Sunday, February 22, 2015

Critical thinking about "American Sniper"

An important perspective, as published on the blog site, Waging Nonviolence:

As a veteran, I see ‘American Sniper’ as dangerous, but not for the reasons you’d think

Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in "American Sniper." (Warner Brothers)
Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in “American Sniper.” (Warner Brothers)
After watching the movie “American Sniper,” I called a friend named Garett Reppenhagen who was an American sniper in Iraq. He deployed with a cavalry scout unit from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed near FOB Warhorse. I asked him if he thought this movie really mattered. “Every portrayal of a historical event should be historically accurate,” he explained. ”A movie like this is a cultural symbol that influences the way people remember history and feel about war.”
Garett and I met through our antiwar and veteran support work, which he’s been involved with for almost a decade. He served in Iraq. I served in Afghanistan. But both of us know how powerful mass media and mass culture are. They shaped how we thought of the wars when we joined, so we felt it was important to tell our stories when we came home and spoke out.
I commend Chris Kyle for telling his story in his book “American Sniper.” The scariest thing I did while in the military was come home and tell my story to the public — the good, the bad and the ugly. I feel that veterans owe it to society to tell their stories, and civilians owe it to veterans to actively listen. Dr. Ed Tick, a psychotherapist who has specialized in veteran care for four decades, explains, “In all traditional and classical societies, returned warriors served many important psychosocial functions. They were keepers of dark wisdom for their cultures, witnesses to war’s horrors from personal experience who protected and discouraged, rather than encouraged, its outbreak again.”
Chris Kyle didn’t view Iraq like me and Garett, but neither of us have attacked him for it. He’s not the problem. We don’t care about the lies that Chris Kyle may or may not have told. They don’t matter. We care about the lies that Chris Kyle believed. The lie that Iraq was culpable for September 11. The lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The lie that people do evil things because they are evil.
The film “American Sniper” is also rife with lies. This was not Chris Kyle’s story. And Bradley Cooper was not Chris Kyle. It was Jason Hall’s story, a one-time actor in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and screenwriter for “American Sniper,” who called his film a “character study.” Don’t believe him. His movie is as fictional as Buffy Summers.
In the movie’s first scene, Cooper faces a moral dilemma that never happened in real life. Cooper suspects a boy is preparing to send an improvised explosive device, or IED, toward a convoy of approaching Marines on the streets of Fallujah. Either he kills a child or the child kills Marines. A soldier next to Cooper warns, “They’ll send your ass to Leavenworth if you’re wrong.” In writing this line, Hall implies that killing civilians is a war crime and U.S. military members are sent to prison for it. If U.S. soldiers, including Kyle, don’t seem to be getting punished for killing civilians, then they must not be killing civilians.
Garett and I agreed that even if that boy was a civilian, nothing would have happened to Cooper for shooting him. Both of us were trained to take detailed notes with the understanding that if something went wrong, it would be corrected in the report. Americans were responsible for thousands of Iraqi deaths and almost none were held accountable.
During one incident in Iraq, Garett was involved in a firefight that left six to seven civilians dead. He received his orders from an intelligence officer who got his intelligence wrong. He led Garett and a small convoy to an Iraqi deputy governor’s compound, which was supposedly under attack. As the convoy approached, the soldiers spotted a cluster of trucks with armed Iraqis. The armed Iraqis saw the American convoy inching closer, but they didn’t fire. It seemed obvious to Garett that these Iraqis were not who the intelligence officer was looking for. Then the officer screamed, “Fire!” Confused, no one in the convoy pulled their triggers. “I said fire goddamn it!” Someone fired, and all hell broke loose. In the ensuing chaos, one of the Iraqi trucks struck a civilian seeking cover on the sidewalk. As it turned out, those armed Iraqis were the deputy governor’s own security detail. The officer didn’t go to Leavenworth.
In Hall and Cooper’s Fallujah, it’s as if the Americans just found a city that was already laid to waste. The movie leaves out America’s bombardment of Fallujah. An officer explains that the city has been evacuated, so any military-aged male remaining must be an insurgent. Conveniently, every Iraqi that Cooper kills happens to be carrying a rifle or burying an IED, even though the real Chris Kyle wrote that he was told to shoot anymilitary-aged male. Obviously, every non-insurgent did not evacuate Fallujah.
“Many Iraqis didn’t have cars or other transportation,” Garett explained. “To get to the nearest town, you’d have to walk across very hot desert, and you wouldn’t be able to carry much. So a lot of residents just decided to stay indoors and wait it out. It’d be like telling people in San Antonio that they have to walk to El Paso; then they come back home and their city is bombed and contaminated with depleted uranium.”
So what brought Bradley Cooper’s character to Iraq? Early in the film, Hall sets the stage for the moral theme of the movie. When Cooper was a child he sat at a kitchen table with his father, who explained that there are only three types of people in the world: sheep who believe “evil doesn’t exist,” wolves who prey on the sheep, and sheepdogs who are “blessed with aggression” and protect the sheep. In this world, when Cooper watches the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings on television, there is only one explanation: just evil wolves being evil. So he joins the military. When Cooper watches September 11 on television, there is one explanation: just evil wolves being evil. So he goes to war with them.
Amazingly, Hall and Cooper’s war seems to have absolutely nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. It’s about al-Qaida, which in real life followed the United States into Iraq after we invaded. Cooper’s war also seems to have nothing to do with helping Iraqis, only killing them. Except for the military’s interpreters, every Iraqi in the movie — including the women and children — are either evil, butchering insurgents or collaborators. The sense is that there isn’t a single innocent Iraqi in the war. They’re all “savages.”
Finally, it seems that a voice of criticism will be heard through the character of Marc Lee. When Lee voices his skepticism, Cooper asks, “Do you want them to attack San Diego or New York?” Cooper somehow wins with that absurd question. Later in the film, Navy SEAL Ryan Job is shot in the face. Distraught, Cooper decides he should lead a group of SEALs back out to avenge Job’s death, which is portrayed as the heroic thing to do. While Lee and Cooper are clearing a building, an Iraqi sniper shoots Lee in the head. The audience is then at Lee’s funeral, where his mother is reading the last letter that Lee sent home expressing criticism of the war. On the road home, Cooper’s wife asks him what he thought about the letter. “That letter killed Marc,” Cooper responds. “He let go, and he paid the price for it.” What makes Cooper a hero, according to the film, is that he’s a sheepdog. In Jason Hall’s world, Lee stops being a sheepdog when he questions his actions in Iraq. He becomes a sheep, “and he paid the price for it” with a bullet from a wolf.
Hall claims his film is a character study, yet he shamelessly butchered Marc Lee’s real story (and part of Kyle’s) to promote his moral fantasy world and deny legitimacy to veterans critical of the war. Here’s the truth: On the day that the real Ryan Job was shot, the real Marc Lee died after stepping into the line of fire twice to save Job’s life, which apparently was either not “sheepdog” enough to portray accurately in the movie or would have taken the focus off of Cooper’s reckless heroics. You can’t have people believe that critical soldiers are actually not sheep, can you? And as it turns out, Kyle never said those things about Lee’s letter and never blamed Lee for his own death for being skeptical of the war. (Here is Marc Lee’s actual last letter home in full.)
Chris Kyle was like so many soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He believed in doing the right thing and was willing to give his life for it. That trait that drives many veterans is a truly special one I wish we all had. Was Kyle wrong that the Iraq War had anything to do with September 11, protecting Americans, seizing weapons of mass destruction, or liberating Iraqis? Without a doubt. But that’s what he was told and he genuinely believed it — an important insight into how good people are driven to work for bad causes. Was Kyle wrong for calling Iraqis “savages”? Of course. In one interview, he admits that Iraqis probably view him as a “savage,” but that in war he needed to dehumanize people to kill them — another important insight into how humans tolerate killing, which was left out of the movie.
So enough about Chris Kyle. Let’s talk about Cooper and Hall, and the culture industry that recycles propagandistic fiction under the guise of a “true story.” And let’s focus our anger and our organizing against the authorities and the institutions that craft the lies that the Chris Kyles of the world believe, that have created a trail of blowback leading from dumb war to dumb war, and that have sent 2.5 million veterans to fight a “war on terror” that persists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Pakistan. Critics and nonviolent organizers can be sheepdogs too.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

