We’re spreading freedom and democracy with guns and drones. God bless America

[kpete]

Kyle wrote that he “couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis,” that he would shoot “anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and if they’re male,” and that he “hated the damn savages.”

“I don’t shoot people with Korans,” Kyle also stated. “I’d like to, but I don’t.”

http://www.alternet.org/culture/how-bradley-cooper-getting-away-pretending-american-sniper-apolitical

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Is American Sniper historically accurate?
Clint Eastwood’s simplistic film about one of the deadliest snipers in US history piles on Bush-era propaganda and sharp-shoots the facts

...........

Bad guys

In case you don’t believe they’re savages, the main Iraqi characters – who have virtually no lines – are clearly very bad guys. There is a mostly fictional sniper named Mustafa (Sammy Sheik), a former Olympic marksman, who is mentioned in one paragraph of Kyle’s book but in the film becomes his sharp-shooting, marine-murdering nemesis. In real life, Kyle wrote of Mustafa: “I never saw him, but other snipers later killed an Iraqi sniper we think was him.” In the film, Kyle and Mustafa battle to the death.

Then there’s a fictional terrorist called the Butcher (Mido Hamada), who wears a long black coat and attacks small children with electric drills. The Butcher may be loosely based on Ismail Hafidh al-Lami, known as Abu Deraa, blamed for thousands of deaths in the mid-2000s. The main point is that he’s horrible. In fact, everyone Kyle kills is horrible. The war is a lot easier to support when no Americans ever make a mistake and everyone who opposes them is obviously horrible. You’re either with us or against us. We’re spreading freedom and democracy with guns and drones. God bless America.



**************


Good guys

Every kill Kyle makes, even with shots taken after split-second decisions, is 100% righteous and saves American lives. The skull logo of Marvel’s murderous vigilante the Punisher is on his vest and his armoured vehicle, yet nobody asks whether that sort of symbolism is going to help win Iraqi hearts and minds. He is a true patriotic American, with a whacking great tattoo of a Jerusalem cross on his arm. That bit is true: “I had it put in in red, for blood,” he wrote. “I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me.”

Kyle suffers after his tours of duty, but only, he says, because he wanted to kill more bad guys to save more marines. He develops a thousand-yard stare, and attacks his own dog at a barbecue. The message of American Sniper is that Kyle is the real victim of the war. The Iraqis he shot deserved it, because – as it has established to its own satisfaction – they were savages. As for non-savage Iraqis who may have reasonable grounds to complain about what happened to their country following the invasion, they must be in some other movie.


the rest:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/jan/20/why-american-snipers-historical-dishonesty-misleads

[Nyc72dem]

1. No "I'm" not.

Last I saw, and I saw it here, Obama is spreading it with drones.

[kpete]

2. and

our tax money


peace,
kp