American Sniper is currently one of the most popular movies in the country. It's about
the life of Chris Kyle, the sniper with the most confirmed kills in American military
history. It focuses on his life, his failures, his successes, and the trauma that he experienced
as a soldier. But viewers of the movie may be surprised at the way that it talks about
the Iraq War in general. From the very beginning of Kyle's military career, it's about a response
to terrorism. He joins the military after we see the bombings of American embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania. And we see his and his wife Taya's stunned reaction to 9/11.
But then bam. Shortly after that... "I just got the call, boys. It's on!"
Kyle's at war in Iraq. There's no intervening time spent on George W. Bush, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or Saddam Hussein. The implication
that the viewer gets is that the invasion of Iraq was a logical response to 9/11.
Of course, that's not actually what happened. We know that after 9/11, the US invaded Afghanistan,
were Al Qaeda actually was. The decision to invade Iraq came as a result of a preexisting political
project that members of the Bush administration had and was sold on the pretense of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. "The main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought
he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to
make weapons of -- but I also talked about the human suffering in Iraq. And I also talked
the need to advance a freedom agenda." In the movie's narrative, there's no intervening
time between the American invasion and Kyle fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. "He's trained by
bin Laden. He's loyal to bin Laden. His name is Zarqawi. Now this asshole is right now
the crown price of Al Qaeda in Iraq." That leaves viewers with the impression that the
Iraq War was against Al Qaeda at the outset and that America had invaded Iraq because
it had become a hotbed of Al Qaeda operations. The reverse is true. Al Qaeda in Iraq grew
out of the American invasion. It was weak and wasn't even Al Qaeda in Iraq when the
invasion happened. Its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, correctly assessed that the US
invasion would allow him to build up his group. Eastwood wanted to make a movie about one
guy. He didn't set out to make a movie about the Iraq War. The problem is, though he himself
is anti-war, he ended up letting the film get wrapped up in Kyle's perspective. "You
want these motherfuckers to come to San Diego or New York? We're protecting more than just
this dirt." While it's easy to go sit at a movie, especially one that tries hard not
to shove politics in your face, and appreciate it as simply a movie about heroism, this movie
isn't just that. It's a movie that's going to leave viewers with a false perception of what happened.