Killer Of ‘American Sniper’ Found Guilty

Eddie Ray Routh – the shooter of Chris Kyle – was found to be guilty, as opposed to “not guilty by reason of insanity.” CNN reports.

CNN

Eddie Ray Routh

The Lip TV

Eddie Ray Routh, the confessed killer of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and another man (Chad Littlefield), is discussed by The Lip TV. They look at his confession and his defense of PTSD-based insanity, as the prosecution has rested in his trial. The Lip TV talks to Jack Downing and Mike Cavalluzzi about the murder.

(Video is 43 minutes long.)

Video Of Car Chase Shown During ‘American Sniper’ Trial

CNN discusses a car-chase video shown during the Eddie Ray Routh “American Sniper” murder trial.

CNN

Jesse Ventura On Chris Kyle: ‘Do You Think The Nazis Have Heroes?’

Former pro wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura continues his Shock and Awe attack on deceased “American Sniper” Chris Kyle.  On Fox News radio, he said it does not mean much to describe Kyle as a “hero” because the Nazis had heroes too.

“A hero should have honor,” Ventura told radio host Alan Colmes in an interview. “A hero is not how many people you’ve killed.”  Ventura said that Kyle is “obviously a great sniper” and “a great shot. He obviously did his job correctly.”

Then, Ventura asked Colmes: “Do you think the Nazis have heroes?”

Colmes replied that “the Nazis were fighting for a cause we can’t condone.”

Ventura responded by asking Colmes: “If a Nazi soldier killed a hundred people that had lived” in a Nazi-occupied country in World War II, would that soldier “be classified a hero in Germany?”

Colmes asked if Ventura was “comparing what the Nazi mission was versus what our mission is in war as a country.”

“Well, what I’m stating is we invaded Iraq, we were not asked in,” Ventura replied. “We invaded a country, we overthrew its government, and then we killed people that lived there.”

“Are we analogous to the Nazis?” Colmes asked.

“Well, and the Communists, yeah,” Ventura replied.

Ventura states he was a Navy SEAL.  He was part of the Navy’s UDT, or Underwater Demolition Team, which later merged with the SEALs in the 1980s.

Last year, Ventura won $1.8 million in a defamation lawsuit against Kyle’s estate.

He sued for defamation, alleging that Kyle – the hero of the movie “American Sniper” – falsely claimed in part of his book to have punched out a man, later identified as Ventura, in a California bar in 2006 after Ventura allegedly said the SEALs “deserve to lose a few” in Iraq.

Ventura said last week that he will not see the film, in part because he does not regard Kyle as a hero.  “A hero must be honorable, must have honor. And you can’t have honor if you’re a liar. There is no honor in lying,” Ventura said.

Ventura also dismissed the movie as propaganda because it conveys the false idea that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. “It’s as authentic as ‘Dirty Harry,'” he said — a reference to the fictional movie series starring the director of American Sniper, Clint Eastwood.

More:

http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/Jesse-Ventura-Alan-Colmes-chris-kyle-nazis/2015/02/04/id/622682/#ixzz3R5RI07jU

Bill Maher Calls ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle ‘Psychopath Patriot’

Bill Maher and panelists Bret Stephens, Nia-Malika Henderson, Bill Burr and former Gov. Howard Dean discuss the controversy surrounding Clint Eastwood’s film, American Sniper, and its hero, Chris Kyle.

Maher referred to sniper Chris Kyle as a “psychopath patriot.”

Right-wing news such as Fox News predictably denounced Maher’s comment. However, in the past, Fox News has agreed with Maher on the topic of Muslims.

Fox News / Newsbusters : “Having misled those who’ve yet to see American Sniper with what it actually depicts…Maher took refuge in the familiar haven of absurdity – ”

However, in the past, the right-wing news outlets have agreed with Maher.  In October, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly took Bill Maher’s side in the HBO host’s argument over Islam with actor Ben Affleck.

“Mr. Maher is correct on the overall effect Islam is having on the world right now,” O’Reilly said. “The truth is militant Islam continues to drive worldwide terrorism and have plenty of sanctuaries from which to commit their evil.”

Is there hypocrisy in the right-wing media’s reactions to Maher?

Real Time

Vox: American Sniper Rewrites History

According to Vox, American Sniper has a problem. It’s a movie about a black-and-white distinction between good and evil, but it is set almost entirely in the Iraq War, which can only be honestly portrayed in shades of gray.

Faced with a choice between altering its narrative to account for that gray versus altering the facts of history, the film chose the latter.

Vox states the movie doesn’t care about honesty: in its retelling, Iraq was a fight of Good Americans against Bad Terrorists, led by Chris Kyle, the “Good-est” American of them all.

The result is a sort of “Hezbollah martyr video” for those who watch Fox News; recruitment propaganda for culture-war extremists. In the world of this movie, the Iraq war is an extension of the war on terror; heroes with guns are our only hope of salvation; and anyone who doubts that is part of the problem. And the propaganda is frighteningly effective.

Warning: This article discusses the plot of American Sniper.

The movie’s central metaphor is this:

There are three types of people in the world – wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs. The evil wolves threaten the sheep. The sheep are good people, but vulnerable to harm because they’re too naive to understand that evil exists. That means that it’s up to the sheepdogs to protect them from harm.

In that metaphor, Kyle is America’s border collie, shepherding the weak and vulnerable away from harm. The movie’s Big Bad Wolves are al-Qaeda terrorists.

The sheep would be the other Americans who lack Chris Kyle’s vision and fortitude, and fail to understand that you’re either with us or against us.

That includes fellow US troops who lack Kyle’s skill, or who dare to question the war. Iraqis, by contrast, are not sheep: in this movie they’re either wolves themselves, or nameless collateral damage. Mostly wolves, though.

Vox states that American Sniper stacks its deck, and is using imaginary history and characters to give Kyle a suitably evil foe to fight.

It’s never good to see a movie falsify a true story, and American Sniper‘s disdainful attitude towards the truth is especially disingenuous in light of its broader narrative: “you’re either with us, or you’re a naive sheep.”

To maximize the bigness and badness the enemy, American Sniper rewrites history, turning the Iraq War into a legitimate response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The film finds time for entire scenes of Kyle viewing TV news reports about al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of US embassies, and the planes hitting the Twin Towers on 9/11.  When Kyle gets to Iraq, his commander explains that they are hunting the leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The inference we’re supposed to gather is clear: that Kyle is fighting the same people who attacked America in 1998 and 2001.

By contrast, the actual reasons for the Iraq war go unmentioned. The words “weapons of mass destruction” are never uttered in the movie. Nor are “Saddam Hussein,” “George Bush,” “Sunni,” or “Shia.”

The movie also makes no mention of the lawsuit brought by former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura against Kyle, and the film also makes no mention of Kyle’s killer, former Marine Eddie Ray Routh.

On an episode of his podcast We the People with Jesse Ventura, Ventura explained there were still many “misconceptions” about his recent lawsuit.

According to People Magazine, Ventura claimed Kyle falsely accused him of saying he hates America and that the SEALs “deserve to lose a few” in the war. Ventura was awarded $1.8 million in damages: $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment.

According to Vox, in real life, Chris Kyle argued that America owed its troops support because those troops did not get to choose the wars they fought, or the strategy they followed: they wrote the government a blank check for their lives and waited to see if it would get cashed.

Vox:  “There’s a very interesting movie to be made about that idea, and what it means to be heroic during a misguided war.  American Sniper isn’t it.”