"Why We Fight" is a documentary about the American War Machine. Therefore, instead of enlightened jousting between Doctors Phil and Joyce Brothers, the smart and talented Eugene Jarecki has rounded up such usual suspects as Bob Woodward-doppelganger William Kristol, rabble-rouser Gore Vidal, Arizona's Sen. John McCain and the coolly sensible Barbara Eisenhower. The voice of the Everyman is represented by a former police officer who lost a son in the Trade Towers, a disillusioned former Lt. Col. who was stationed at the Pentagon, an explosives expert, two stealth fighter pilots and a hayseed Army Recruit. The counter-play and conflicting/conflicted opinions delivered by those cloaked in cool elegant intellectualism and those dealing from a deck of raw visceral emotion is riveting.

Happily, the title's implied question is examined rather than answered. Though editing naturally creates a point of view, there is more than ... Read More