War is not a pleasant business. Most soldiers who have been through battles do not talk about them to friends and family. The memory of comrades killed or terribly maimed is too horrible. Then there is the recollection of the people they killed, either directly or indirectly. It may have been war, but common humanity dictates that no one ought to rejoice in the destruction of another human being. Now comes the film “American Sniper” based around the apparent exploits of a highly-decorated US soldier who killed more than 160 people while serving in Iraq. These were not frantic killings in a fire fight. These were not deaths caused by calling in an air strike or unleashing an artillery bombardment. Each one of these killings was a carefully calculated act of assassination, in which the sniper, Chris Kyle, looked through his telescopic lens, studied his target and then pulled the trigger. Soldiers everywhere may defend the role of snipers like Kyle as being a necessary tool in war. But is it possible to defend this newly-released film in which Kyle shoots down each of his victims without the slightest compunction, without the slightest regret. Indeed he calls the Iraqi men and women he kills, “savages”. Unsurprisingly the film has lifted the stone on Islamophobia in the United States. It has triggered anti-Muslim protest, desecration of Islamic centers and a general outpouring of hateful speech that once again paints Iraqis in particular and Arabs in general in a wicked and perverted light. Anti-racist organizations have protested the film's callous message. Unfortunately these objections are only likely to make the film an even bigger box office draw. And lurking beneath the surface of the US mood that seems to be embracing this film, lies something more disturbing. Children and young people are playing war games on computers in which the bad guys are no longer fantasy monsters but Arab soldiers and civilians. One Hollywood executive who sought to defend the movie and its director Clint Eastwood said that after the defeat on Hitler's Nazis, hundreds of war films were made in which the Germans were the bad guys. They got over it. But the comparison is spurious. German martial defeat quickly became German economic victory. In the dozen years since the US-led invasion, the Iraqis have never had a chance to recover, let alone prosper. Washington targeted the Iraq's infrastructure intending to have major US construction firms clear the shattered remains and rebuild. When that didn't work out and the occupation turned into a disaster, American big business packed its suitcase and headed home, the same way that the sniper Kyle slung his weapon over his shoulder and shipped out. How any moviegoer can genuinely take any satisfaction in the perverse and destructive message of “American Sniper” is baffling. This is a film which points up the contempt with which President George W Bush and his NeoCon groupies treated the Iraqi people from the get-go. As he killed his “savages”, Kyle was representative of this brutal ignorance. This is a film which ought to inspire shame in every American who views it. Unfortunately however, most who buys a ticket will also buy the deeply immoral message that this mass killer is some sort of a hero.
