Why We Fight

With the new commitment of many thousands of men and women to the war in Afghanistan, now is a good time to highlight the documentary titled Why We Fight. The film, an award-winning documentary, uses as its basis President Eisenhower's coining of the term "military-industrial complex".

Obviously America fights for noble reasons but there are also many ideological reasons, including influence-peddling. Even if all of these forces are innocent in nature, they often come together in such a way that predetermines or biases the outcome. In other words, dubious rationale for war. So, the process itself may be in need of reform. Just like the process of Washington governance which most assuredly is broken because of what has become lobbyist and think tank-driven legalized fraud and bribery.

In our Transparency International post on corruption a few weeks ago, Afghanistan was highlighted as possibly the most corrupt government on earth. So, here's a question. If you were a citizen (a term I use loosely for a continuously failed-state) of Afghanistan and the government (again loosely) provided no services to you as a citizen yet was always a source of corruption, bribery and attempts to impact your lives for no apparent benefit, and the United States was forcibly supporting that government at your expense, how would you respond? This is not a military question. It's a simple question any politician should answer before we engage our military and spend trillions of dollars fighting wars. Wars that irreparably impact American lives. This is a mistake U.S. politicians make time and again. The same mistake we make with Iran in the 1950s. It's the same mistake American companies are making as I type this by investing in these same countries. And putting our savings and our society's businesses at risk. Something we have written about numerous times on here over the years.

The movie has been available on Google Video for the past year. I'm assuming it is available legitimately. If so, this link to the movie should be available indefinitely. If not and you have not seen the movie, I would encourage you to seek out the movie via Netflix, your library or via purchase on the movie website.