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.
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