Interesting Reading: American Sniper’s Myths and Misrepresentations

This is some seriously interesting reading:

Few these days will admit to supporting the 2003 Iraq invasion, especially given that we now know that it helped give rise to ISIS. But the forerunner and current ally of ISIS was al-Qaeda in Iraq [AQI], bad people defeated by sometimes reluctant heroes in places the Baghdad-centric media avoided. I know; I have both celebrated and suffered with them. And I now suffer disgust at how Clint Eastwood used one of them—deeply troubled and flawed—and denigrated the others for a box-office and Oscar bonanza.

I was embedded twice with SEAL Team Three, American Sniper author Chris Kyle’s unit, as a photo-journalist in Task Force Currahee. At that time it was deployed to what was the headquarters of AQI and perhaps the most violent part of most dangerous city in the world, during what’s now known as The Battle of Ramadi. My first firefight was with ST3; like everything else these days you can watch it on YouTube. Ramadi claimed the lives of the first four SEALs to die in Iraq; my two journalist predecessors were both shot by snipers; an IED claimed my own public affairs “handler,” Marine Maj. Megan McClung. I escaped injury during both embeds, but my previous one in Fallujah led to a horrific noncombat injury and seven surgeries.

All of which is to say that I’ve got a stake in making sure that the story of the warriors I knew is told the right way—the truthful way. Which brings me to “American Sniper.”

via American Sniper’s Myths and Misrepresentations | The American Conservative.

As someone who supported the invasion of Iraq originally in 2003 and until it became very obvious that there was no WMD’s, which is why we went in there in the first place —- and sorry, parts for bombs from the first gulf war do not count at all; we went looking for ACTIVE and NEW bombs —-  this article is very interesting to read. One thing I will say is that the neoconservatives and their contemporaries in the media will do all that they can to portray war as something righteous, romantic or glamorous.

As someone who has had family members in various wars over the years; I can tell you first hand that none of that nonsense is even remotely true about any sort of war. War, my friends, is literally hell on earth. It damages people. For example, my Grandmother’s step-brother served in World War 2. He came back shell-shocked; we was never ever able to work after that either. My Mom has told me stories that my grandmother told her, about her step-brother roaming the house at night, because of his flashbacks. It scared my grandmother to death. The point is this: War should never be used as a political tool, as was the case with the Iraq War. It should only be used as very last resort, when all other means have been exhausted.

Which is just how Ronald Reagan conducted his foreign policy. He never used the United States military, unless he felt that the Republic of the United States was in mortal danger. It was a sensible foreign policy and one that the Republican Party should adapt as their own and stop taking marching orders from the neoconservative right. Our Nation would be better off, as a result.

 

One thought on “ Interesting Reading: American Sniper’s Myths and Misrepresentations

  1. “Is KYLE even DEAD?—-WHO KNOWS???
    ———–I won’t believe it till I see the body and the DNA test.
    ———————This WHOLE thing STINKS!”
    PRESTON JAMES
    Veterans Today Radio
    ( days ago )

    EASTWOOD, once again, caught delivering time release
    POST AMERICA demoralization ops.

    BEWARE!

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