Has American Sniper become some "Litmus Test"?

[maxrandb]

Apparently, American Sniper has become some kind of “litmus test” to your “Murika-nism”. At least, that’s how it appears to me. See, if you think American Sniper is a great movie, and you think we should all worship the ground that Chris Kyle walked on, and you left the theatre with a burning desire to “kill some ragheads”, then you’re a “great Murikan”. If, however, you did some research and found that the guy was bragging about killing n*****rs, claimed to have executed civilians in New Orleans, described all Arabs as “animals”…and you think that maybe we should reasonably be able to say; “hey, maybe we shouldn’t have been over in that fucking hell-hole in the first place”, you’re a “French Surrender Monkey”, who probably should get picked off by a sniper as you walk down the street.

Do I have that right?

I’m pretty perceptive, and from what I’ve been able to decipher, Chris Kyle was great at his job and saved a lot of American lives. So did a “lot” of other young men and women we sent to these wars. Most of them, and some I know from my lifetime in the military, would never brag about the “number of people they killed”. I can tell you, the guys I worked with at the VFA squadron “took out” more people in one sortie than Chris Kyle could ever fantasize about. Of course, they took them out from 16,000 feet, but I never once heard any of them describe it as “great”, or “fun”, or describe their targets as “animals”. It could be because it was less personal for them, or it could have been that they were truly “professionals”. Whatever it was, they did not feel the need to “gloat”.

I’ve also been able to decipher that Chris Kyle seemed like a complete asshat. He comes off (in his own words) as someone I would have been happier and better off to have never heard about. There are plenty of heroes that either didn’t lost their humanity…or never had humanity to begin with. I prefer to celebrate and elevate those heroes.

BTW – I’m still waiting for his widow to “donate” all the proceeds from his book to charity as she claimed during the Jesse Ventura lawsuit.

[butterfly77]

1. Your right...

and the media is daring anyone from saying otherwise.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. There are two instances were snipers are morally legitimate:

1) Counter-sniper operations.

2) Hostage or similar situations.

Perhaps someone will mention something I am missing.

[braddy]

3. "Hathcock also killed a female Viet Cong sniper called “Apache Woman.” She delighted in

torturing and slowly killing young Marines wounded in ambush or in traps set for them in the jungle"

"Hathcock shot and killed a North Vietnamese Army general from a range of about 700 yards. Hathcock literally spent days crawling, inches at a time, to get within range of the general’s command post.--After hurrying for the cover of the jungle, it took Hathcock about an hour to meet his getaway helicopter that flew him out of harm’s way."

[Kelvin Mace]

21. That would be a "counter-sniping"

operations.

I have no problem with snipers shooting snipers.

[braddy]

24. I don't think so, she was really shot for her torture and interrogation methods, and I

think she was shot while doing that, not as part of a counter sniper operation of a sniper hunting a sniper, although she has been described as a sniper, I wonder if she was what we think of as a true, professional sniper, or a high level sniper.

"A female Viet Cong sniper, platoon commander, and interrogator known as "Apache" because of her methods of torturing US Marines and Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops and letting them bleed to death, was killed by Hathcock."



"In interviews with Hathcock and Captain Edward James Land, conducted by Charles Henderson, Apache was a high profile target according to Military Intelligence. Apache was reportedly known for "torturing prisoners within earshot of U.S. bases", according to C.W.Henderson. The founder of SEAL Team Six, Richard Marcinko, said in 1995 that Hathcock had told him one of Apache's "trademarks" was to cut off her victim's eyelids and keep them as souvenirs. Apache often castrated her captives according to Hathcock in another interview.

Hathcock's encounter with "Apache" was the basis for an episode in the documentary series on The History Channel series titled Sniper: Deadliest Missions."

[Kelvin Mace]

32. She was a sniper and they took her out

so I would see that as a counter-sniper action. I know there are many who will disagree with me, but I believe snipers should be outlawed, like chemical weapons.

[braddy]

33. Well she was an interrogater that made the kill list for her torturing prisoners, why insist

that she was taken out as part of a sniper to sniper battle, isn't the fact that she cut off eyelids and castrated prisoners, and tortured them to death, enough?

