Why We Fight

During World War II, Frank Capra made a series of films for the War Department--as they called the Department of Defense in those much more plainspoken times--called Why We Fight. The purpose was to remind Americans of what was at stake in Europe and the Pacific, and why the sacrifices of their sons and brothers and husbands were not in vain. More recently, in a film by the same name, documentarian Eugene Jarecki provides his own answer to the question implicit in the title. As Capra's answer was in keeping with his times and his war, so is Jarecki's.

Ours is a cynical age, and Jarecki's film fits right in. His vision, which ought to be familiar to anyone reasonably acquainted with the popular culture of the past three or four decades, goes like this: our country is run by corrupt ideologues in the service of greedy corporations, who together collude with a war-loving military to expand the American empire overseas. America's prosperity exists at the expense of other nations, as well as the disadvantaged on these shores, and America, while presenting itself as a beacon of freedom and preserver of the peace, is in fact the world's number-one aggressor and exploiter.

As I say, these are familiar sounds, a refrain heard in one way or another over the years from far and wide. No wonder such a view is a popular one, because it offers ready answers and instantaneous elevation to intellectual esteem in the eyes of others. It's a compelling and, even more important, a comforting way to view the world. And, for some celebrities and pundits, it's a nice way to make a tidy income while feeling very, very good about oneself.

Cynicism provides a razor to cut through the knots of facts, information, opinions, and statistics that circumscribe the modern consciousness. In place of foolish, unquestioning belief, absolute non-belief offers a form of transcendence, catapulting the proponent to a place beyond question or argument. Whatever anyone else asserts, one need only say, "Oh yeah? Prove it!" Or offer a counterexample, no matter how specific, as a means of refuting any attempt at generalization. Or simply chuckle--or sneer. Thus the argument is ended, at least for the cynic of the Internet age, who can walk away content that nothing has been proven.

No wonder, then, that this distinctly modern and American brand of cynicism pervades not only among Hollywood's beautiful minds, few of whom had the time to finish college (or in some cases, even high school), but also in the most distinguished educational institutions, graduates of which go on to become our nation's opinion-makers in media, business, and government. In a world of uncertainty, here is certainty. The war in Iraq, for instance, need not be a complex struggle with mixed and uncertain results; a conflict that will require perhaps decades of perspective to fully analyze and understand; a quest whose reasons have never been sufficiently articulated by the nation's leaders, yet one for which a case can be made. Instead, it can simply be a war for Halliburton, a war for oil, a war to feed the military-industrial complex, a war to satisfy the darkest desires in the heart of George W. Bush.

And that brings me back to the comforting quality of fashionable cynicism, which is perhaps the best reason to subscribe to it. If the United States is the ultimate source of all the world's ills, the world is not so frightening, because the American system allows even its fiercest critics a voice. And if George W. Bush represents the cynosure of evil, then evil is not so powerful after all: in two years, he will again be a private citizen, and we can keep his kind out of Washington with our votes. If the Adolf Hitler of our time is George W. Bush, then we can all rest in the knowledge that the hardest international struggle took place in Frank Capra's time.

Many people would say that the stakes were more clearly defined in the 1940s than in the 2000s, and for this at least I would blame the president. He has never had a great talent for articulating his visions, nor has he done much since 9/11 to rally the citizenry to participate in a struggle against a form of barbarism that exceeds its Nazi or Communist forebears. One wishes for a John F. Kennedy, whose words could turn every aspect of public life into part of a larger adventure involving the entire nation. And even with his rhetorical shortcomings, President Bush has no excuse for his failure to deputize others to the task of providing the public with a rationale for this war and other efforts in the fight against terrorism. In true laissez-faire fashion, he left it up to the American public to figure out why we are fighting. For this shortcoming, I think he should be censured; in fact, I think he should not be reelected.

But if you're wondering "Why We Fight," since nobody else has stepped up to explain, I'll try. Three years ago, Washington sent out a nice, big, engraved invitation to all the world's sociopaths and political serial killers, saying in effect, "If you want to kill Americans, meet us in Iraq." And they have killed more than two thousand; in fact, by the end of the year, they will probably have killed as many as they did on a single day in 2001. Every single death is a loss of a precious life, but it is the life of someone who swore to defend the nation, and it's no accident that no further attacks have occurred on American soil. True, Osama bin Laden remains at large, but one would have to be pretty obtuse to miss the desparation in his latter-day utterances: like a cartoon character, he seems to be saying, "You just wait--we'll really get you next time!" As I recall, in the months leading up to 9/11, he issued no such warning.

More than a century ago, in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. ambassador to Britain characterized our short conflict with Spain as "a splendid little war," but no one in these times would characterize either this war or this president in any such terms. War is anything but splendid, yet sometimes it is necessary. And unless one is content to enjoy the easy cynicism I have described, it is incumbent on us all to live out the words of Kennedy himself, from his inaugural address: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."