Why We Fight Page #6

the award of any contract of Halliburton.

He wouldn't pick up the

phone, he wouldn't whisper...

in someone's ear, I know

it, he just wouldn't do it.

It looks bad, it looks bad

and apparently Halliburton...

more than once has overcharged

the federal government.

That's wrong.

How would you tackle from that?

I would have a public

investigation of what they've done.

So...

What's that? Vice president's

on the phone. Okay.

You probably have to take the call from him.

Whenever you get into a situation where

anybody's got unwanted influence,

it has the potential to be deeply distorting.

It corrupts our system.

You don't have to show that he directly

came in and hit the cash register button.

The door flew open and he took some

money out and put in his pocket.

It's to say anybody allocating

things at the Department...

of Defense knows who the vice president is,...

... knows what his connections

are in Halliburton.

We have a process that has a seamlessness where

the corporate interest that stand to benefit...

... are so intertwined and interwoven

with the political forces.

The financial leads and the politically

leads, have become the same people.

You do have to follow the money.

If you follow the money here it's not so

much that Halliburton wanted a war...

... so they told Dick Chaney

to go get one for them.

It wasn't that. But you do get

a willingness to go to war.

On October 10, 20002, the U.S. Congress passed

Joint Resolution 114, granting the President the

right to use force against

Iraq at his discretion.

YEAs are 296 the NAYs are 133. The Joint

Resolution has passed without objection.

You get a willingness to look

at the cost benefit scenario.

American people, who have a son or

a daughter, that's going to be...

deployed and maybe shot and

maybe killed or maimed in Iraq.

They look at the cost benefit and they

go 'Hm, I don't think that's good.'

When politicians, who understand

contracts, future contracts,

when they look at war, they have

a different cost benefit analysis.

The defense budget is 3/4 of a trillion dollars.

Profits, went up last

year, well over 25 percent.

I guarantee you, when war becomes that

profitable, you're going to see more of it.

I don't know how you would want to assess

the reasons United States went to war in Iraq.

But ultimately you have to

ask yourself at the end of...

the day, 'Does any of this

contribute to whether or not...

... we are making valid and appropriate

decisions about our conductive foreign policy?'

Why do we fight?

I don't know why do we fight.

Being a military officer,

I really don't set back...

and look at who's with me and who's against me.

My job is to make sure that my squad

and my unit is ready to go to war.

There's always gonna be people

that disagree with what...

we do. And we can't stop that.

That's a part of democracy.

From a soldier's perspective and stuff, it

gets all listening to the debates on policy.

But it's not ours to decide.

We do what we are told.

The first light of dawn is breaking above me.

No exclusion to get, that the distance

sound of low rumble all across the city.

They know that something is about to happen.

- Did you know what to expect before the war?

- I swear to God, no. We don't know.

We're illiterate people.

We go out with the sheep and

we come back with them.

We knew that this time the consequences

of the war would be extraordinary.

Because the threats were intense.

This will be a campaign,

unlike any other in history.

A campaign, characterized by

shock, by surprise, by the...

employment of precise ammunitions

on a scale never before seen.

You also have to understand that in trying

to take out Saddam during OIF

we wanted the Iraqi people to

have their infrastructure...

there and not be mad at the coalition forces.

That's one of the great-great results

of the military industrial complex.

The defense industry, with the

advance in the weaponry now,

we can destroy the target of

our commander's choosing.

And minimize collateral damage, which is...

such in all composing term,

the risk to innocent life.

Nobody's out there to destroy things.

Just because I wear a uniform

makes me no different...

than anybody else, that's sitting

here in this room with me.

I have the same family, I get up,

I shave just like everybody else.

The only difference is there's

times, when I have to...

leave my family and go to

another country and go to war.

We have the greatest fighting forces

on the face of the earth.

Our nation is blessed to have

so many brave men and women...

who voluntarily risk their

lives to protect our country.

'Every generation has its heroes.

This one is no different.'

'Woke up this morning, I suddenly

realized we're all in this together.'

Hi, my name is William

Solomon. I'm 23. I have...

decided to enlist in United

States regular Army...

...and I'm gonna shipping out on January 26.

The latest stuff that I've been going

through recently, was my mother's death.

My financial hardships and my inability to...

complete my education,

those three main problems.

Plan is simple, it just gonna be solved

by my enlistment in the military.

When Will first came in he was

actually talking to the Air Force.

But he asked me a question

about the army aviation...

and once he asked me a

question I told him about it.

And then he showed me the

brochure with some of the...

helicopters and then like the

RH-66, it's a stealth helicopter.

I was like 'Wait, they got this?'

At that point of time I explained to him

our One-Author flight program.

You can take somebody right

off the street as long...

as the person has the high school diploma.

He can come in, get a good

job guaranteed to you.

I think once Will found out about that

he was pretty much locked in.

He was completely unlike what I expected

of recruiter when I first spoke with him.

Cause he told me that army recruiters

got the bad reputation of car salesmen.

The toughest part about recruiting

is gaining the person's trust.

What do we say we back-up with

black and white regulations?

There's no smokes and mirrors around here.

You fixed up my life real good man.

Because of you I'm gonna retire real nice.

Cause I'm thinking of it as a career thing.

Every little bit of strife

I've gone to in my life...

Every little inconvenience, I've always...

Since I've signed the papers anyway...

I just look at it as something that'll make

basic training that much easier.

AN ARMY OF ONE:

One team. One mission. One goal.

BETWEEN 2002 AND 2003, THE

PENTAGON SPENT $1.2 BILLION

ON ADVERTISING INTENDED TO INCREASE RECRUITMENT.

You know the whole idea, you can be

all you can be if you join the army.

Look how it appealed to them.

You're gonna learn a skill, you're gonna get

a trade, you'll be able to go to college.

It gives you all these benefits,

if you go and serve your country.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes