TOW Post #3: Defending Author's Claim

In his film, Why we Fight, Eugene Jarecki illustrates to his audience that when asking ten people abut why America goes to war, ten different responses will be given back. There are some who think we fight to help maintain peace on earth. There are others who hold the opinion that we fight to keep the United States on top of the world leaderboard. However, in his documentary, Jarecki takes a different approach and claims that America uses democracy and freedom to cover-up for what is really being fought for.  After comparing the true causes of wars versus what America tells the world is the cause of the war, I have found that America has indeed gotten itself into the habit of using democracy and freedom to hide the true motives for war whether they be defensive, revenge, or even greedy reasons.

Out of all the wars we have entered since the Revolutionary War centuries ago, one that stands out in the mind’s of many is World War II: The War to Save Democracy. Or as Woodrow Wilson put it, a war to make the world “Safe for Democracy”. When promoting this war to fellow Americans, the description tagged on to every newspaper, cartoon, or propaganda was the war that would rescue the world from communism and stop it from spreading. However, looking deeper into the minds of government officials at the time will prove that the publicized reasons and the real reason for joining the war do not resemble one another. It seems America was looking out for themselves when they decided to enter the war, not democracy. The United States of America is located far from where the action had take place. But as the war continued as the Axis had began occupying nearly all of Asia and most of Europe, the States found that sooner or later, when the Axis had conquered all of these countries, the sword would pointed to at the US, so the US needed to defend themselves. Then, the US made their defensive motives even more clear when they chose to initiate actual fighting as a result of Pearl Harbor. To me, this looks more like a fight for revenge, not necessarily a fight for democracy. As seen, like Jarecki claims, America used democracy and freedom to cover up their true motives of defending and taking revenge. America even went as far to call themselves the “arsenal of democracy” in the earlier stages of the war just to show the world what they were apparently “all about”. If only that were the sole truth.  

Although one of America’s quicker wars, the Persian Gulf War serves as another example of America using democracy and freedom to cover up their true motives. As many are aware, the Middle East, especially Kuwait, is an oil-rich area that America heavily relies on to keep the country going. Therefore, when Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait, it appeared Saddam was also going to continue south and take the Saudi oilfields as well. Considering America’s unhealthy reliance on this oil, government officials knew that could not happen. Consequently, the Persian Gulf War became a war to save our oil supply. However, what the US told the world is that we were going into Kuwait to protect the Saudi Arabians from being taken over and their freedom pulled out from under their feet. Again, America used freedom as a shield to cover their underlying greed. On the world stage, it became a war to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraqi forces. But what it really was, was a war to defend Saudi Arabian oil supplies from Iraqi forces. For those who disagree, I just ask one question. Why did the Unite States intervene when Kuwait suffered from Iraqi aggression, but it did not similarly intervene to prevent aggression by China against Tibet, Indonesia against East Timor, or Yugoslavia against Bosnia? Why was Kuwait any different? Oh that’s right, oil.

As seen, Eugene Jarecki claim that America uses democracy and freedom to cover-up for what is really being fought for can certainly be seen exemplified by examining various wars in the past century. Although democracy and freedom sound great on the outside, peeling back a couple layers will show a completely different story then what is on top.  A story that does not carry with it the patriotic spirit like democracy and freedom do.

TOW Post #2: Documentary Rhetorical Analysis

            In 2006, Eugene Jarecki released a film titled Why We Fight. Filmed during the Iraq War, this documentary dissects America’s military machine with a keen eye to answer the question: Why does America engage in war? Through personal stories of soldiers, government officials, scholars, journalists and innocent victims, the film examines the political, economic and ideological factors, past and present, behind American militarism and involvement in wars. Why We Fight describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military–industrial complex and its 50-year involvement in wars led by the United States, especially its 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The documentary asserts that in every decade since World War II, the American public was misinformed so that the government could take them to war and fuel the military-industrial economy maintaining American political dominance in the world.

            In his documentary, Eugene Jarecki argues that we fight in order to make our defense companies rich and because of our desire for world domination. Jarecki constructs his documentary to show the American public just how militarized our government has become since World War 2 and to persuade viewers that the wars we enter are downright wrong. The most prominent rhetorical strategies Jarecki uses are archival footage and expert testimony. Rather than guiding the film with narration, Jarecki features interviews with foot soldiers, Army recruits, Pentagon personnel, decorated veterans, members of Congress, national security advisors, top military strategists, and many more that talk about the core philosophies of American military strategy and how they have changed since the end of the Second World War. For example, the documentary opens with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address that warned America about the dangers that may arise from the growing militarized nation saying, America "must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex." Additional archival footage is seen when Jarecki includes video from several different wars and military events ranging from the dropping of the atomic bomb to the March 19^th, 2002 bombings of Baghdad. Although in various forms, the archival footage interspersed throughout this documentary serves as evidence in Jarecki’s argument. Once archival footage is placed into the larger context of a documentary film to support or refute an argument, it shows the audience that what he is arguing has been going on for a long time. The expert testimony from various historians, and presidents such as Reagan, Kennedy and Bush had the same effect of tying various time periods together in one argument: America has the tendency to fight unjust wars.

Additionally, the director uses several points of juxtaposition in comparing various aspects of wars. For example, Jarecki juxtaposes the apparent need for war versus the true realities and horrors of war. By doing so, the audience sees that the wars we fight really are not worth it because we walk away with worse than what we stared with. Additionally, Jarecki constantly juxtaposes various presidents in the context of those who enjoyed war and like to show-off America’s power (Truman), and those who were not the biggest fanatics of war (Eisenhower). In doing so, Jarecki makes presidents like Truman look like the “bad guy” and completely immoral. Finally, Jarecki uses various metaphors to convey his opinions. For example, Jarecki gets himself into a pattern of setting the United States up as an imperialistic bully who will do whatever it wants, when it wants, and whoever tries to defy her will be in trouble. By create images like the one described above, Jarecki creates a specific tone and makes his audience feel a certain way about a given person, place or thing. In this case, Jarecki makes people almost despise the United States for her cruel behavior towards the rest of the global community. 

Overall, through the use of several rhetorical strategies including archival footage, expert testimony, juxtaposition, and metaphors, Jarecki was able to create a documentary that showed his audience that war is completely unnecessary and a huge time waster to say the least. He used the power of rhetoric to make his audience feel a certain way and think a certain way. In the end, Jarecki made it so a counter argument seemed nearly impossible. 

Citation:
Why We Fight. Dir. Eugene Jareki. Perf. Joseph Cirincione, Richard Perle, Chalmers Johnson, John   
       McCain. Sony Pictures Classics, 2006. DVD.