Why We Fight

Why do we fight? It's an interesting question and one that is being more thoughtfully evaluated by the American public as the war in Iraq lingers. It is also a question that is examined by the 2005 documentary entitled "Why We Fight" which approaches the topic based on President Eisenhower's farewell speech warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex and its potential threat to democracy. It's an excellent film and one that I highly recommend especially based on what we know about Iraq today.

So why do we fight? In 2007, one is likely to get a greater variety of responses to that question than if it had been posed in early 2003. Four years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that we fight for freedom, democracy and the American way of life. That's exactly how the Bush administration wanted the American people to respond in the post-9/11 era. The real answers to why we fight were evident in 2003, and in 2001 and all the way back to the 1960's, but they were concealed by a shroud of patriotism and extra-nationalistic purpose for America. Since World War II, many political elites have believed that America's role in world affairs was to spread and protect democracy through whatever means required including covert operations and the use of military force. In the film, Senator John McCain espouses this exact philosophy although he also warns of the dangers of overstepping into imperialism.

With the Bush Administration's waning credibility on the war, that shroud has been removed and average Americans are perhaps for the first time beginning to see the nefarious reasons for American war-making. Fewer and fewer people are spouting the jingoistic arguments of 2003 as credible reasons for the invasion of Iraq. A realization is emerging that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th and that the invasion was unrelated to the War on Terror. "Why We Fight" examines President Eisenhower's prescient warning to the American people about the military-industrial complex and adds a third element to the alliance between the Pentagon and the Defense Industry: Congress. The US Congress has been totally complicit in the dominance of the military-industrial complex in American politics to such a point that there is never a question of whether we should be spending money on the military, but rather how much should we spend and can it be spent in my district.

The conclusion of Mr. Eisenhower's warning was that the emergence of the military-industrial complex would force the needs of capitalism to supplant those of democracy. The needs of corporations, both military and fossil fuel related, now control the foreign policy of the United States. Iraq is the latest and most glaring example of this corporate foreign policy in action with the war creating opportunities for defense contractors such as Halliburton, and opportunities for fossil fuel companies in a country with the world's second largest oil reserves.

Of course, the military-industrial complex has also cemented the image of America as a beacon of good for the world in the collective minds of Americans and that in order to accomplish our mission of helping the world, American forces need to be deployed throughout the world. But has this policy truly been effective? American intervention in the affairs of other nations (Iran, Guatemala, Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, just to name a few) has created more anti-US sentiment rather than good feelings toward America in the last 50 to 60 years. One reason for that is that American intervention has been driven through the needs of US interests rather than doing the right thing for the world. American foreign policy since World War II has been designed to keep America as the dominant world power both militarily and economically without regard for the rest of the world. The ironic thing is that now that the façade of our global mission has been smashed, America stands on the verge of losing its place in the world and the very policy that was designed to keep us there is responsible for our fall. Ah, the irony.

Economically, Asia is poised to displace the US at the top of the food chain. The United States no longer manufactures anything. Electronics, clothing, footwear are all made overseas. Our economy is dominated by financial institutions, defense and oil, and our government's spending reflects these priorities rather than the needs of our society. Eisenhower attempted to tell the nation how much defense armaments cost American society by equating the costs in social terms (the cost of a missile equals the cost of a certain number of new homes for Americans). One can only imagine what our country would look like today if we had heeded Mr. Eisenhower's warning. And what would the world be like?

Part 2 of this post: What's the alternative to fighting?