Grade: B+ | Genre: Documentary Summary: The power of this film lies in its array of eye opening facts, coupled with a desire to let both sides be heard. It sidesteps the heavy-handed flash that Michael Moore would employee, insuring he'll never preach to anything other than the choir. In the San Francisco airport, I was in search of reading material as I prepared to swallow the nation in my flight home. I ran across the latest US News and World Report profiling presidents at war. Basically, it was trying to remove some of that polish and shine the history books have glossed upon great emancipators like Lincoln or Nazi weed killer Roosevelt. After all, Roosevelt did authorize certain American citizens of Japanese descent be relocated to internment camps during World War II. A new BBC documentary looks to shed fresh light on America at war and, more specifically, why it is that we fight. Are we following the path of the once great Britain with our economic imperialistic ways? How much longer can we serve as the world's policeman, brandishing our guns? Are we destined to be dethroned by our own hubris like every great civilization that has come before us? Why We Fight puts these difficult questions on the table to identify what exactly is in the fabric of the American DNA that keeps us at war.

The film seems to ask if the current administration is really the reckless cowboy, galloping this fine country full speed towards the precipice, or if they are getting a bad rap by liberal sourpusses too crippled to act. The film starts with images of the crumbling World Trade Center as it declares this one event will significantly alter the course of American foreign policy from that day forth. We meet a retired police officer and Vietnam veteran who lost his son that tragic day. We witness the spit of hatred and the senseless struggle to piece together losing someone that inhabited his heart. He wants to exact revenge, and if it sits in a cave in Afghanistan or in the Iraqi Imperial Palace, he is willing to support his president to take him where he needed to go to string up these evil men. Yet though we want to slap the black bandanas on these chaps and rape them of their humanity, we forget that their actions, however unspeakable, stemmed from our actions. One of Bin Laden's chief beefs with the United States is its involvement in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producing nation, who was threatened by Iran. As the movie lays down its cards, it becomes frighteningly clear that the doctrine that America has followed since Eisenhower has put us on a crash course for the embattled times in which we live.

Why We Fight Starring: John S.D. Eisenhower, Chalmers Johnson, William Kristol, John McCain Director: Eugene Jarecki View the Trailer (Quicktime) Related Articles Good Luck and Good Night Syriana George Bush Worst President Ever?

The power of this film lies in its array of eye opening facts, coupled with a desire to let both sides be heard. It sidesteps the heavy-handed flash that Michael Moore would employee, insuring he'll never preach to anything other than the choir. The dreary tone of Why We Fight certainly won't set the box office afire, but it is pointing attention to a frightening reality that seems as embedded in American culture as apple pie and the Corvette. As Americans, we see it as our duty to spread the call of freedom and quash repressive governments that conflict with our corporate interests. To ask the average citizen why we fight, you get befuddled answers leaning on the crutch of abstract concepts. The fervor and devotion America had backing its soldiers during World War II has disappeared, replaced by images of failings in Vietnam and corrupt politicians profiting on the heads of fallen American boys. Ten different people may walk away from this picture with ten different interpretations, which shows its power. Personally, it took me in the direction to say that American arrogance certainly didn't start with Bush's administration; they've just taken it to a new level of indecency. Is this a path we are simply destined to follow, or will we stand up to the corporate interest groups and the shady politicians to say enough is enough. American lives are too valuable to serve as litter in the streets of Iraq.

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