Why We Fight (1 of 48)

Why We Fight

He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning "military industrial complex," foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.

MAN: From the White House and the office of the President of the United States, we present an address by Dwight D.Eisenhower.
This is the farewell address for President Eisenhower, whose eight years as chief executive come to an end at noon Friday.

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: Good evening, my fellow Americans.
We now stand 10 years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations.
Three of these involved our own country.
We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.
Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.
MAN: What are we fighting for? Why do we bury our sons and brothers in lonely graves far from home?
Our men are dying to preserve a way of life.
These privileges, these rights, if precious enough to fight for, are precious enough to die for.