Eugene Jarecki has created a film that I wanted to like a lot more than I ultimately did.

Why We Fight -- the title is borrowed from some WWII Frank Capra propaganda films -- looks at post-Second World War American militarism, but while I had a reasonable guess as to Jarecki's main point, I can't say I'm sure of it.

He starts out this documentary with the stern warning from President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- a Republican, no less! -- in his farewell address to the nation on Jan. 17, 1961 about the "military-industrial complex."

From there, we find out that the U.S. Defense Department accounts for more discretionary spending than all other federal departments combined -- a whopping $750 billion US per year.

That much money means big business, and like any business, the defence industry keeps coming up with the latest and greatest weapons systems for the military to consider. In addition, much of the work that soldiers used to do, like running the mess hall, is now contracted out to companies like Halliburton, which Vice President Dick Cheney used to run (he joined Halliburton after serving as defense secretary to George H.W. Bush).

Not only do businesses want a chunk of that cash, but Congressional representatives see it as critical to their political interests to deliver the defence bacon to their districts.

The film also says think tanks -- it names the Project for the New American Century in particular -- are also increasingly important players in this world. Private consultants, for example, largely staffed the Office of Special Plans, which drew up the rationalizations for selling the Iraq War to the American public.

One speaker in the film observes that when war is profitable, you're bound to see a lot more of it.

While Jarecki interviews a lot of "usual suspects," he also integrates some unknowns into his story line.

Wilton Sekser is a retired New York police officer who saw the World Trade Center towers burn and then collapse that horrible day on Sept. 11, 2001. His son Jason died in Tower One.

The Vietnam War veteran wanted payback, and when the Iraq War began on March 19, 2003, he asked all branches of the military if they could put his son's name on an Iraq-bound munition. The Marine Corps came through, writing on one bomb: "In loving memory of Jason Sekser."

Sekser felt betrayed a few months later when U.S. President George W. Bush said the war on Iraq wasn't linked to the war on terror, although Bush repeated that Cheney had said there were links between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Jarecki makes the point there were once links between the U.S. and Iraq, as shown in footage of Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam in 1983, during the time of the long and ruinous war with Iran. <sarcasm>But that's back when Iraq was a useful counterweight to Iran, so it doesn't really count.</sarcasm>

Here's a problem for me, and it affects the way I see and review this film: I'm not an American, I'm reasonably well-read and informed, and so most of this stuff doesn't come as a big surprise to me.

What I would like to know more about is why the American people repeatedly buy into their governments' justifications for war.

At one U of T discussion in early 2005 with two ex-U.S. Congressmen, I asked the following questions: "Why are American voters so ignorant, particularly on foreign policy matters, and why does the benefit of that ignorance accrue disproportionately to the Republican Party?"

Sekser touches on that in one scene where he talked about the trust he placed in the President of the United States, and how sour it made him feel when he felt that trust was betrayed. However, George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 when major cracks were starting to show in his adminstration's rationales for the invasion of Iraq.

He was re-elected in part because Democratic challenger John Kerry was painted as soft on defence and national security.

"I can remember when Democrats used to believe it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny," said Sen. Zell Miller (D, Georgia) in a speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention as he endorsed Dubya.

On Iraq, Miller said: "Nothing makes this Marine madder than seeing our troops described as occupiers instead of liberators ... tell that to a half-billion people from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt an army of liberators, not occupiers. No one in the history of the word has anyone sacrificed more for the liberty and freedom of total strangers than the American soldier."

(Why wasn't that guy in the film?!?!)

Gore Vidal, author of Imperial Empire, claims America suffers from historical amnesia, and other speakers -- in reference to the crucial post 9/11 question, "why do they hate us?" -- say the American people have never been informed about some of the dirty things done by their government. The 1954 CIA-aided overthrowal of Iran's democratically elected government is given as an example.

However, the real prize for Jarecki is Iraq, and he spends much of his film on this most recent military adventure (he spends almost no time on Afghanistan).

That's a major part of my frustration: Why didn't Jarecki make a film called Why We're Fighting In Iraq, if that's what he wanted to do?

There's so many ideas he under-developed in this film in order to cram stuff in on Iraq that he made neither a great Iraq analysis nor a great historical overview of America's willingness to put rifles on its young soldiers' shoulders and send them off to "liberate" some country.

That's the writing part. Cinematically, the film is less than dazzling. It looks more like a television program than a movie. There are almost no scenes where the images overpower the words (not a good thing in a visual medium), and the editing lacks flow.

While the film won the documentary grand jury prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, I suspect it will show up on television at some point. Save your money and see it on a small screen.