Feb 5, 2015

My response to a FB posting praising "American Sniper"

The posting:    Chris Kyle was right. We were fighting a "savage, despicable evil" in Iraq and we still are http://t.co/Jz9b5wtvIC via @WSJ

My response:   The reduction of the Iraq debacle into a great battle between good and evil which ignores all of the terrible background of the illegal US invasion and regional mess we have created just plays into the whole eternal war propaganda machine, which in turn drives the 600 billion dollar (conservatively) engine of fear and misallocation of human potential which poses as national defense. Chris Kyle is a victim like the rest of troops who signed up for this war under false pretenses, and the citizenry of a country which has been utterly destroyed. What is your point? You want to convince everyone that this was all a just cause and we are just put in the unfortunate position of being the good guys who have to go around the world sniping the bad guys? Its failed [poster] - decades of this approach has just brought chaos and ruin. Time for something bold and different, and Chris Kyle is not it.