What would you call the American resistance in a “Red Dawn” scenario? Sarah Palin referred to Kyle and the American soldiers in Iraq as “freedom fighters.” I think that perfectly encapsulates the misguided patriotism many Americans embrace.
I’m not getting what you’re trying to say, here. I haven’t seen Red Dawn, but from what I understand of the plot, I’d call them guerillas, or the resistance, or possibly freedom fighters. If you’re arguing that the Iraqi insurgents were also freedom fighters… sure, so what? That doesn’t necessarily make the US troops murderers, just as the Russians being killed by the teenagers in Red Dawn aren’t necessarily murderers, just because they’re on the wrong side of the conflict.
I don’t really give a shit what Sarah Palin says on any subject. She’s a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.
Of course I agree about Palin, but using the term “freedom fighters” was too hilarious to pass on.
I’m not saying that the U.S. soldiers are murderers. I’m saying it’s a legitimate viewpoint, especially in the Muslim world.
I posted my opinion and made it known as such, this forum is for the discussion of our opinions among many other things. Your assertions are nothing more than the same. Like I said, you’re entitled to it, but there is large consensus UDT members should be considered SEALs, both in the community of SEALs and essentially everyone who writes about them. Your opinion is since they served before the term SEAL existed, and since they aren’t identical to SEALs they aren’t SEALs. My point is that’s an extreme minority opinion that few will agree with.
I don’t think the viewpoint is any more or less legitimate in the Muslim than the Christian or atheist or whatever world. There are a lot of people who think soldiers killing in the battlefield is immoral, if they’re killing Muslims it may be more likely for Muslims to take the view of such soldiers but it doesn’t make their view more valid than an American who has the same view (and some do.) I don’t FWIW, but it’s a position you could take.
That being said, what you actually said was that if you felt the U.S. invasion of Iraq was unjustified then you essentially view Chris Kyle as a murderer. There is no reason that belief has to follow from the other.
In Don Mann’s book, Inside SEAL Team Six: My Life and Missions with America’s Elite Warriors, he writes that in 1983, UDT-11 and -12 at Coronado were converted into SEAL Teams Three and Five. Also that during the same year, UDT-21 on the East Coast (I’m assuming Little Creek, but I don’t know) was converted into SEAL Team Four. No retraining, no re-qualification, just, 'you’re now known as SEALs. Google Books isn’t listing the page numbers of the quotes, unfortunately.
While at the outset of their formation, UDTs had a different mission than other maritime raiding units like Amphibious Scouts and the USMC Raider units, my impression from reading articles about the early history of those units is that by the 60s, UDT and SEALs were doing a lot of the same stuff. Those UDT members that weren’t, were moved into the SDV units. And now, I guess, SWCC (Surface Warfare Combatant-Crew) guys, the SEAL boat drivers/gunners/etc…
As aggressively as the SEALs watch over their brand, (E.g., Don Shipley; their trademark dispute with Disney) I can’t see them tolerating, let alone supporting, a museum giving the UDTs and SEALs equal billing if they weren’t tantamount to the same thing. But that is just my inference from observing the situation as a lay person.
I wasn’t planning to see it but after reading the OP and the incoherent ramblings of Michael Moore, it’s on my must see list
Not really, no. I felt and feel that the war was George W. Bush’s running for reelection. But I don’t condemn the war fighters per se, except in cases like Chris Kyle who appears to have been a psychopath.
I think part of why I didn’t enjoy American Sniper and why it comes off feeling “lacking” is because if you know about Kyle you know there’s actually a much more interesting “story untold.” Since we’re talking about an Eastwood movie, go back to Unforgiven. Its protagonist is almost wholly without conscience, he has some redeeming qualities and has lived a “clean life” for some years when the movie starts, but the murdering monster that he is isn’t far beneath the surface and comes out at the end of the movie. Aside from turning a lot of the Western genre on its head with its brutal show of amoral ugliness and violence, Unforgiven also serves to really show what’s probably the reality of a Wild West gunslinger–a mean dude you wouldn’t want to be within 200 miles of and who was as likely to kill innocent people as he is bad guys.
