier if a small concession had been made? It is a stretch to assume that our leaders, particularly the democrats, have managed things well. I am relying on Howard Zinn's The Twentieth Century: A People's History, and would refer you in particular to Chapters 5: "A People's War?" anadChapter 12: "The Clinton Presidency and the Crisis of Democracy."
During that period, Ho Chi Min came to America begging for help in gaining their independence from the French. No one in congress would speak to him. Yes, and so?

It is questionable to say anyone "inherited" a certain situation who made things worse, as is clearly the case with Kennedy and Vietnam, nor can one blame his advisers. He's the president. He's the decider, remember?
As for Harry Truman, he had the great misfortune of having a war hero, MacArthur, dictate terms from the battlefield. Ultimately, Truman fired MacArthur, however it was too late, and it took Eisenhower's diplomats to negotiate peace. Truman was president. You cannot excuse him in this way.

No, though Iraq is a completely different situation, with its warring factions, I can't grant you it's a "completely different situation' and that somehow it's all because of Bush and his neo-con cronies. They are simply a crude version of the clique of warmongers who always surround a president.

[cinemabon]

As to polical parites, it was a republican and not a democrat that led this nation during its bloodiest and most divisive war, one whose casualties have never been equalled... that would be Lincoln and the Civil War, which far outstripped WWII. Could that war have been prevented?

You also mention dropping the A-bomb (also being developed in Germany at the time, its production stopped in April when the war ended in Europe. They were, of course, developing the far more lethal Hydrogen bomb using deuterium or heavy water known as H30, an isotope). Should Truman have dropped the bomb? Supposedly the plans to invade Japan (Operation Downfall) would have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives, the impact would have decimated our forces and reduced our military in half. The President had two alternatives, invasion or use the bomb. They offered the Japanese surrender. However, the Japanese military would not accept the terms. The argument against dropping the bomb in light of today's knowledge is pedantic and using hinesight in this case is tempered by the whims of current favoritism toward the Japanese. While the bombings were regrettable and arguably necessary, the entire war was a brutal episode in world history, not just in Japan but in Europe and Russia, too. The Japanese slaughtered countless Chinese. Stalin declared war on his own people as a dictator, supposedly killing 25 million people with starvation. Franco persecuted his people. Hitler massacred millions because they were Jewish. None of this has anything to do with an American president, George Bush, and his negligent policies, nor do they have anything to do with Iraq, the principle focus of this film.

My point is one of clarification (see the first page) and not to claim that democrats or republicans should be blamed for taking us into war; merely that this president is an idiot, and may have driven our military backward into a state that will take decades to resolve. The fact he is a republican has nothing to do with his lack of intelligence, lack of planning, lack of foresight, and lack of understanding.

[Chris Knipp]

Evidence is that Japan was about to surrender, so the horrible bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't necessary. There are many reasons for this. All your other arguments about WWII and its aftermath are familiar, but not cogent ones. "Regrettable" is an incredibly insensitive word about the use of the atomic bomb, by the way. If I were your ghost writer I would replace that with "tragic necessity." But I do not agree that it was. And I am not alone. Nor do I think it's a good strategy to suggest that current hindsight about the atomic bomb use relates to some kind of current softness toward the Japanese now. It's not nice to incinerate hundreds of thousands of people unnecessarily, whether we love them or hate them.

The word "Republican" meant something different when Lincoln was President. It was new, a fledgling party. Needless to say, it was the most "divisive" war in US history, since it was a civil war. Of course the Revolutionary War was pretty divisive too. So what? You are right that there were heavy losses in the Civil War, but the losses in WWII were heavier. WWII was also far more costly.

No, those other massacres and attrocities you list by Hitler, Stalin, et al., have nothing to do with an American president, and also nothing to do with this discussion; so why do you list them?

You stepped in to address me apparently to defend the democrats. It's the essence of the film, Why We Fight, that warmongering is not the exclusive purview of any particular party. It gets its material largely from current war-making, namely Iraq, but the theme is, as the titles says, WHY WE FIGHT. That is why I stressed that the democrats have more than done their part. I was not departing from the theme of the film. I don't see that you have demonstrated that republicans are responsible for more US war involvements than the democrats.

The film isn't about how dumb Bush is. But that is another red herring from you, which seems to be your method of discussion. You stepped in to "set" me "straight" on "history," and defend the democrats. Well, I fail to see the evidence. Whatever justifications you drag out, Clinton did get us into bombing Kosovo. The record of Clinnton's warmongering is long; and Hilary seems poised to continue the family tradition.

I was initially responding to Oscar Jubis' post about the film and my review in which he says:
Posted by Oscar Jubis:

Initially the film seems to be saying that we fight because, since World War II, our domestic economy has been structured around war. That our brand of capitalism demands expensive bloodshed, carrying the implication that nothing short of a systemic overhaul is required to avoid the same type of collapse that befell former empires. Increasingly Why We Fight focuses on the current conflict, in which the culprits of the whole charade are Republicans. I wish the film had kept its focus on the ravenous monster identified by Eisenhower which has been fed for decades by both major parties. As is, the film often seems to facilitate the illusion that a Democratic administration would improve matters significantly.
Yes, republicans aren't all as "dumb" as Bush, or more properly the little Bush junta that took us into war in Afghanistan and Iraq and wants to take us on to Iran. But this is a common American pattern. Let me beat you to the draw and point out that the 1953 US coup against Mossadegh in Iran was under Eisenhower.

