Why We Fight

Went to see recently released 'Why We Fight' with Ed Keating, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, at Lincoln Plaza Cinema in Manhattan Saturday evening.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose views are also conveyed via his son and granddaughter, turns out to be the unlikely hero of this thoughtful documentary. His warning that the "acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military industrial complex" could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes" was prophetic given various aspects of the Patriot Act and recent disclosures of President Bush's approval of warrantless NSA wiretaps.

Eisenhower's clarion call that the country needed an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" to check the undue influence of our "huge industrial and military machinery" was visionary seeing that the United States now spends more on defense than all European NATO countries and Russia combined.

Today, this military indistrial complex has evolved into what I would describe as the petroleum industrial military plantation. As one analyst in the movie noted, our military would grind to a screeching halt without the power packed punch of petroleum. And the protection of 'our way of life' is really about retaining the secure supply and flow of foreign sources of petroleum. The alternative is for the country to redirect its efforts toward the conservation of petroleum based fuels and reducing our reliance on petroleum based products.

"Why We Fight" deserves positive reportage by the American media so that our citizenry, particularly registered Republicans, can contemplate the import of the movie's message and act to restrain the influence of military contractors in the hall of Congress.

photo: Edward Keating/Contact Press Images