At the beginning of American Sniper Kyle’s dad expounds on the concept of wolves sheep and sheepdogs. Wolves are contemptible, murderers and immoral/amoral people who prey on sheep (most of the rest of society.) Sheepdogs are the rare breed who can play the wolf’s game (violence) to protect sheep from the wolves, but without becoming wolves themselves. Eastwood was here laying the groundwork for something that could have been interesting but is largely left unexamined because for unknown reasons Eastwood left out anything really negative about Kyle from the movie. The real Chris Kyle clearly went down the path with a thought to being a sheepdog, but became a wolf. The movie Chris Kyle is more of a sheepdog, but also a big detraction from the real Chris Kyle.
I imagine from the beginning a few things happened that guaranteed this. One, Eastwood is okay showing moral ambiguity or amorality from American iconic figures like GIs in Letters From Iwo Jima and gunslingers and lawmen (Gene Hackman’s sheriff is also essentially evil in Unforgiven as well–there’s no good guys) but maybe as a dyed in the wool conservative he’s not comfortable doing it about a specific, real life guy who was alive when he started working on the film and who has a living wife and kids. Two, Bradley Cooper was emotionally invested in Chris Kyle, he optioned the rights to this story with his personal money, I suspect Cooper wouldn’t have allowed the sort of exploration of Kyle’s darker side in the movie. Three, there’s probably a fear of an actual lawsuit from Kyle’s wife, widespread outrage and etc. You can make a movie like Hurt Locker, but it’s a lot more dicey making a big studio movie about a specific well known named guy without widespread outrage from people who are not willing or able to look at any veteran critically.
I don’t think that the fact that Kyle was a racist, possibly bad guy mean he wasn’t also a war hero who showed bravery in combat. You can be both things, and that makes an interesting story. Kyle claims in his book he would drive at Iraqis at a high speed with his vehicle just to scare them, and “Their high-pitched screams, coupled with sprints in the opposite direction, had me doubled over. Cheap thrills in Iraq were priceless.” He also admits to stealing from Iraqi homes and various other legit crimes. Chris Kyle the real man was deeply flawed and that could make an interesting movie, I just don’t know that it’s possible to have made such a movie given Bradley Cooper’s personal affinity for Kyle and the fear studios might have of putting such a movie out.
As much as I don’t have a ton of respect for Kyle the man, he did come back and do a lot of good work with veterans who had PTSD, so a more realistic movie about him would not have to be solely negative, there were unambiguously good things Kyle did.
FYI: “Haji” is a disparaging term used by American service (wo)men to refer to most any Middle Easterner or Arab. Much like in WW2 they used to refer to Japanese soldiers as “Japs” or "Yellow … " and Germans as “Krauts” or “Jerrys” etc.
I was a seriously disappointed with this movie because it was very repetitive.
We see four tours of duty and how many times can we watch a sniper blow the “Hajis” to bits?
The action is almost always the same and the movie has a runtime of 2hrs 12 mins. But it seems even longer than that - if that’s possble.
But I don’t understand the level of criticism by the OP. Yes, I found the movie to be kind of repetitive and boring. But why should he be called a murderer? He was just doing the job he was given. Wasn’t that true?
Also, I don’t understand the comment the OP makes about the R/L guy “… the guy himself, mass killing and writing a book about it …”
The movie shows “the guy” (Chris Kyle) doing four tours of duty and then coming home and getting killed. I never saw anything about his writing a book. When did he ever write a book?
Of course, to be fair, after slogging about half way thru this movie, I just had to FF through the second half. Still, if he had written a book and it was in the movie, I think I would have seen that. What gives?
My point has nothing to do with the issues of a sniper. It is just about the film and Eastwood’s style of film making. How can you make a film that shows the same thing over and over and over … until the audience is so sick of it, they are hoping someone will kill the sniper just so they can get out of the theater and escape this snooze fest.
I’m sorry. But I’ve seen soldiers get blown apart before and it was much better done in “Saving Pvt. Ryan”. Spielberg did a much better job than did Eastwood.
Ever since Million Dollar Baby (which was excellent), Eastwood’s movies (IMHO) have been going straight downhill. I can’t watch another one. Not even a tiny snippet of another one. Sorry Clint. Time to retire.
Million Dollar Baby may have been excellent - in large part - due to the work of Morgan Freeman. He could make anything look good.
