I was genuinely pissed off at the end of the movie, but not because of the cardboard cut-out depiction of Chris Kyle as a cross between Rambo and Nathan Hale.
I was pissed off because for me the movie was a 2 hour internal reflection on just how many lies and financial agendas it took to have our soldiers in Iraq in the first place, year after year after year; and just how many guys went to that "war" - it was really an illegal invasion of aggression and an unpunished exploitation of the American AND Iraqi people by Bush's cabal of war criminals - thinking they were doing their duty when they were really doing the dirty work of homicidal greed monsters.
I believe that somewhere slightly more nuanced than Eastwood's ham-handed direction allowed is the story of truly heroic American soldiers who signed up to legitimately "protect our freedoms", the problem is that our politicians - and Democrats, who refused to shut down American governance in response to Bush's lies and crimes the way Republicans essentially shut down EVERYTHING after Obamacare passed, are equally guilty - are craven money and power whores who would do anything, say anything, sell-out anyone and literally kill anyone just to keep a seat at the fringes of the table of power.
I saw American Sniper and it caused me to internally reflect on what my country has become since 9/11/01 and I really don't like what I saw. We have killed. We have stolen. We have plundered. We have exploited. We have tortured. We have shirked all responsibility for holding the leaders responsible accountable to the rule of law.
If the use of the terminology "savages" is what makes people upset in this piece, then its my opinion they are as lacking in introspection as the Commander-in-Chimp himself.
See this movie, but look past the superficial and the button-pushing jingoism. Look inside yourself, and how living in this country, and knowing what we know now, about that entire escapade into Iraq, how can NONE OF THEM - Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and more - how can NONE of them be held responsible for the carnage they wrought in the name of ideology?
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