Why We Fight is the title of a series of propaganda films that Frank Capra began making in 1942, with the aim of encouraging the American war effort against Nazism.
Director Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) has used the films as a commentary on the contemporary obsession of the American elite with military power.
Why We Fight, which won the American Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, is an unflinching inquiry into the workings of the American war machine, weaving unforgettable personal stories with observations by a “who’s who” of military insiders – including John McCain, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and others.
Jarecki surveys the scorched landscape of a half-century’s military adventures, asking how and why a nation of and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.