[cinemabon]

First of all, let's set the record straight...

I did not enter this discussion, Chris Knipp, to defend anyone, merely to clarify your inaccuracies and gross statements of misjudgement, which I pointed out in the first post. Neither you, nor any filmmaker can say it was a democract or a republican that was responsible for WWII. This is lunacy. It doesn't make any sense. Roosevelt did not chose to go to war. The Japanese, not the Americans did that. They attacked, and attacked and attacked without let up... not just us, but everyone that wasn't Japanese. They attacked and killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese, fact. They attacked and murdered on numerous occasions all over that region of the world, fact. They sunk merchant and military ships left and right and killed untold numbers of people in the most brutal and sadistic fashion, fact. That is the record of the Japanese, NOT America. What we did to them pales in comparison. FYI: Statistically speaking, more dead for Civil War than WWII for America, fact. Cost and wounded is another factor.

Secondly, you say Japan was going to surrender in August of 1945, but that is conjecture, pure conjecture and not a fact. No one, not any source can say with certainty that the Japanese were prepared to surrender. In fact, all evidence exists to the contrary despite the post war sentiment.

I have spent my life studying history, art person. You want to go toe to toe on history. Let's do it. My beef is, was and shall be inaccuracies when I see it. Period. Gross generalizations about democrats, whether by a filmmaker or by you do not make them correct. They are wrong, dead wrong.

I could give a hoot in hell about democrats or republicans. They both have blood on their hands. They can all go to hell, as far as I am concerned. "A plague on both their houses." The United States is the number one arms dealer to the world. If we all want peace so badly, I say we start right there and stop selling billions of arms to the arabs, the jews, and everyone else with a blank check that comes calling. Why we fight... indeed. If that is its slant perhaps he should have investigated why we fart instead. More truth would have come out.

[Chris Knipp]

You are right: more were killed but fewer wounded in the Civil War than in WWII. you are right also about the brutal attacks of the Japanese and their provocations of America. Whether that justifies Hiroshima and Nagasaki is another question, however. Statistics and "fact" do not in themselves provide moral justification and even the tactical considerations are far too complex to be resolved by what you or I have said.

It is stated in various places that documents now available reveal Japan had made overtures to surrender in July, but the US ignored them and their demand that the emperor of Japan be removed blocked surrender, because that was the one thing the Japanese would not and could not agree too, as was known; and allowing the emperor to continue later during the occupation proved to be a wise decision. My view that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary and remain a blot on the record for America is one that is held by many and for many different reasons, and not held out of an ignorance of the historical background of that moment. Your belief that if one only knows the "facts"one must inevitably agree to your conclusion is obviously an erroneous one, because others are in possession of these same facts and have arrived at different conclusions.

I think my main point in recent exchanges has been meant to be that in the conduct of foreign policy there isn't very much difference between a democratic administration and a republican one. This conforms to the viewpoint of Jarecki's documentary, which is that war is pursued because it is profitable and satisfies certain instincts and the unspoken policy of US governments is to continue to pursue armed conflicts on many fronts. Unfortunately, we do not have a peace party. And the neocons pushed the country into Iraq in a particularly arbitrary and disingenuous manner. You agree on that, but seem to consider many earlier involvements or attacks wholly justified. I question them all.


I could give a hoot in hell about democrats or republicans. They both have blood on their hands. They can all go to hell, as far as I am concerned. "A plague on both their houses." The United States is the number one arms dealer to the world. If we all want peace so badly, I say we start right there and stop selling billions of arms to the arabs, the jews, and everyone else with a blank check that comes calling. Why we fight... indeed. If that is its slant perhaps he should have investigated why we fart instead. More truth would have come out. I agree to most of this paragraph, but don't get the latter part about farting. Are you dismissing the film as irrelevant or trivial? Or are you simply in a rage? Anyway, I agree with you that the current administration is crazy and stupid, but I don't agree with you that "facts" will justify American's conduct of a whole series of other earlier wars by different administrations. I repeat, I question them all, and for reasons elucidated in this film.

[cinemabon]

At least in those aspects, as you mentioned near the end of this post, we can agree.

I am a humanitarian and not a war mongerer. I do not believe in violence and any form of it I find abhorent. I have posted this often, when I've stated my position on violence in media. I would not condon the use of force against anyone nor do I condon the use of WMD against Japan or any nation. This argument of surrender is pedantic. I stayed up two nights ago reading Eisenhower's diaries, and a number of other relevant documents and came away disgusted by the whole affair. I only know the aftermath is filled with sorrow. Whether the Japanese deserved what they dished out happened as a matter of fate, and not of my preference.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm glad to hear you are not a warmonger. Not many people lay claim to that title though.
I would not condon the use of force against anyone nor do I condon the use of WMD against Japan. I'm glad to hear it.

It's unfortunate that in the conduct of WWII and perhaps any such violent conflicts, the worst methods win out and are copied by the opponent. Hence it was only the Germans that bombed civilian targets to begin with in WWII, but eventually the Allied forces followed suit.

[cinemabon]

I'll abide your sarcasm (I'm glad to hear it) as long you can abide my occasional if not bumbling intrusions.

[Chris Knipp]

Sure! You are more than welcome.