It wasn’t a battlefield, it was peoples homes and towns.
A lot of the criticism I’ve read about deploring the movie actually comes from the book. I’ve seen Kyle characterized, based on what he wrote, as racist, “bloodthirsty”, “genocidal”, and a “warmongerer” - basically as “I killed lots of dirty filthy Muslims, yay me!”
I have not read the book, only quotes, but that’s what I’ve seen said.
That’s been true for all wars since the dawn of the 20th century and was typically the case before then. There is no such thing as a delineated battlefield and “people’s homes and towns.” It also really has no bearing on what I said, soldiers are often fighting against people defending their homes, although to be frank that’s a simplistic and largely incorrect view of what Iraqi insurgents were fighting for; you can argue that the Iraqi Army under Saddam was fighting a defensive war but most of the insurgents were fighting to carve out power unto themselves and their leadership was never stupid enough to think the real enemy was the United States, it was the other tribe, sect, etc–they knew we weren’t in it for the long haul and wanted to position for after we left.
But again, I think quite a lot of people can agree the German invasion of France was unambiguously wrong, or Denmark or Norway. But you do not have to believe all German soldiers are murderers who participated in those campaigns. The issue is nuanced and can be viewed either way–my only argument is there is no automatic way you have to view soldiers in these campaigns based on your feeling about the campaign itself. There is no logical inconsistency in either position, really, that of thinking the soldiers are bad and that of thinking they aren’t.
So, the book had the actual number (reported) instead of an inflated number. Good.
Meh, I’ve seen a ton of great war movies and bad war movies and mediocre war movies. I think this is mediocre solely on its merits as a movie. What I know about Kyle makes me unsympathetic to him as a person and makes me think Eastwood could have made a powerful movie about his story and didn’t because he chose to instead glorify Kyle, but the movie is mediocre even if Chris Kyle never existed and the movie was about a solely fictional character.
FWIW I can forgive some “combat racism” because persistent combat causes genuine mental degradation, they knew in WWII that even the most seasoned veterans became less and less effective the longer they were on the front lines. It’s not a land of progressive liberalism, I’m accepting of the fact guys are going to call the enemy Krauts, Gooks, Japs, Ragheads etc. But that’s in the heat of battle. To return home and write a book in which you continue to use those terms is a different thing, and not something most veterans do.
Battlefield stealing is also so damn common as to be almost natural behavior. Put guys in a situation where they are killing others on a regular basis, seeing their comrades die and themselves being put at constant risk of death and tons of social mores go out the window. I think morally as a society if you deploy an army you need to know that armies pillage and plunder, even the most noble of armies. However, again, for Kyle to write about and talk about stealing from Iraqi homes as a form of bragging, is not something most veterans do.
Trying to scare Iraqis by trying to run them over with vehicles is more or less beyond the pale, the casual racism and theft is pretty damn common of all armies in a warzone, but that isn’t (although it’s seen, it’s not something all soldiers, even those in a prolonged deployment would be okay with.)
The issue is most people who have fought in wars did things they wish they hadn’t and carry that with them as a burden the rest of their lives. Many, many American WW2 veterans will tell you exactly this, and that’s as close to a “perfectly just” war as any can be. Chris Kyle did all that and more, but then he wrote a book in which he bragged about it and crowed that he loved doing it and had no regrets. That to me is why I really have no respect for Kyle the man. I’ll give a nod to his prowess in the field and his personal bravery, but neither of those when you total up the scales make him what I’d consider to be a good man.
Go see the movie for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
It isn’t blind propaganda.
Doing things to spite random internet rants is an awesome way to make decisions. Kudos.
Did you see Flags of our Fathers?
If you haven’t it’s no more “masturbating on the flag” than the movie Platoon was.
This is a really weird comment that would seem to insinuate that you supported the Iraq War.
After all, you earlier said:
Now, based on the logic of your two posts since you don’t think the US soldiers in Iraq were murderers then that means you don’t think the Iraq war was “unjustified or illegitimate” in “any way”(the any way part is a really bold move on your part).
Would you mind then explaining why you don’t think the Iraq War was unjustified in any way, which seems like an extremely bold statement?
Or did you realize that you drastically overplayed your hand with your “American Murderer” comment and were trying to come up with a new argument?