Sniper sniping
by digby
I don't think movies are historical documents so I tend to stay away from these arguments. I think "Selma" has a right to be the movie its filmmakers wanted and so too "American Sniper".
But I do admit that "American Sniper" is likely to have a pernicious effect on our politics because the right wing is hailing is as if Moses came down from Mt Sinai to deliver Chris Kyle as an American Jesus. And Chris Kyle was a disturbed individual.
Robert Greenwald talks about one aspect of the film here.
Vox delves into it more, here.
It's bad history and probably dangerous on some level in continuing the misunderstanding of that misbegotten war.
But what I just can't get over the fact that right wingers love a guy who said this. It's just sick:
We should be awfully skeptical about Kyle's claim that the U.S. government sent him into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They perched him atop the Superdome, he said, and it was from there that he picked off 30 looters in the city.
A June 2014 Washington Post report about Kyle's "unverifiable legacy" doesn't outright call the celebrated sniper a liar, but it nudges the reader toward that conclusion. After including a quote from one of Kyle's officers who said, "I never heard that story," the Washington Post writes, "Does that mean it didn't happen? Who knows. It's certainly possible that Kyle... killed 30 armed assailants in New Orleans to protect its residents in Katrina's aftermath. But it's also possible Kyle couldn't let go of his own legend, and, in a haze of post-traumatic stress, let his tales veer into untruth."
No it isn't possible. It's racist garbage. He may have suffered from PTSD and that's fine. it's the people who think that's an awesome story that are the real sick pieces of work.