{"id":1222,"date":"2015-01-23T10:43:02","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T15:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1222"},"modified":"2015-01-23T10:43:02","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T15:43:02","slug":"the-american-sniper-a-symbol-for-all-ideologues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/01\/the-american-sniper-a-symbol-for-all-ideologues.html","title":{"rendered":"The American Sniper: A Symbol for All Ideologues"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all of the talk of Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper, <\/em>a politically na\u00efve spectator could be forgiven for thinking that it really is Chris Kyle <\/em>of whom people are talking.<\/p>\n

But he would be mistaken all of the same.<\/p>\n

The person <\/em>Chris Kyle is of little to no interest to media commentators.\u00a0 Rather, and as always, it is their own ideological fixations that preoccupy these partisans\u2014and Kyle, courtesy of Eastwood\u2019s efforts, has become a symbol, <\/em>a prop, <\/em>for their purposes.<\/p>\n

The late Kyle was a Navy SEAL who served four tours of duty in Iraq as a sniper with more confirmed killings\u2014160\u2014than anyone on record.\u00a0 When he finally returned to the States, Harper Collins published his memoir: American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in American Military History.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Neoconservative Republicans\u2014i.e. those who ardently supported, and who continue to support, the invasion of Iraq and the decade-long enterprise to democratize it\u2014have fallen in love<\/em> with this film.\u00a0 It is not hard to understand why they have every interest in canonizing Kyle.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of Americans have long held that the war in Iraq was a mistake of epic proportions\u2014a belief that they expressed in no uncertain terms in the elections of \u201906 and \u201908.\u00a0 Today, Iraq is substantially more of a mess than it was at the time of the invasion in \u201903.\u00a0 For now, we needn\u2019t debate why this is so; it is <\/em>so, and everyone knows it.<\/p>\n

But in promoting and convincing legions of enthusiastic movie goers that Kyle is this generation\u2019s version of General Washington and Audie Murphy, that he is a war hero extraordinaire who risked his life in Iraq <\/em>so that we can be free, <\/em>the war\u2019s supporters can hope to persuade Americans that Iraq wasn\u2019t only a just<\/em> cause; it was a necessary <\/em>one: No Iraq War, no more American freedom.<\/p>\n

American Sniper <\/em>supplies the Iraq War\u2019s supporters with one more opportunity to redeem themselves <\/em>or, more exactly, the ideology <\/em>that motivated and justified the project in Iraq.<\/p>\n

This, in turn, also explains why neoconservative Republicans tolerate no criticism of Kyle\u2014even when these criticisms are both sound and revealing of the man\u2019s character flaws.<\/p>\n

Yet it isn\u2019t just the champions of the Iraq War for whom Kyle serves as an ideological symbol.\u00a0 He has just as much symbolic significance for the war\u2019s critics.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those \u201clibertarians\u201d who tirelessly decry America\u2019s robust \u201cinterventionist\u201d foreign policy generally and the wars that this often entails especially reserve nothing but the severest comments for Kyle. The latter they\u2019ve characterized as a \u201cpsychopath,\u201d a \u201csociopath,\u201d a \u201cliar,\u201d and, of course, a \u201cmurderer.\u201d\u00a0 And for good measure, upon quoting Kyle\u2019s own derogatory remarks on Iraqis to the effect that they are \u201csavages,\u201d these \u201clibertarians\u201d insinuate that he is a \u201cracist\u201d or bigot, etc.<\/p>\n

However, in blasting Kyle, it is crucial to grasp, it is ultimately the ideology and policy prescriptions of their political rivals who they attack.<\/p>\n

Finally, for those on the recognizable left, Kyle has become the most potent of symbols, the<\/em> single greatest threat to their agenda to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d both America and the West.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t, of course, just that Kyle represents, or can be seen as representing, a vindication of the war that they (eventually) inveighed against. It is much more than this:<\/p>\n

Chris Kyle was white<\/em>. He was heterosexual<\/em>\u2014(with a wife and children to boot!).\u00a0 Kyle was a professing Christian. <\/em>And\u2014get ready for it\u2014he was a Southerner<\/em>!<\/p>\n

But it gets even worse for the left.<\/p>\n

Kyle wasn\u2019t just from any old Southern state: He was a resident of Texas,<\/em> quite possibly the most conservative <\/em>state in the Union.<\/p>\n

So, at this moment, massive numbers of Americans, most of whom are white themselves, are heralding as a hero a white, heterosexual, Christian, Southern, married Texan man.\u00a0 And they are praising him as a hero even though his heroism was earned while shooting and killing Third World, non-white Muslims. <\/em><\/p>\n

Wow.<\/p>\n

To add injury to injury, as American Sniper <\/em>becomes all of the rage, on this 50th<\/sup> anniversary of Selma, the film of this same title fizzled before it even got started.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the real Chris Kyle is gone in more ways than one.\u00a0 He is, for the moment, at any rate, a symbol for all partisans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all of the talk of Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper, a politically na\u00efve spectator could be forgiven for thinking that it really is Chris Kyle of whom people are talking. But he would be mistaken all of the same. The person Chris Kyle is of little to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe American Sniper: A Symbol for All Ideologues<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/01\/the-american-sniper-a-symbol-for-all-ideologues.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The American Sniper: A Symbol for All Ideologues\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With all of the talk of Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper, a politically na\u00efve spectator could be forgiven for thinking that it really is Chris Kyle of whom people are talking. 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