- Title: USA: New provocative documentary examines why America repeatedly goes to war
- Date: 19th January 2006
- Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 12, 2006) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) EUGENE JARECKI, DIRECTOR OF "WHY WE FIGHT," SAYING: "We were inspired to make the film by the farewell address of Dwight Eisenhower in which he warned America about the military-industrial complex and so we were really looking at to what extend has Eisenhower's warning become a kind o
- Embargoed: 3rd February 2006 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVA8WHRXW17GWVPUNL22FU83X805
- Story Text: A new American documentary joins the growing list of political films, which examine American foreign policies and politics, concentrating particularly on the country's reasons for going to war in Iraq.
Eugene Jarecki, whose previous work includes "The Trials of Henry Kissinger", is the director of "Why We Fight", a film that examines the anatomy of the American war machine, weaving personal stories with commentary by military and beltway insiders such as John McCain, Gore Vidal, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson and Richard Perle.
The film is inspired by former American President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell speech in which he coined the phrase "military industrial complex", and then goes on to survey the scorched landscape of a half-century's military adventures, asking how - and telling why - a nation of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.
"We were inspired to make the film by the farewell address of Dwight Eisenhower in which he warned America about the military-industrial complex and so we were really looking at to what extend has Eisenhower's warning become a kind of prophecy? Where are we today, forty-five years later? Well, that's a pretty theoretical film and it could have ended up just a talking heads film, and I'm not sure how people would have liked it. But then a war happened and when the war happened in Iraq, it was, you could no longer make just a theoretical film, you had to deal with the war. And dealing with war means dealing with people. People are on the receiving end of war and the giving end of war and to tell their stories became vital to us," Jarecki explained.
Wilton Sekzer, is one of the main interviewees in the documentary. Sekzer who was a New York City cop for 35 years, lost his son Jason in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In the film, Sekzer explained how he believed that 9/11 had to do with Saddam and Iraq and approached the branches of the armed forces so they could write his son's name on a bomb to be dropped in Iraq. Later, when Sekzer found out that 9/11 did not have any clear link with Iraq, he was shocked.
"I'm a Vietnam veteran. I know what it is to experience war and for me to see these young men and women experiencing war in Iraq, it hurts me, it pains me and to think about the fact that they may be over there for the wrong reason - that's pain and that's anger," Sekzer said.
Some critics are hailing "Why We Fight" as a more objective, less dramatic "Fahrenheit 9/11" that manages to explore the American war machine in a far more comprehensive manner. The documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
Jarecki explained what purpose his examination of the Iraq war served in the larger structure of the film.
"By presenting the Iraq war in a historical context, we start to see that it's not the first war we find ourselves sinking in the quicksand, with our men and women overseas, and are asking ourselves - wait, how did this start again? I mean Vietnam started that way, the Gulf of Tonkin incident which started the war which we later found out was as fictitious as the weapons of mass destruction were. And so, there's a pattern here of Americans being told one thing and then later on, after a great deal of loss, finding out another," he said.
In the film, Jarecki does include Iraqi voices but the main characters are all American. Jarecki explained that the reason for this approach was that he wanted to keep the focus on Americans as he tries to tell their story. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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