The votes are in and the decision is overwhelmingly clear. Chris Kyle—the Navy SEAL portrayed in the blockbuster and movie purported killer of some 200 Iraqis during four tours of duty—is the people’s choice.
From record ticket sales to major media accolades, from the halls of Congress to the White House, the nation has spoken: “American Sniper” is all–American. Chris Kyle—the most lethal killer in U.S. military history, a true hero, a brave warrior—has been anointed as a role model for all that America has come to stand for.
“American Sniper has the look of a bona fide cultural phenomenon!” said Brandon Griggs of CNN. And as Michelle Obama contends, “… for all those folks in America who don’t have these kinds of opportunities [to meet veterans and military families personally] films and TV are often the best way to share those stories.”
Speaking at a film industry event, Ms. Obama said the movie stressed, “The complicated moral decisions they [troops] are tasked with … the balancing of love of family with love of country.”
For Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the essence of his “love of country” lay in obeying his commander in chief and living up to Washington’s “moral decisions.” As the movie has it, when the Twin Towers were brought down on 9/11, off to war Kyle marched. This take-no-prisoners Texan dutifully followed the orders of the tough-talking faux-Texan George W. Bush to get those “evil doers.”
Bush’s simplistic and transparently shallow bravado about bringing ‘em in “dead or alive,” a comforting scenario made plausible by nearly a century of Hollywood Westerns, once again played out perfectly in Hollywood’s “American Sniper.” In a nation where politics has become show business for ugly people, the mindset of America’s first lady made perfect sense; film and TV’s dumbed-down, glossed over, whitewashed versions of hard facts served as the perfect substitutes for harsh reality and the solid truth.
Perhaps Ms. Obama had found a soft spot in her heart for Mr. Kyle because he closely reflects the words and deeds of her husband. In his book, American Sniper, Kyle wrote that killing is “fun,” something he “loved.” In the book “Double Down,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann wrote that President Obama bragged that he’s “really good at killing people” while discussing drone strikes with his staff.
If not exactly presidential material, Kyle certainly has what it takes to be second in command. In his memoir, he wrote “We wanted people to know, we’re here and we want to f$#@ with you … we will kill you…”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in his response to the recently released report on CIA torture, said he was proud of his role in creating the gruesome interrogation program that included water boarding and rectal feeding. Did he have any regrets for what he ordered? “No … absolutely not … and I’d do it again in a minute,” Cheney said.
Indeed, if Kyle were alive he would certainly be a force to be reckoned with in the 2016 race for the White House. While it would be difficult to trump Hillary Clinton’s giggling glee over the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, (“We came, we saw … he died,”) in a war that she personally pushed for, Kyle’s statement that he “… couldn’t give a flying f%@# about the Iraqis. I loved killing bad guys. … I loved what I did. I still do … it was fun,” comes very close.
The American Sniper is a model American. And the American model is immorality. George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condaleeza Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers … the list of perpetrators goes on. And so does the list of their crimes: slaughtering millions by waging wars based on false information, overthrowing sovereign governments based on lies, killing innocents and “suspects in drone strikes” without regard to international law and with no personal regret for their roles in fostering the mass murders. Like Chris Kyle, each of them speak proudly of their actions and express not a hint of sorrow.
Most Americans have forgotten about former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who defended Bill Clinton’s sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes segment. When the show’s host, Lesley Stahl, asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima … is the price worth it?” Albright replied, “we think the price is worth it.”
“We,” she says, as if it truly included “us.” So speak the moralizing madmen and madwomen—sociopaths and psychopaths—who pontificate from their positions of high office, telling the rest of us what we must believe and who should be killed next.
Chris Kyle did his patriotic duty. He obeyed orders, followed the words and carried out the tasks issued from the White House. The fish rots from the head down. The American Government is the American Sniper.
Gerald Celente is the founder and director of the Trends Research Institute in Kingston, N.Y., and publisher of the Trends Journal and Trendsresearch.com.
