The Real American Sniper: Why Chris Kyle Wasn’t A Hero

[tenderfoot]

The following words are not meant to spit on the grave of Chris Kyle, but rather address a reality that may be unpleasant for many to hear. Chris Kyle was not a hero. He did not protect America or keep it safe. He killed a lot. He also, apparently, lied a lot as well. Sometimes truth lies beyond the lens of star-spangled glasses and once you have the courage to look beyond a constructed work of fiction, you may realize that the facts do not align with your belief system. It may not be easy, but sometimes the truth is harsh. If we, as a people are genuinely in pursuit of truth and the justice that follows, we must distance ourselves from the warm feelings that certain narratives provide and search objectively without the blinders that provide us comfort.

Kyle’s story takes place in Iraq, his weapon and astute aim followed along with him. The former Navy SEAL and bronco rider was responsible for 160 confirmed deaths – 255 if you include unconfirmed kills – while he was stationed in the land that was once ancient Babylon. How can it be said that a single person he killed was on behalf of protecting the American way of life or its freedoms when Iraq nor its people were ever a threat to either? Kyle was a member of an invading force. To protect someone or something, an outside threat must first be made, otherwise what is labeled as protector is actually an aggressor.

No matter your thoughts surrounding the events on 9/11, one thing that is for certain is that Iraq was not involved. Saddam Hussein never attacked the United States, nor did it appear that he ever had plans to do so. Hussein’s regime, although not innocent of crimes in its own country, was not a threat to the United States or its citizens. And despite the Bush administration’s assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, they didn’t.

It may be brutal to hear, but the facts dictate that none of the people that Chris Kyle killed were a threat to America, its freedoms, or its way of life.

So who or what was the Texan protecting?

<snip>

American Sniper, the movie based on his words, makes Kyle appear as if he was conflicted by the scores who were killed by his marksmanship. Unfortunately for his legacy, his actual words tell a different story.

“I wondered, how would I feel about killing someone? Now I know. It’s no big deal”

Another quote from Kyle’s book describes his thoughts on the Iraqi people,

“Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy ‘savages’…. I only wish I had killed more.”

The sniper also described his chosen profession of killing by saying,

“You do it until there’s no one left to kill. That’s what war is. I loved what I did… I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun.”

Kyle also relays his lack of regret by saying,

“There’s another question people ask a lot: Did it bother you killing so many people in Iraq? I tell them ‘No.’ And I mean it.”


As far as the moral ambiguity that he dealt with, Kyle said

“I have a strong sense of justice. It’s pretty much black-and-white. I don’t see too much gray.”

The last passage from American Sniper that I will list truly demonstrates Kyle’s lack of heroism:

“A teenager, I’d guess about fifteen, sixteen, appeared on the street and squared up with an AK-47 to fire at them. I dropped him. A minute or two later, an Iraqi woman came running up, saw him on the ground, and tore off her clothes. She was obviously his mother. I’d see the families of the insurgents display their grief, tear off clothes, even rub the blood on themselves. If you loved them, I thought, you should have kept them away from the war. You should have kept them from joining the insurgency.”

The insurgency that the sniper is referring to is the local Iraqi insurgency that would have never existed if the United States hadn’t invaded Iraq to begin with. These “insurgents” weren’t making their way overseas to hurt Kyle’s family, so where does his malice towards the child he killed in cold blood come from?

more: http://theantimedia.org/the-real-american-sniper/

[HeiressofBickworth]

1. This has bothered me since the first Iraq war

Please, please don't call the Iraqi people "insurgents" because that isn't true. The definition of insurgent is 1) Rising in revolt against a government or other established authority 2) Rebelling against the leadership of a political party.

The Iraqi people were not in revolt against their government -- they were fighting an invasion by the Americans and "the coalition of the willing". We INVADED their country; they had every right to fight back. What we did was a violation of international law. Now remind me, just why aren't Bush and Cheney behind bars?

[wildbilln864]

22. well said! n/t

[blackspade]

2. Just one more reason not to see this movie.

I pretty much steer clear of any movie/show using the Iraq war as a backdrop/prop.
They are all based on a lie and a crime.

