American Sniper

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by maressa, Jan 21, 2015.

  1. maressa

    maressa Banned Banned

    it made 90 million its opening weekend. wow. Chris Kyle was an American hero and i'm glad a movie has been made of his life and a good one apparently.
     
  2. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ut_jesse_ventura.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_tw_bot

    This is an interesting article about Chris Kyle

    ''chris Kyle, author of the runaway best-seller American Sniper, was a military hero who killed 160 people during his four tours of duty in Iraq and is now the subject of an Oscar-nominated blockbuster. He was also a fabulist. Before his tragic murder in 2013, Kyle told a number of extremely dubious stories. In one tale, Kyle claimed he killed two carjackers at a gas station southwest of Dallas, and that his driver’s license directed local police officers who questioned him to contact the Department of Defense. Kyle also claimed he traveled to post-Katrina New Orleans with a sniper friend, set up his gun atop the Superdome, and picked off dozens of armed looters.''

    ''Kyle’s legal difficulties emerged from a subchapter of American Sniper titled “Punching Out Scruff Face.” In it, Kyle describes beating up a former Navy SEAL (“Scruff Face”) after the SEAL claims American soldiers deserved to die in Iraq. Early drafts of the book identified the SEAL as Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota and famed professional wrestler, but Kyle’s publishers removed the name for fear of a lawsuit. Nonetheless, in a radio interview following the book’s release, Kyle admitted that “Scruff Face” was Ventura, and he repeated the claim soon after on The O’Reilly Factor. American Sniper shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list, becoming a smash hit for its publisher, HarperCollins, selling more than 1.5 million copies by July of 2014.

    There was, however, a problem: The Ventura story wasn’t true, and Ventura meant to prove it. So he took Kyle to trial, suing him—and, after he died, his estate—for defamation and unjust enrichment. In the United States, defamation cases are extremely difficult to win, thanks to the First Amendment. When allegedly defamatory statements pertain to a public figure, the plaintiff mustn’t just prove those statements were false. He has to prove the defendant made those statements with “actual malice”—that is, knowledge that they were false—or with “reckless disregard” for their falsity. Very few defamation plaintiffs can make it over the high bar of actual malice.

    Ventura made it. On July 29, 2014, a federal jury returned from six days of deliberations to award Ventura $1.845 million in damages—specifically, $500,000 for defamation and about $1.345 million for unjust enrichment. (In other words, Kyle unjustly profited from defaming Ventura, and so his estate must give Ventura some of that money.) Kyle’s widow, Taya Kyle, promptly filed for “judgment as a matter of law,” asking the trial judge to reverse’s the jury’s verdict because the jury clearly got it wrong. Failing that, she asked for an entirely new trial. The judge denied both requests, defending the jury’s verdict as legally and factually justifiable. Kyle’s widow is currently appealing the decision; her odds of winning appear quite low.''

    Interesting dont you think?

    and here is a totally unrelated clip -

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgbCusu37z4"]Inglourious Basterds - A Scene from "Nations Pride" (1944) - YouTube[/ame]
     
  3. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    there are also sources that mention chris kyle as being something of a murderous psycho, although not having known him i can't provide personal comment on the veracity or lack thereof of the claims.
     
  4. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    He's a man credited with over 100 sniper kills. I'd be very surprised if he wasn't. Also PTSD. I don't know much about his story but if he came home to being this media star and held up as a poster boy for the army I could easily see that making a recently returned home soldier twitchy.

    What I will say is I'm interested in the circumstances around his death. I gather he and another soldier were killed at a shooting range when they took a young vet with PTSD there to help him. Pure guess work on my part but that does suggest to me they pushed him a bit far. At least, taking a PTSD sufferer to a shooting range doesn't seem the smart thing to do.
     
  5. FunnyBadger

    FunnyBadger I love food :)

    Quite frankly I don't care if he embelished his stories somewhat or infact made up aspects. His story is amazing and he wouldn't be the first and won't be the last to be creative with their war stories. He was as fallible as any other human, it doesn't make it right if he lied about his past but there is proof enough he still had an incredible story.

    If he wasn't a psychological mess before his tours he would have been afterwards, that number of kills especialy when as a sniper you can actualy see your targets (unlike say a pilot) that will cause a lot of deep mental scaring. Care for PTSD (now called acute stress reaction) has not always been as good as it is now and even these days it can often leave a lot to be desired.
     
  6. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    He didn't just embellish though...he flat out lied (repeatedly) and not a little bit either. Nor were his fabrications about his military exploits either

    His story is absolutley fascinating, but the mythology has taken a hold right now and it may take some time to settle down and we get a better insight into the real CK.
     
  7. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

  8. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

  9. GoldShifter

    GoldShifter The MachineGun Roundhouse

    There are many that claim him to be yes, a murderous psycho, but they also take it a step farther and say that he was on a personal religious crusade, referencing the intertwining of his Christian faith and his job as a SEAL sniper. Personally I don't believe he was on a Crusade where he was killing for his faith but that he was turning to his faith to keep his sanity for killing the people he did. At times he had to kill women and occasionally children because they were threats to US/coalition forces on the ground at the time. From reading the book, multiple times (which may lead to a bias on my part), it seems that he felt his amount of kills were justifiable because those who he shot posed a threat to his brothers and sisters in the military on the ground. While I feel that the PTSD of the Marine who regrettably murdered Chris Kyle could have been a factor, I don't believe that was all of it. And apparently, their does this Green Beret. http://clashdaily.com/2015/01/green-beret-calls-bs-ptsd-excuse-used-american-snipers-killer/ In his book his wife speaks about how there was a time at night where they were sleeping, I believe this happened more than once, and in his nightmare, she believed he was in a combat scenario, and he grabbed her arm in an "arm bar" or a lock with the possibility to break it, she had to slowly say his name over and over each time getting louder and louder to wake him up to release his lock. He may have kept it in check, or distracted himself from the horrors that war brings to an individual but he was definitely affected by what happened to him. Maybe not because of what he did; maybe, given God exists, he actually justified all the shots he made while overseas; but it could have been because of what he saw, and experienced.
     
