Why We Fight

by junius

We all know the warning Eisenhower gave about the “military industrial complex.” With the film Why We Fight, we get the chance to see him saying it in the original TV broadcast. They are tough words, and he speaks sternly into the TV camera: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Prophetic? Not at all. It had already happened. I’m sorry, but looking into Eisenhower’s face now I can’t help but feel that this is solemn bunkum. For if anyone could have stopped the increasing domination by the military-industrial complex, it was Eisenhower himself, the great war hero, and he didn’t. He is “warning” against something he fostered in his own presidency. So what good is this valediction? Is he leaving the fight to someone better qualified? Nonsense. It was his ball, and he dropped it. All subsequent presidents got where they were with the backing of the military-industrial complex, so what could they do? The “defence” budget was always the one thing they kept padded.
Why We Fight can offer us no hero. No one is presented as having the capability of whipping the military-industrial threat into reverse. Senator John McCain talks well, but officially supports the war in Iraq. He is shown leaving the interview to take a call from Vice-President Cheney! The filmmakers must have tried to think of someone to lead a charge. I suppose bringing in Ralph Nader would have been thought too partisan or something. The military-industrial power is so pervasive that anybody setting out to fight it might expect to appear ridiculous.
As it stands, Why We Fight means well, but we know pretty much everything that is in it. Let it tell us something we don’t know. Let it tell us what the answer is to the military-industrial complex. Ex-lieutenant-colonel Karen Kwiatkowski got the closest when she said, “We fight because too many aren’t standing up saying, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’” Well, she’s beautiful as she feeds her horses on her retirement ranch, but she worked within the system to get her pension. It seems ungenerous to say it, but she’s giving another Eisenhower valediction at the safe end of her career.
There are young people standing up and saying enough is enough, like the deserter-escapees from the US Army going through extradition proceedings in Canada right now, but they do not appear in this film. Without them, the film is, in the end, close to what it would most want to avoid: a mournful elegy for imperial USA.
Why We Fight gives no sense that there is a real alternative we know about. Eisenhower was telling us to get rid of the military-industrial complex, just get rid of it. He spoke about an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry.” Well, here we are.