By Samuel Rubenfeld at The Wall Street Journal

Today, the Obama administration is having its fourth cabinet-level meeting on what to do about the war in Afghanistan, a conflict now eight years old. As the president and his team decide on a course of action, documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald has debuted “Rethink Afghanistan,” a politically-minded documentary being released in segments online for free (you can see the film in its entirety on his Web site).

In a phone interview with Speakeasy, Greenwald said that two events motivated him to make the film: a Christmas trip to Vietnam, where he saw “wonderful things happening between us and Vietnam,” and his re-reading of David Halberstam’s book on the war, “The Best and the Brightest.”

“The argument we make in the film is that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the war: How many troops? What’s the cost in lives and treasure?” says Greenwald. “In the film, we try to ask these fundamental core questions. It’s not just 10,000 troops there, or 12,000 there, it’s why troops at all?” He added, “Those are the questions we need to ask, and those are the questions you need to ask in a democracy.”

During a recent panel about the film, Greenwald said his production company, Brave New Films, took a lot of heat for the movie’s subject, and many donors backed away, citing deference to Obama and the notion that Afghanistan “was the right war.” Greenwald also said this was the first time he had ever released a movie entirely online, saying it made it easier to get many people talking about “rethinking” policy in Afghanistan prior to its full release.