Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

I saw one of the most thought-provoking movies I've ever seen today called "Why We Fight." It was a great documentary about exactly that question, what pushes the United States into war. It looked mostly at the military industrial complex beginning with a stern warning from President Eisenhower as he left office that the Military Industrial Complex must be carefully managed so it does not gain control over the President and Congressional bodies in Washington, DC. The documentary takes a look at the military industrial complex (the business of making war) and at its power over politicians and presidents of both parties and its power over society in general. It was a scary look at America.

Additionally, the movie looks into conflicts of the past 50 years, especially the War in Iraq, and the influence of the MIC and the actual results. The most thought-provoking part to me was about the media and think tanks. It talked about how Vietnam essentially failed and that now the Pentagon and military has extensive training in giving interviews and goes to great lengths to "embed" reporters and give them a sympathetic look of the military instead of having them shoot images of body bags. I just thought of the news we constantly see and how all the reporters we see are in a sense, manipulated by the military. Scary stuff. Without the free press, it is much easier to convince a nation to go to war. The think tank component was also scary. It talked about how the majority of policy decisions now come from think tanks where researchers, high ranking officials, and other well-known people are gathered to find justification for their policy goals, which in the movie is going to war. It looks into the Iraq War and notes how not only was the Axis of Evil speech taking ideas form think tank papers published BEFORE 9/11, but that members of certain think tanks were actually given an office in the Pentagon and an official position as advisors. Thus, war is justified by these think tankers on numerous shaky grounds and facts are spun into ideas like Iraq aided terrorists, Iraq has WMD, and Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Niger. All of which were based in some sort of report, except the facts were taken out of context without qualifiers to make it say what the think tankers and according to the movie, the MIC wanted.

I feel suddenly embolden to research and find a way to dig deeper on these trends. It's a problem not of one party, but rather of our democracy. If we want to have elected officials do what the majority wants, we need to eliminate the power that think tanks and military businesses have over them while simultaineously educating citizens with what is actually going on. Free media + people + voice = power.