One of those "green vegetable" films I've had on my Netflix queues for a while is the 2005 documentary Why We Fight. The film explores the now long-established American industry that makes war and purports to defend this nation from threats both foreign and domestic — an entity dubbed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander during World War II and two-term president, as the military-industrial complex.

The concept of a military-industrial complex is something not easily grasped by someone from my generation. The apparatus itself is not wholly visualized in a government building or agency. It is not limited to one group of people or particular creed to statue. The first time I ever heard the term was in my high school history class where my teacher went to the extraordinary precaution of closing the door and swearing us all to secrecy while he divulged his theory as to who was really responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The movie never directly addressed these controversial judgments of history, but it did hit on one event that I will likely fully conceptualize throughout my entire adult life: The Iraq War.

Ever since I was a young boy, I have heard of the evils of Saddam Hussein and how imperative it was to U.S. interest to eliminate him from the world. I have never been personally slighted or directly influenced by the evils of this man, but I have nonetheless heard the steady drumbeat of war coming from the mouths of politicians, whether on Capitol Hill or on the Sunday morning talk shows, since the early nineties and to the final days leading to March 19, 2003, when George W. Bush ordered U.S. military forces to end the Iraq regime and uncover the fabled "weapons of mass destruction."

I remember that day very well. I was in my hotel room on my spring break vacation in New Orleans. I was with my friends Missy, Sonya and Ilya and we had just recently arrived in New Orleans and were preparing to go out for the evening. I paid particular attention to the television screen that evening as the opening shots of the war were fired. I remember hearing Sonya ask why I would watch something so uninteresting and I couldn't help but point out the seriousness of history that was occurring at that very moment. That moment was as serious then and it was a turning point for all Americans, whether they tacitly approved of our involvement and turned their televisions off that evening and slept soundly or if they very earnestly tried to convince their politicians to change course and sat awake fearful of the results of our actions.

The film seizes on this shared experience we all have and attempts to connect the invisible, faceless machine that is the military-industrial complex the Eisenhower choose to warn Americans about in his waning days in power. The film attempts to explain why America fights in conflicts around the world and tries to uncover the shifty, mysterious agendas of public figures, corporations and shadowy think tanks that collectively built the machine that paved our way into the conflict.

As an concerned American and journalist, I look at the Iraq War, like many, with increasing impatience and anger. Is this the conflict our president said was ours to fight in the wake of 9/11? Did we truly enter this war with no exit strategy or were these policymakers neglecting to tell us the whole truth on the subject — that we would never leave.

The role of the military-industrial complex might not be the whole bogeyman the film paints it as. There are some conclusions drawn in the war, especially regarding American motivations at the end of the Second World War and at the beginning of the Atomic Age, that my roommate and I openly objected to while watching the film. But the film's detailed exploration of the military-industrial complex, from the larger conflict today to its affects on ordinary people with ordinary lives as military contractors, soldiers and weapons engineers, is very accurate and eye opening, especially to someone who might be completely unaware of the beast that lives in breaths in and out of our government today.

No one should watch this movie without an open mind and willingness to engage the facts in open discourse. As Eisenhower said in his closing address, "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together." While many in the annals of history have failed their countrymen in this endeavor, anyone hoping to conceptualize today what Eisenhower warned of so long ago cannot do so blindly and without a firm grasp of the facts at hand.

Please watch this film.