[JonLP24]

3. How about his spotter?

Just a joke, though I'm curious does the movie even have a spotter? If not, that would be a glaring inaccuracy. For snipers my favorite is Bob Lee Swagger though he is fictional, the movie "Shooter" did a great job in detailing the accuracy that goes into sniping though the book Point of Impact is much, much better. The Third Bullet is another in the Bob Lee Swagger series which deals with the JFK assassination, I haven't made it that far yet but from what I can tell Stephen Hunter has a very good understanding what the government & side factions are capable of. A gun nut living in the woods is why he was chosen as the perfect "patsy" in Point of Impact.

[glasshouses]

4. He did what he was trained to do and saved lives

Not just him but every sniper who was deployed.

Hero?

he did his job that's all

The only ones who called him a hero were people who never served and hollywood

[JonLP24]

5. Its so hard to independently verify much of this

but it is very clear he saw this more as a game or some type of contest. He mentions all the killing led him to figure out ways to be "creative" and he also mentions "Our ROEs [Rules of Engagement] when the [Iraq War] kicked off were pretty simple: If you see anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and they’re male, shoot ‘em. Kill every male you see. That wasn’t the official language, but that was the idea." Which is pretty interesting as this is very different from official ROE or the ROE directly from CENTCOM so I'm more interested in who gave this order. Generation Kill portrays a Marine battalion under an ROE that is always changing on the fly from the Battalion commander himself.

I certainly don't deny he saved lives, especially regarding the RPG story though I'm curious what were the circumstances for him providing sniper cover on an Army convoy (my job) when there are dozens on the road at a given time & so many others given "trip tickets" as they're coming back. I logged about 30,000 miles myself -- but it also appears he did a lot of this for fun, or sport, got an enjoyment out of it and I don't care who are or what the job asks of you, only a sociopath values human life as much in the same way Chris Kyle claims he did.

[glasshouses]

8. Wasn't that the unwritten ROE in the taking of Fallujah?

As for the talk , a lot of talk and bravado was spoken by a lot of Marines and soldiers there after battles .

They just didn't write books or have movies made about them.

If you're asking me is he the best example human being ? no

But he is far from the worst example also.

[JonLP24]

14. I agree with the worst example part

He appears to be less hypocritical though I'm not sure how much post-Iraq was a lie. I agree because I have seen the darkest corners of human existence, he doesn't qualify as my worst.

I really can't comment on the Marines experience as I have little to no knowledge of what it is like with the exception they have the best overall uniforms, ran an extra half mile & also do pull-ups as part of their PT test(based on rumors). I do know they won't take a GED, high school diploma only but generally the Department of the Navy has the toughest standards. If you're chaptered out of the Navy you can still join the Army but out of the Army, you're out.

My experience was in the transportation corps and we were deployed to the same base as CENTCOM, now unwritten ROE is another story. Directly, it was show, shout (the show and the shout switched places about the winter of 06-07), shove, shoot. You shout your orders to halt, to go away. You "show" your weapon for the implied consequences of failure to obey. "If you can shove you can shoot" was always the introduction if whoever didn't follow.

Wikileaks actually hit it dead on bullseye

Two months later, US troops gunned down a group of bus passengers even more peremptorily, as the logs record.

Patrolling on foot, a Kentucky-based squad from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "Red Currahee", decided to flag down the approaching bus, so their patrol could cross the road. Before sunrise, a soldier stepped out on to Afghanistan's main highway and raised both hands in the air.

When the bus failed to slow – travelers are often wary of being flagged down in Afghanistan's bandit lands – a trooper raked it with machine-gun fire. They killed four passengers and wounded 11 others.

The bus likely kept rolling towards after the show & the shout

<snip>
The bulk of the "blue-white" file consists of a relentless catalogue of civilian shootings on nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys. Unco-operative drivers and motorcyclists are frequent targets.

Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous "escalation of force" conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle.

US and UK rules require shouts, waves, flares, warning shots and shots into the engine block, before using lethal force. Each time it is claimed that this procedure is followed. Yet "warning shots" often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets.

Sometimes, it seems as though civilian drivers merely failed to get off the road fast enough. On 9 July 2006 mechanic Mohamad Baluch was test-driving a car in Ghazni, when the Americans rolled into town on an anti-IED "route clearance patrol".