US Militarism and the International Sex Industry

An important article from the current issue of Draft NOtices, the newsletter of San Diego-based COMD:

From Draft NOtices, January-March 2015

U.S. Militarism and the International Sex Industry

— Karen Guzman
It is clear why the United States of America has been given global recognition as the country with the most powerful military in the world. The U.S. government spends more on its military than the annual budgets of nearly all countries in the world. Aside from having the most weapons, aircraft, and satellites, the United States’ military presence worldwide has expanded so much that it has earned it the status of a modern-day imperialist nation — an imperialist nation that has been able to disguise its methods of expansion through military bases, foreign aid, and even humanitarian work around the world.
History shows us that the U.S. expanded from having 14 military bases abroad in 1938 to 30,000 large and small installations in approximately 100 countries by 1945. Today many of these installations have been closed, but the once-occupied communities have been left to struggle with the aftermath of U.S. military presence. While there is more awareness now of the ramifications of U.S. militarism and its destruction of the environment and livelihoods of local people, one of the less-known issues is how U.S. military expansion contributed to the growth of the international sex industry.
Perhaps one of the most discernible examples of this is the U.S. Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines. In the 1980s there were more than 4,000 American officers and their dependents stationed there, following the Vietnam War-era heyday when some four million U.S. sailors passed through Subic every year. The base was described by the Wall Street Journal as the “central hub for U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific.”
But Subic Bay Naval Base also has a dark secret. In the 1980s, local brothels and traffickers generated an estimated $500 million from buying and selling women and girls to meet the demands of the servicemen stationed there. A women’s non-profit organization known as the Buklod ng Kababaihan was established in 1987 as a drop-in center for the staggering number of women being exploited through prostitution outside the Subic base.
When the base closed in 1992, the problem did not end. U.S. nationals continued to travel to the region, some to simply take advantage of the commercial sex industry established by what was once the biggest U.S. military base. According to the Buklod ng Kababaihan website, they fight for the approximately 300,000-400,000 women and 100,000 children who are still being exploited.
Following recent agreements made between the Obama administration and President Benigno Aquino III this year, some are eager to reopen the base. With U.S. troops being welcomed back into the Philippines, negative consequences are sure to follow in the already hurting community.
Sadly, Subic is not the only example. The Pentagon is aware of how the international sex industry is being perpetuated by the U.S. military. According to Humantrafficking.org, in December 2002, President Bush “declared zero tolerance for involvement in human trafficking by federal employees and contractors in a National Security Presidential Directive” following media reports detailing “the alleged involvement of DynCorp employees in buying women and girls as sex slaves in Bosnia during the U.S. military's deployment there in the late 1990s.” However, the actual implementation of such policies has been minimal. This is why in 2011 the ACLU filed a lawsuit tackling the underreported problem of trafficking and abusive treatment of foreign workers on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Middle Eastern firms working under American subcontractors in Iraq were engaging in human trafficking.
The United States military is not expanding its military presence as much for national security or for helping allies as it is expanding its occupation to seek profit and power. In the process it destroys the environment and the livelihoods of the people whose lands are occupied, and it also creates and perpetuates systems of violence against women. Today, the sex industry is one of the largest and most profitable industries in the world (profitable for pimps and traffickers, that is). The U.S. military’s role in supplying the demand for this industry is very clear. Militarism affects everyone. It’s an environmental justice issue, a social justice issue, an anti-imperialist issue, and a feminist issue.
Information sources: “The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle Against US Military Posts,” by Catherine Lutz, 2009; "5 Philippine Bases Where the U.S. Military Will Look to Gain a Footing," by Trefof Moss, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 14, 2014; "United States: Address Role of U.S. Military in Fueling Global Sex Trafficking," Equality Now, Mar. 4, 2013; buklodcenter.wordpress.com; humantrafficking.org; "Your Tax Dollars at Work? U.S. Military Contractors and Human Trafficking in War Zones," by Steven M. Watt and Valerie Brender, American Civil Liberties Union, July 21, 2011.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/)

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Career Fairing at Reagan HS

We had great visits to Reagan HS for a lunchtime tabling on Jan. 20 and during their career fair on Jan. 30th.  At the career fair, it was good to see so many colleges represented, as well as several trade options.  We talked with 3 linemen who were there with Austin Energy to recruit for their training program.  The line work is tough, so if you want the kind of physical workouts you see in US Marine commercials, think about this as a healthier alternative.  The pay and benefits are good, and you're working to keep your community supplied with power.  ACC also has a training program, as it's a job in high demand.

Penny Poll results during the career fair showed a greater concern for Health Care than previous penny polls.  Results were: 231 pennies for Health Care (37%), 155 for Education (25%), 92 for the Environment (15%), 77 for Humanitarian Aid (12%) and 71 for the Military (11%).

Thanks to the Raiders for inviting us!

The ACC Riverbat mascot shows his stuff!

There are several firefighter programs available for young people, including the firefighter program at LBJ HS


Hart does some stretching to ease his back

Tablers getting set up

Most students said they would fight Poverty and Racism.  They also talked about links between all the supervillians.

Together, we are strong

Students pointed to the top photo.  Some said, "I think they show more courage because they don't have guns; they have community."

Some of our materials


Linemen from Austin Energy with their equipment.  We appreciated talking with them.