  10. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    He also claimed that all the proceeds from the book would be donated to the families of dead servicemen and women, but barely any has been.

    He may have been a talented sniper and a brave soldier, but it sounds like outside of that, he was a very unpleasant human being.
     
  11. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    I still can't believe we waged a war of aggression on falsified pretenses and no one got arrested for it.
     
  12. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    To be fair - we arrested a LOT of Iraqis over it. That counts, right?
     
  13. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    Only if we keep them in secret prisons with no due process and torture them.

    To get back to the topic, movies like this are very interesting propaganda films; Bradley Cooper said it was a film without a political slant, but I think that's blatantly false. This will be how history remembers the Iraq war. Speaking of Inglorious Basterds, it reminds me of the young sniper in Tarantino's film, who is memorialized in the the movie that they show in the theater.
     
  14. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Are you Michael Moore in disguise?!

    I have nothing to contribute to this thread really. I know enough about the military and the personality types in it to not buy into any story for its face value and automatically assume half of it is made up crap (hint: it usually is). If the debate about whatever this guy and his book and movie are about goes on, you should realize that you're basically having a serious debate over a fiction story. Have at it Hoss!

    That said, I did enjoy the movie. For everyone commenting on the "killer psychopath baby slayer" stuff . . . . . honestly man . . . . how many people who have a job that involves going out to kill people do you think are loving, supporting, honorable and dignified people? If you think they are, you're not as smart as you think and you've bought into the B.S. propaganda : P.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 23, 2015
  15. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    For whatever it's worth, it's not the individual soldiers I have problems with, rather the mechanisms within our society that allow us to wage war with such ugliness.
     
  16. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    Edit out my anger. So why would CK lie about Ventura? That makes no sense at all. Nor does the murderous psycho comments. So was he really just mean and nasty everyone when not on duty and stateside? So the first post is a positive post regarding CK and the very next post and all others following were slighting him. Why was that even necessary? I have no reason to doubt he was a loving honorable person who believed he was doing the right thing. Why wouldn't I?


    Edit to add. IS there any physical proof that he was a horrible unpleasant person? So far everyone commenting is just tossing out rumors and hearsay. Why would i not listen to the opinion of his wife and father and friends and others who knew him who said he was a good person? Is there proof the events of the movie are heavily distorted or wrong? What events in them book/movie are false?

    Hannibal your making it sound like he fabricated his military exploits. IF the Navy credits him with that many kills officially what part of his actual service was falsified?

    Look im patriotic, I love the military and i just cant stand how people are just itching for things to slight them over at the drop of a hat.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2015
  17. Please reality

    Please reality Back to basics

    Fair enough but…patriotic can often mean idiotic, a blind believe in everything your country or its agents claim because you love your country. Not saying that this is the case with you, but think about how many blindly believed that we were right about Vietnam, Iraq(and on and on), only to be furious that they were duped later?

    So you are asking a lot of questions but what research have you done on Kyle yourself? I read his book, saw interviews with him, and read more about his death, who was suing his estate(not just Ventura), etc.

    No real opinion, we are all infallible, but he and his wife don't sound like Poster Children for all that is good and right in this world.

    If your job is to kill people with precision and you are good at it, it might bring along some baggage. Upon reading what the man said about his family life, job, and exploits in his own words, you might draw a different conclusion about him.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2015
  18. GoldShifter

    GoldShifter The MachineGun Roundhouse

    I like to think my post was pretty neutral or leaning toward support of CK (haha)

    But yes I also agree, what parts of his career were fabricated since the Navy confirmed many of his kills. And confirmed kills, I forget the actual process but it takes a while, so that's impressive. It'd be easier to believe Brandon Webb (SEAL sniper instructor, kinda revamped the whole sniper school, and also supervised the training of CK) fabricated his career than CK. I can kind of see where Ventura story could be arguable, especially given Ventura won the case, regrettably. I admit that his wife, parents, friends, teammates could be biased because they knew him very well. Though I don't believe he was a terrible person. In terms of a murderer, I just think he made necessary kills because they posed threats to coalition and american forces. Let's just say I'd rather have him watching my six than going against him.
     
  19. Please reality

    Please reality Back to basics

    Hard to justify going to another country on false pretenses, killing a lot of their citizens because they posed a threat to you, and then bragging about it. Other countries' do it too, but we're good at it.

    I do agree that I'd want him on my side as opposed to facing him within a few miles though.;)
     
  20. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    re: my own posts:a s i said, i have no opinion on the matter. i never knew the guy. i'm simply stating that there are those who claim certain things, and sourced it, and you'll note that i don't even lend veracity to the claims, because i can't, i can ony take people at their word, and i have neither the desire nor the inclination to do so, as one side is a patriotic propaganda medium based on a personal story, and the other appears to be hearsay, making neither trustworthy to my eyes.
     

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