Wayne & Belle

Wayne & Belle
Sassamat Lake

Saturday 24 January 2015

Hero

I went to see American Sniper and I have to say I have not been so shaken by a movie ever. I am not sure what Mr. Eastwood wanted us to take home from this movie but as a Canadian I certainly did not find it to be a pro-war movie, on the contrary the supposed hero might have been a legend in the core but he did not come off as a hero to me. There were many savages, was much bravery, courage, wanton violence, basically all the elements of war, the bravest act in the whole movie were done by a woman and a child fighting for their home.
I hate how the language has changed so a man fighting for his home is the insurgent and the only crime you have to be guilty of to deserve killing, is being in the wrong country at the wrong time in your own home. Mr. Kyle is obviously a brave uniquely skilled warrior and obviously a legend but I don't think that someone well protected and 2100 yards from the field of conflict is a hero anymore than a drone operator is a hero unless carpel tunnel syndrome is considered a life threatening injury, these remote assassins regularly kill the innocent as well as soldiers on the opposing side, there probably is not a whole lot you can do about that fact, as is is the fact of death by friendly fire in modern warfare. It was just as sad to see the damage done to the soldiers including Mr. Kyle that even managed to come back alive from the cluster fuck that was Iraq.
Watching the stupidity that is war, the one thing that kept running through my head through the whole  spectacle was that the whole horrible waste of lives and resources was based on deliberate lies and would never have happened in a just rational world. The fools that gave us the Iraq war should all be in prison as the war criminals that they are.