The log records: "LN [local national] vehicle did not yield to US convoy … Gunner on lead truck shot into the vehicle and convoy kept going out of the area." The townspeople threw rocks at the eight departing armoured Humvees. Baluch ended up in hospital with machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-rules-engagement

This revelation didn't surprise me none. Every convoy mission brief, though this applied to the gun trucks, shoot (if you can shove you can shoot) anyone who fails to yield to orders, usually arabic words for stop or halt. After that, it was told fair game so you'd expect many incidents just like Wikileaks revealed. Either The Guardian got the facts wrong or the DoD was misleading but we were taught warning shots were bad ideas based on logic like the bullet has to go somewhere and it would qualify as "shove" so if you can fire warning shot, you can fire a kill shot. Shots into the engine block? That was never taught though I noticed a bit of an editorial slant even though it wasn't necessary. The troubling thing is were they given the wrong facts or choose to misrepresent the actual facts relayed to them?

As far as Fallujah, I never driven through the city or Ramadi but the road going to TQ was named "Long Island" and it was by far the worst road in Iraq. We were trained to swerve around potholes, trash, debree, anything but Long Island had "man holes" the whole way there. Also the area was infamous for "Daisy-chain IEDs" (think of roadside bomb lit up like Christmas tree lights) that area was bad. Though, I wouldn't justify road crimes unless a supervisor gave the order but it was made very clear, many times, we are allowed to disobey unlawful orders.

[ND-Dem]

7. He was a 'savage' who took lives and signed up to do just that.

[glasshouses]

10. Hundreds of thousands of men and women signed up also

They also took lives
So every trigger puller , field artillery , pilots are all savages by your definition

[ND-Dem]

11. Just mirroring Kyle's words: he had the nerve to describe the citizens under invasion and attack

as 'savages'.

If that's the case, the American soldiers were equally 'savages' -- as invaders, even more so.

The guy was an asshole. When he got home he created a company to train more people how to kill. He was no innocent victim. He enjoyed killing, wished he'd killed more -- by his own testimony. Don't try to whitewash him, he was a sick savage.

[BeanMusical]

16. +1

Well said.

[ND-Dem]

6. K&R. who's the savage?

[roguevalley]

9. the person who is worse than him is the bitter old

bastard clint eastwood who turned him into a hero because he hates things so much he ignored half the book this movie is based on to make a clay hero to say and do all the things his sorry old ass was never willing to do. F Clint Eastwood.

[ND-Dem]

12. eastwood is worse than the savage and murderer because he made a movie that glorified the

murderer?

I suppose it depends on how you weigh these things.

[roguevalley]

20. given that the effect of his movie will have on a

massive world wide audience and considering that muslims in other countries will become enraged by it, the totality of the potential to make huge trouble is greater. This man was a psycho and one of their traits is not getting their own savagery. Eastwood is a mean old bastard but he isn't a psycho. He knew what he was doing and how it was going to be received. He helped enure us against outrage against future wars with this tripe. He fed the lie machine like Bush and Cheney. He is worse. His effect is longer and greater than some idiot writing a book. He twisted this to make it acceptable to accept snipers and their psychotic behavior. It is worse. Think bigger picture.

[ND-Dem]

21. well, that's a good answer, but the even larger context for all of this is US actions in the

muslim world; i.e. invading countries, removing governments, installing puppet governments, killing people, etc.

I'd say that's the background for all else.

[kwolf68]

13. Did he call the Iraqi people savages ?

OR the jihadists?

Was this quote taken out of context?

[ND-Dem]

18. The *US* invaded Iraq. Please try to keep that in mind, because that's the context. Given

that, everything we did was illegal, and trying to draw some line between "jihadist" Iraqis and "good" Iraqis (who we're nevertheless invading) is bullshit.

There were no jihadists until we invaded, killed the leadership and destroyed the country.

[nilesobek]

15. I knew the world, some journalists and critics

would catch on that this guy wasn't a hero. In another thread I called it this year's Zero Dark Thirty and a jingo pick at the Oscars.

The movie is extremely well made from what I have heard. Good acting, good writing, great production values and photography. I would never go see this thing. I was awakened to the propaganda apologizing for the Iraq war ten years ago. There's no way I can go back.

A lot of people have pointed out to me that the picture itself is not blatant pro-war propaganda, but rather, insidious propaganda of clear omission. As a viewer I want to be entertained, not led on a leash.

[BeanMusical]

17. Kick and R.

[cwydro]

19. Kick. Nt

[Octafish]

23. Kick for Truth.

Thank you, tenderfoot! War for oil is making America into the monster Nietzsche warned us about.