If your children are being held hostage, you don't want a sniper to be available?

[Kelvin Mace]

34. Mmmm...

If you go back and read my post you will see that I specifically allow for snipers in two situations:

1) Counter-sniper operations

2) Hostage or similar situations.

My children don't have to be held hostage for me to approve of using a sniper, I will approve even if I don't like the person.

[braddy]

35. LOL, OK, we keep trained snipers available, we just don't use them to cover our troops, and

to take out machine gunners, or vehicles, or car bomb drivers, or aircraft that are on the ground and susceptible to a 50 cal sniper rifle, or to use that rifle to reach enemy behind block walls etc., or to take out Hitler, or to shoot an enemy general, or anything else.

[Kelvin Mace]

40. Shooting uniformed soldiers in a war zone

in a declared war, or a criminal holding hostages or posing a lethal risk to others is fine.

Picking off people you choose to label "terrorists" or "enemy combatants" during undeclared wars and illegal invasions, not fine.

I have a pretty narrow definition or a moral/just war.

Rule One: If congress didn't declare war, we have NO business shooting anyone who did not attack us first, especially if we are going to violate another country's borders.

Our last legal war ended in 1945.

[braddy]

43. So depending on what the enemy is wearing as he is sitting behind a machine gun, or while planting

an explosive charge, or setting up an ambush for one of our patrols, got it.

This is quite a list you are building.

[Kelvin Mace]

44. It also depends on whether our soldiers are in the country

legally or not. You know, whether a war was declared against a sovereign nation by a vote of Congress representing the will of the people. Not for military actions cooked up by scheming oil men with imperial delusions with just enough legalese to keep the lawyers happy.

[braddy]

46. In the meanwhile remove our sniper protection from our men and women in the kill zone.

[Kelvin Mace]

47. How about remove our solder from places they have no moral

right to be?

If they aren't there, the locals have no one to shoot at and no one to blow up.

It's funny how illegally invading a country, over throwing its government, destroying its power grid, roads, manufacturing capacity, and other infrastructure; disbanding the police and killing hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children can get the locals riled up.

[braddy]

49. Why switch to an entirely different conversation? An entirely different thread topic?

[Adrahil]

57. That's lovely, but not very realistic in the modern world.

We will likely never have a declared war again. In the past, Congress declared war at the drop of a hat. Won't happen anymore. All our future actions will be undertaken with mealy-mouthed "authorizations for military force" or the resident just acting as C-in-C. You can rail against it, but nothing in the Constitution demands a declaration of war for the use of military force. Frankly, I think such declarations are a relic of the 18th-19th Centuries.

[Kelvin Mace]

61. Oh, I agree,

and that will be the way it is until people realize that with that system we will be in a perpetual state of war all the time, like we are now.

[TheKentuckian]

6. I think over watch is perfectly legitimate. I never heard anyone call providing cover as immoral

What would be the source of this immorality that doesn't apply to all involved in combat?

[Kelvin Mace]

20. Sniping used to terrorize civillain

populations like in Sarajevo's "Sniper Alley".

[TheKentuckian]

50. So what was the relation to my specific question? I gave a specific function and you come up with

something totally other. I didn't state that every sniper was precious, every sniper is good.

What is immoral or illegitimate about providing cover in context of military operations?

[Recursion]

38. A sniper can kill a target that would require a platoon-sized assault force otherwise

Which means one death as opposed to dozens

[Kelvin Mace]

42. I clarified my terms

If he is a soldier acting against another soldier in a declared war (per the Constitution) or defending U.S. soil from an attack, I am fine with it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

51. Targeting enemy officers to disrupt command and control and demoralise the enemy (n/t)

[Kelvin Mace]

62. Once one side uses snipers for that

the other side will, and eventually it degenerates into shooting anything that moves, including children.

[Matrosov]

63. It's about Chris Kyle being a braggard

I don't think the legitimacy of snipers even matters much in this discussion. It's all about the fact Chris Kyle loved to brag about what he did and how many people he killed, to the point where he may even have invented some of the stories.

