Why We Fight’ director pulls no punches
Eugene Jarecki talks about what is worth a fight: Hint — it’s not corporate profit

By Jenna Ross

Eugene Jarecki began by asking people — politicians, military experts, moms — a question: Why does the United States go to war?

“Why We Fight” mixes talking heads, old broadcast footage, on-the-street interviews and characters’ storylines to ask and answer questions about why the United States goes to war.

The answers aren’t pretty. His documentary “Why We Fight” tells us that America fights because it’s profitable. It fights because rich white men use war for power. It fights because we’re stuck in a military-centered matrix and cannot see a way out.

The ideas, arguably, aren’t new. But Jarecki’s documentary is powerful not in its dark vision but in its moments of light.

There are too few of them. But Jarecki, 36, continues a kind of optimism in his own discussion — with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show,” with his students at Brown University and last month, with A&E.

For more: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/02/22/67271