Why We Fight

My first thought when seeing this movie was the irony of how President Eisenhower, who was viewed as an idiot by many on the Left (and some on the Right), is now being hailed as a prophet for his "military industrial complex" speech.

The initial two-thirds of Why We Fight IS very interesting. The scenes at the trade show for military hardware are hilarious and it's NOT an exercise in self-promotion like ANYTHING Michael Moore has done.

However, Why We Fight loses a lot of credibility when it tries to build the thesis that the Iraq war was waged mainly as excuse for our government to USE the tools of war. This is vocalized in the film by, among others, Karen Kwiatkowski (who formerly served in the Pentagon):

We have a congress that failed, in every way, to ask the right questions, to hold the president to account. Our congress failed us miserably, and that's because many in congress are beholden to the military industrial complex.

As developed in the film, this idea comes across like a "fluoridated water" conspiracy theory (especially when simple incompetence would be easier to prove).

Also, Gore Vidal, who for some reason appears in LOTS of documentaries, turns up to rant on about how our use of the A-bombs on Japan was a war crime.

That said, Why We Fight is worth renting if only to watch the first hour.