Normal people don't care to talk about whether they ever killed anyone. Ask a Vietnam vet about their body count and at best you'll get an angry stare. The fact that Chris Kyle was more than happy to volunteer this information and the fact we're supposed to celebrate his accounts or risk being labelled as un-American or pro-terrorist says a lot about the mindset of many Americans.

[Kelvin Mace]

64. See, my view is if being a sniper is something you brag about

you are not the person for the job, and in fact, you are someone I would keep an eye on.

I agree with you, no one should take pleasure in murder.

[gopiscrap]

4. I think this movie and the attitude is disgusting

[awake]

8. Did you see the movie?

[yeoman6987]

16. Well everyone has an opinion

[TheKentuckian]

5. How about a good but not great and further from masterpiece big budget bio pic about a soldier

who was a standout at his specialty that has now become a weird proxy for the entire Iraq War, I guess maybe the whole stupid war on terror for some on both ends of the debate.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. I haven't read the book nor have I seen the movie and will probably do neither.

From what I've seen discussed on both side, however, leads me to believe that Chris Kyle was a sociopathic killer whose particular talents were used by the US government to further their agenda.

As horrible as his indiscriminate sniping for the military was, I am even more troubled about his claims of shooting civilians after Katrina. If that story is true, was he sent there under orders or did he take it upon himself to go? If he was actually sent in the line of duty, I wonder exactly what his orders were.

The manner of his death was ironic.

[hack89]

9. No - it is just a movie.

a good movie but just a movie none the less.

[Demit]

12. Yeah, this movie happened purely by accident, totally random.

It's not based on a story or anything. Doesn't have any characters in it, and if there are (by accident) they don't have any particular motivation for what they do. There's no plot, the director had no overall vision of what he wanted, no intention, he's not trying to elicit any particular response from the audience, or convey any meaning. I mean, that's why they make movies in Hollywood! So you'll say it's just a movie.

[hack89]

13. Somebody made a movie to make a bunch of money

by appealing to as many people as possible, not to create a litmus test. That's all.

[crim son]

18. Did the OP suggest it was *created* as a litmus test

or rather, that it has evolved into one? I mean, The Bible is just a book.

[hack89]

25. Perhaps on DU it has evolved but not in the real world.

DU is a hyper-partisan site that often sees mundane things through ideological eyes.

[Go Vols]

29. +1

[braddy]

15. It's funny that this sniper movie is so hated, but all the other sniper movies were ignored

for instance 'Captain Philips' with SEAL snipers, 'Saving Private Ryan' with an Army sniper, 'Black Hawk Down' Delta (Army) snipers, 'Jarhead' with Marine snipers, 'Enemy at the Gates' with a Russian sniper.

[crim son]

19. If you'd asked me when they'd come out

I'd have told you I felt the same sort of dislike for the movies you mention as I might for "American Sniper," should I choose to see it.

[braddy]

22. That sounds like someone that just doesn't like war movies, period, or historical dramas

that show the parts where the conflict comes in, or anything that portrays the warrior portions of populations, or in the case of Captain Phillip's rescue, even the rescue of captives from criminals.

[MADem]

52. In those films, the sniper is not the star.

The personality and real-life failings of the late "hero" in the piece might be what's problematic for many.

[shenmue]

10. It may be

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. I've certainly seen it used as a Litmus test in the other direction on DU. N.T.

[yeoman6987]

14. Or maybe it is just a movie that either you enjoyed or didn't

This movie is becoming more then it needs to be from all directions.

[Happyhippychick]

17. I saw it and I enjoyed it. I don't have to spend every waking minute being political.

I didn't come out of it feeling any particular way toward Chris Kyle except I was saddened about his PTSD. I work with vets and I see how badly ptsd affects the entire family.

[tularetom]

23. This guy spent his whole life trying to convince everybody what a badass he was

Maybe he was really trying to convince himself.

He wouldn't admit he suffered from PTSD because people would think he was a p___y.

