American Sniper, Part II

By guest author Ross Caputi. This is the second in a series discussing the implications of the new film, American Sniper.

 

A US Marine Corps Corporal sights through the scope of a sniping rifle, while training at the Military Operations in Urban Terrain, Camp Pendleton, California, during Exercise Kernal Blitz 2001.

It is not my intention to accuse Chris Kyle of committing war crimes as an individual, or to attack his character in any way. Some critics have pointed out the many racist and anti-Islamic comments  Chris made in his autobiography (significantly toned down in the film). Others have noted his jingoistic beliefs. However, I too participated in the 2nd siege of Fallujah as a US Marine. Like Chris, I said some racist and despicable things while in Iraq. I am in no position to judge him, nor do I think it is important to do so. I am far more interested in our reaction to Chris Kyle as a society than in the nuances of his personality.

In both the book and the film, Chris Kyle comes off as a man who is slightly embarrassed by the labels his comrades-in-arms and his society throw on him, such as “legend” or “hero.” And the financial success of his autobiography and Clint Eastwood’s cinematic adaptation of it reveals just how willing America is to embrace him and his story, despite its factual inaccuracies.

Perhaps the only thing that is important to say about Chris Kyle the individual is that he has the power to legitimize a sanitized version of events in Iraq. Somehow in our culture, combat experience is mistaken for knowledge about a war. And Chris Kyle’s status as a Navy SEAL with mountains of medals and ribbons, multiple deployments to Iraq, and battlefield accolades makes him an “authority” on the topic of Iraq to those who don’t know better.

I sympathize with Chris, because while I was in Iraq, I believed many of the same things he believed: That Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. That our mission was just and good. That the people we were fighting against in Iraq wanted to kill Americans because of some irrational political ideology or fanatical religious beliefs. And that most Iraqis wanted us in their country.

Notice how within this ideological framework, the emotional turmoil that Chris goes through and the strain his multiple deployments put on his family gets interpreted as a sacrifice that he bravely and consciously makes for a noble cause. Our mission in Iraq is, of course, understood as a peace keeping and nation building operation, not as the imposition of a political and economic project against the will of the majority of Iraqis. “Hearts and minds” become objects to be won, rather than something to be respected. The lives that Chris ends become “confirmed kills,” not murder. And the people he kills are interpreted as “terrorists,” not as people defending their country from a foreign, invading and occupying army.

This ideological framework is America’s war culture. Absent these ideological assumptions, the suffering that Chris and his family go through, and his tally of confirmed kills, do not get interpreted as brave sacrifices or heroic acts—they can only be tragic.