Righteousness of our 'American Snipers'

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I read some reviews of the new Clint Eastwood film, 'American Sniper,' which immediately meshed in my mind with a conversation I had this week with a veteran of the Iraq invasion and occupation under Bush. I had steered my veteran conversationalist into a revealing discussion of the roots of his own visible anger and antipathy he expressed often toward the people of the nation where he was deployed and tasked with defending his own troops, along with American interests, against whoever resisted our military's strident advance. In his view, admittedly grossly simplified in my interpretation, American forces represented all that was right and good; and Iraqis, resisting or not, were despicable enemies who deserved whatever retribution our nation's defenders imposed on them.

Lindy West, in The Guardian, describes the real-life individual in the new film who is portrayed by actor Bradley Cooper:

"Chris Kyle, a US navy Seal from Texas, was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and claimed to have killed more than 255 people during his six-year military career. In his memoir, Kyle reportedly described killing as “fun”, something he “loved”; he was unwavering in his belief that everyone he shot was a “bad guy”. “I hate the damn savages,” he wrote. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis.” He bragged about murdering looters during Hurricane Katrina, though that was never substantiated..."

My young veteran discussant is remarkably in agreement with me about the foolishness and folly of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, yet, even as he expresses agreement that Americans have no business committing soldiers to fight and die in that country, he's just as adamantly convinced in a remarkable and appalling dehumanization of the Iraqi people that they all deserve to die; in his estimation, at the point of a U.S. nuclear attack which would 'wipe them all out.'

Delving deeper into his reasoning this week, he makes clear to me where the seeds of his revulsion for Iraqis lies. It appears that he lost quite a few of his close comrades in arms during the Iraq deployments in nearly 10-year enlistment in the Army; many of those under his command while serving as a Staff Sgt. in the infantry. That's enough said from him, to me. I'm not going to make broad judgments about the righteousness or banality of his personal view. I wasn't there and I can't put myself anywhere near his own experiences to make those judgments for him. I can only express my own revulsion toward any killing; justified, rationalized, or not; certainly opposed with all of my heart and mind to any suggestion that the entire country of Iraqis deserve to die to assuage American fears or any perceived defense of our nation or interests.

Yet, it is precisely those same kinds of vengeful and defensive sentiments expressed by this young veteran which compel many Americans to support continued military attacks against Iraqis and others in the region where our troops are deployed which are faceless, even nameless, to the vast majority of us. I would imagine its that same dichotomy between fearful Americans and our new Iraqi-based nemesis which inspires the similar storyline in this latest war film from Eastwood.

Lindy West writes in the The Guardian:

"...much of the US right wing appears to have seized upon 'American Sniper' with similarly shallow comprehension – treating it with the same unconsidered, rah-rah reverence that they would the national anthem or the flag itself. Only a few weeks into its release, the film has been flattened into a symbol to serve the interests of an ideology that, arguably, runs counter to the ethos of the film itself. How much, if at all, should Eastwood concern himself with fans who misunderstand and misuse his work? If he, intentionally or not, makes a hero out of Kyle – who, bare minimum, was a racist who took pleasure in dehumanising and killing brown people – is he responsible for validating racism, murder, and dehumanisation? Is he a propagandist if people use his work as propaganda?"

That same sentiment runs through the reasoning of my young vet who, despite anguishing about the time spent away from his family, even now, with his civilian job, expressed a desire this week to re-enlist; to go back to Iraq to 'kill more Iraqis.' Not surprisingly, he's also looking forward to viewing this new war film - enamored, no doubt, by the notion of an 'American hero' employed in decidedly righteous executions, in his mind, of the 'enemies' our government and military define and promote there.

More ominously, our Democratic president is said to be poised to ask the republican-led Congress for a new authorization to use military force in Iraq which includes actual and open 'boots-on-the-ground' which he's been opportunistically avoiding as a way of forestalling any judgment by legislators under the War Powers Act clock (right now, he's advantaging authorization of his military force in Iraq and Syria under the 9-11 AUMF which is supposed to be for the 'war' he's straining to portray as ending in Afghanistan).

I expressed my own objections to my young vet of viewing portrayals like the ones billed in 'American Sniper;' expressed my concern that these types of films romanticize war to the extent that convince many young Americans to join the cause, convinced within their own naive rationale that they would be able to overcome the odds that their own lives would be sacrificed; not to mention the loss of other innocent lives in the way of their military and government-sanction violence. I probably won't see the film.

I strongly urged this young veteran to reconsider his desire to join the military again; to try and find other ways (other than the alcoholism which he admits plagues him) to suppress and allay the anger he feels daily, even now, years after his deployments which have injured him both physically and mentally. I have genuine sympathy for this former soldier. He frequently laughs about and ridicules my 'bleeding heart;' I tell him that my heart 'bleeds' for him, as well.

Lindy West writes:

The patriots go on, and on and on. They cannot believe what they are reading. They are rushing to the defence of not just Kyle, but their country, what their country means. They call for the rape or death of anyone ungrateful enough to criticise American hero Chris Kyle. Because Chris Kyle is good, and brown people are bad, and America is in danger, and Chris Kyle saved us. The attitude echoes what Miller articulated about Kyle in her Salon piece: “his steadfast imperviousness to any nuance, subtlety or ambiguity, and his lack of imagination and curiosity, seem particularly notable”.

"There is no room for the idea that Kyle might have been a good soldier but a bad guy; or a mediocre guy doing a difficult job badly; or a complex guy in a bad war who convinced himself he loved killing to cope with an impossible situation; or a straight-up serial killer exploiting an oppressive system that, yes, also employs lots of well-meaning, often impoverished, non-serial-killer people to do oppressive things over which they have no control. Or that Iraqis might be fully realised human beings with complex inner lives who find joy in food and sunshine and family, and anguish in the murders of their children. Or that you can support your country while thinking critically about its actions and its citizenry. Or that many truths can be true at once."

I wholeheartedly agree with that. Even as I grieve and anguish for the victims of U.S. military aggression, I sincerely wish my young veteran discussant, and his fellow compatriots-in-arms, healing and success in their lives. I weep for their future, and for their past, as well.