He inflated his kill totals, made up stories about shooting two guys who tried to jack his car, lied about shooting dozens of (black) American citizens from the top of the Superdome, and lied about punching out Jesse Ventura which cost his estate a couple million bucks.

He definitely felt he had something to prove. Wonder what it was?

[doc03]

26. Honestly the people that worship this guy as a hero for the

most part don't care about anyone he claims he shot it NO. I mentioned that to one Republican and it is dismissed as liberal media lies.
They believe the Fox News version and nothing will make them think otherwise.

[bigwillq]

27. Nah. It's just a movie.

Proponents and Opponents of the film are making a big deal out of nothing. It's a movie. In a few weeks all this hoopla will pass.

[QuebecYank]

28. Chris Kyle is no hero!

A hero, to me, is someone who is willing to sacrifice his/her life to save others. Example: the teacher who put herself between the gunman and her students at Sandy Hook School. Or a parent, letting a child escape, while they stay behind to fight off a bear, etc. Knowing that they could likely die.
Kyle was one of, if not the best sniper this country has had. He was trained to do this job. And he did it exceptionally well. But he's no hero. Just a highly skilled sniper, who loved being paraded around as a hero. He fed into it, and a book has exposed him to be a convenient liar, whenever he felt the need to be admired again. I don't know why people need to inflate certain people. The good and the bad weigh evenly on his scale, and this film, will now expose the real Chris Kyle. That's something filmmaker Clint Eastwood, and Kyle's widow and family, cannot escape from.

[hack89]

31. The film paints him in a positive light

have you actually seen the movie?

[QuebecYank]

36. No!

I was talking about the glorification about him. Whenever that happens, we always find out something disturbing about these people. The female soldier in Iraq who the Marines went in to rescue, her whole story was built up by the US government/military, then we found out from the BBC what the actual truth was. This was after people had donated money, and a home to her. Then there was the football player who enlisted, we found out later on that he was fatally shot by his fellow soldiers. Kyle's actions on American soil, caused people to talk, when he posthumously lost a court case to Jesse Ventura. That's what opened the door, to a whole can of worms. As great as he was, at doing his job; he was a troubled person in his own skin, back home. Does anyone care if those two facts are connected, I wonder?

[braddy]

48. Kyle was willing to sacrifice his life for others, what do you think he was doing during 4 combat

tours as a SEAL, or when he was being shot 3 times, or being in 2 helicopter crashes. or 6 IED attacks and being awarded 2 purple hearts?

[QuebecYank]

65. He signed up for military service.

Firemen, cops, military personnel all signed on to their jobs, knowing that they could die at any moment. They accept those consequences, as part if the job.
A teacher, bus driver, janitor, office worker, etc., doesn't have the training to disarm a gunman, or shoot to kill/injure.
If Chris Kyle is a hero, what does that make the teacher who was able to stop a gunman from shooting up her school, or a teacher at Sandy Hook who sacrificed her life, to help save those of her students. Or a mother who sacrificed her life, so that her child could escape from a grizzly bear. There's no other word to describe them, but heroes.
Kyle was trained to kill. Trained to be a NAVY Seal, and all that came with it. He killed people, successfully. He shouldn't be called a hero for that!

[braddy]

67. I was correcting your post about him not being willing to sacrifice his life, which is the opposite

of the truth, and you are deeply mistaken to compare cops and firemen to warriors, the warrior goes into situations unimaginable to civilians and cops, situations where he assumes that he won't live, or where he will commit suicide rather than be taken alive, missions that are assumed to be one way.

The warrior fights other trained and supported warriors, Kyle took risks and suffered the bullet wounds and crawled out of the helicopters and survived the IEDs, do you really think that our combat soldiers and elite commandos are doing less heroic acts than others? Do you really want to say that they don't know who among them is more heroic than others and worthy of medals?

Why do you want to say that because a father who leaps in to save his daughter from a Grizzly is heroic, that a Navy SEAL that is heroic in combat, can't be heroic?

[QuebecYank]

68. Well if he's a hero, what do you call the nonmilitary people?

[braddy]

69. Good Lord, don't you read a newspaper, heroes are all over the place, it's just that in

the military, the requirements for heroism is much higher, since everyone in combat is already way advanced in the area of risking their lives, and doing it frequently, even constantly.

