Some Americans Love To Hate

I really wish the Las Vegas slogan applied to Texas: “What Happens In Texas, Stays in Texas”. That would have saved the world much grief. In Texas, they’re building a memorial plaza for Chris Kyle, the sniper of American Sniper, with trees from George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch. Kyle was, at a “bare minimum, was a racist who took pleasure in dehumanising and killing brown people”.

More on the hate that drove Kyle:

In Kyle’s version of the Iraq War, the parties consisted of Americans, who are good by virtue of being American, and fanatic Muslims whose “savage, despicable evil” led them to want to kill Americans simply because they are Christians. (Later in his service, Kyle had a blood-red “crusader cross” tattooed on his arm.) While he describes patriotism as the guiding force in his life, Kyle’s patriotism is of the visceral, Toby Keith variety. It consists of loving America — specifically, being overwhelmed emotionally by the National Anthem and flag, and filled with a desire to dedicate one’s life to such symbols — rather than a commitment to tangible democratic principles, such as civilian oversight of the military. That Iraqis, too, might have been patriotically motivated to defend their own country against foreign invaders like himself does not appear to have ever crossed Kyle’s mind.

Linsday West wrote about how the right wing seized on Kyles story, especially the movie version, and just made it more despicable.

There is no room for the idea that Kyle might have been a good soldier but a bad guy; or a mediocre guy doing a difficult job badly; or a complex guy in a bad war who convinced himself he loved killing to cope with an impossible situation; or a straight-up serial killer exploiting an oppressive system that, yes, also employs lots of well-meaning, often impoverished, non-serial-killer people to do oppressive things over which they have no control. Or that Iraqis might be fully realised human beings with complex inner lives who find joy in food and sunshine and family, and anguish in the murders of their children. Or that you can support your country while thinking critically about its actions and its citizenry. Or that many truths can be true at once.