.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO Get Your War Off Considering the military as corporation BY MOLLY TEMPLETON WHY WE FIGHT: Documentary written and directed by Eugene Jarecki. Produced by Jarecki and Susanna Shipman. Executive producers, Roy Ackerman, Nicholas Fraser. Cinematography, Etienne Sauret, May Ying Welsh. Editor, Nancy Kennedy. Music, Robert Miller. With Wilton Sekzer, Fuji & Tooms, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, William Solomon, Anh Duong. Sony Pictures Classics, 2006. PG-13. 98 minutes. Grand Jury Prize, 2005 Sundance Film Festival. With Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1961 warning about the rise of the military-industrial complex as his thesis statement, director Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) makes a compelling, if not entirely fresh, series of points about the American war machine and the country's trek toward empire. A combination of personal narrative, political commentary, and a now-familiar collage of snappily edited footage, Why We Fight explores how the ever-growing war industry affects individuals and the future of the nation. The film begins with 9/11 — the moment at which, many agree, everything changed — and then goes back to explore military expansion in the decades following WWII. American intervention, defense spending, government contracts, the current war in Iraq and the Bush administration's plans are discussed by an array of historians, politicians, think-tank leaders and military men. Sen. John McCain says that, were he in charge, he would launch an investigation into Vice President Cheney's Halliburton connections. Richard Perle insists there is no connection. Chalmers Johnson, a political scientist and former CIA consultant, says the current administration's strategy is to become the new Rome. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endownment for International Peace reminds us that right after 9/11, "the entire world was behind us." Between these voices, Jarecki weaves the stories of a retired New York City cop who lost his son on 9/11, the two fighter pilots who dropped the first bombs on Baghdad in 2003, and a young man enlisting in the army. In a way, the three stories signify the recent past, present and future of the U.S. war machine: Wilton Sekzer, the cop, is a Vietnam vet, a man of a different era; the pilots, Fuji and Tooms, stand for those who have been and still are fighting in Iraq; William Solomon, the recruit who sees no other option for himself, is the face of the young men and women who are still being shipped to the desert. These threads hold Jarecki's movie together when it begins to overwhelm itself with familiar yet loaded images: patriotic parades, peaceful Iraqis, Americans shopping, Iraqis being arrested, stunned spectators at air shows, bombs exploding, kids playing video games Why We Fight, which takes its name from Frank Capra's series of WWII films, returns again and again to Eisenhower. In old footage, Ike explains how many houses and bushels of wheat could be bought with the money spent on missiles and planes. This simple equation makes the strongest point: The military, like any industry, is run on cash. For some, it may start to feel like you've heard much of this before, but Jarecki weaves new voices and images in with the somewhat familiar. Explosives expert Anh Duong, who fled Saigon in 1975, talks about working on the "bunker buster" bomb. The stealth fighter pilots have a striking perspective which they discuss in soft-spoken, almost gentle tones. Scenes at a creepy defense trade show back up the idea of the military as a corporation, with companies hawking their latest and greatest killing gizmos. Members of Congress appear on the House floor, expressing gratitude for the defense budget, which creates jobs for their constituents. The points of Why We Fight — that the current situation is utterly unacceptable; that we're at war because it's profitable; that America is setting itself up for a fall — are never in question. It seems clear Jarecki set out to prove a point rather than to explore a possibility. But he gives the last word to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who quit her job at the Pentagon when she felt intelligence was being forced to justify the war in Iraq. "I think we fight because too many people are not standing up saying 'I'm not doing this anymore,'" she says. Why We Fight opens Friday, March 17 at the Bijou.
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