[IMG][/IMG]

[QuebecYank]

70. Yes. And my father and grandfather fought in wars, too!

I just don't get this need of hero worshipping. You wanna call him a hero, go ahead, it's a free country. I know what my father and grandfather did, I'm extremely proud of them, but maybe out of modesty, they don't go around bragging. They saw it simply, as doing their job.

[braddy]

71. Don't accuse me of hero worship, accuse the military of not knowing what they mean when

they award a man 2 Silver Stars, and 5 Bronze Stars for heroism and two Purple Hearts, along with a bunch of other awards, while he was becoming the most prolific sniper in American history, and one of the most elite soldiers in the world.

I have two honorable discharges and come from a family where all the men have served, from my father to stepfather to brothers and my son, I too know a little about veterans and ex military, and have belonged to veteran's organizations, and I don't know why you expect 22 million living veterans to all have the same personalities, but I can tell you they don't, especially many of the hard chargers.

[Paladin]

30. The movie taps into a really unhealthy strain of sniper worship.

Very right-wing, very gun-centric, and it's been around for a while. Think about the photos of those camo-clad "militia" guys at the Cliven Bundy place, aiming their assault rifles at government workers. Think of the popularity of first person shooter games. Think of the Open Carry movement. There's a really sick mindset at work here---and people afflicted with it view Chris Kyle as some sort of god.

[ND-Dem]

45. did you see the sniper lover here calling another sniper "beloved"?

[Jamastiene]

56. I saw that

and should have adjusted my ignore list accordingly at that time. Instead, I saw this thread and saw half the replies on it. You can literally cut a thread in half by ignoring one person, the same person who called him a hero.

[QuebecYank]

37. Where was all the attention, love and flag-waving for the Hurt Locker?

[Recursion]

41. It got nominated for Best Picture and grossed $17 million

[QuebecYank]

66. But the country didn't get behind it.

There was no flag waving hero worshipping of the movie. I wonder if it's because, the main character wasn't killing people. If that's the case, then the glorifying mania over Chris Kyle is about him killing people. Why can't people just admit, they liked the fact that he killed many people, and be done with it.

[Paladin]

60. Terrific movie. (nt)

[tenderfoot]

39. I will say this about Chris Kyle...

he had more military experience than the people that sent him to kill and the people that defend him here.

[Jamastiene]

53. He was also a Republican AND

racist as fuck. I don't get why there are people on DU who see him as a hero, but there seem to be a few of them even on DU as well.

Most veterans that I know cannot be talked into talking about anyone they might have killed, even if you try to get them to talk about it. They sure the fuck don't go around bragging about it.

[brooklynite]

54. Litmus test for whom?

Most Americans won't see it (most Americans won't see most movies). Who particularly care what someone's political opinion of a movie is?

[Adrahil]

55. Went to see it last night...

Oversimplified and jingoistic. Cooper is pretty good in kit. Eastwood knows how to tell a story.

It was seriously cringe-worthy to me to see that complex horror story turned into a patriotic, heart-warming movies.

The GOP and the easily duped will love it. The rest of us can only sigh and try to get on with things.

[Scuba]

58. War porn.

[alarimer]

59. If it's a litmus test, then I am NOT an American and refuse to be one by those standards.

I break fully with the rah-rah flag-waving sociopaths who want to go kill some "rag-heads".

He was a complete and utter liar. The movie paints him as some sort of decent, but troubled, soldier. He was not decent, not by a long shot. He was a sociopathic killer, who lied endlessly.

Unlike many here, I do like Clint Eastwood movies generally. They are a lot less cartoonish than most. He, almost alone among right-wingers, is capable of nuance. But I find Chris Kyle to be the anathema of everything I believe in that I cannot bear to watch.

People mention other war movies: Jarhead for example. Also based on a true story, an autobiography. I liked that movie, I think it presented the moral ambiguities of the first Gulf War very well. It was not a rah-rah flick at all.