American Sniper - courage or cowardice? (page 4)

Finkelstein

In warfare there is one single rule that is held to and that is there are no rules.

There are no Queensberry Rules in warfare, anymore than there are in a street brawl. To somebody ingrained with a Queensberry Rules mentality, much - if not most - of modern warfare involves widespread use of "cowards" weapons:

- Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, bombing from high altitudes, and anti-personnel mines being just several examples of such. Singling out the snipers as "cowards" seems to me to be an exercise of somebody who knows very little of what they are talking about. Snipers actually often work from behind enemy lines, where they are as exposed to danger just as much, if not more, than most other combat soldiers.

As for the movie, I would have thought that the time to form an opinion is after having watched it. That is what I will be doing, anyway!

Bill.

Hairtrigger

A sniper is somebody who is streets ahead of the rest in marksmanship. A terrorist ,on the other hand, is a fanatic ,who is equally willing to die or kill unless he gets what he wants. Beheading innocent journalists or Japanese .nationals unless somebody forks over 200 million, is absolutely kosher ;as is rape and slaughter of millions of innocents. They are well armed and can ifiltrate countries at will.

Sniping is a tactic that allows defenders to combat a fanatical enemy effectively on the battlefield and around it. So how does fat mouth Moore, a moronically wet under-the-arms inspired idiot, , try to psyco-equate a person's ability with a weapon to an emotional issue? What are you really trying to say Mr. Moore? ? Every sniper is a coward or every coward is a sniper? Here's a scenario for your fat -headed wizardry. Your dum' fat ass is twisting under a fanatics knife where he is ripe n ready to behead you- unless your family slips him a few from the mllions you've made. A marksman with a sniping rifle has the knife weilder in his sights; say from 880 meters away. You know it . You've gotta wink to let the sniper know you want him to take the axman out. Now comes a double-edged ,heavy-lidded moral deliema for you Moore. Whatch ya gonna do? Are ya gonna ask a 'coward' to save your courageous dum' ass or forego the wink for a slice of dubious psychoanalysis? My money's on the wink!! A second bet that you call him a hero after!!! Wanna play?

baltar447

I think it's clear the book has some spurious stories, even libelous since Jesse Ventura win a court case over it which is hard to prove. From what I've read, the guy seems sociopathic. I am not a fan of glorifying killers at all so I have no interest in seeing this movie.

smiddy

I am a little bit of a loss here , unless I have missed something. Sure the movie is about "American Sniper" which portrays his military excursions. And unless I`m missing something important here the responses seem to be about the morality of him being a sniper, is he a hero? or a coward?

Nobody, to my knowledge, and forgive me if I have missed it, has brought up anything about the opposing army/insurgents or whatever you want to call them, using the same tactics..,Sniper Attacks . Are they hero`s or are they cowards?

So what do we have here: Two heroes fighting against each other or two cowards fighting against each other. You can`t have it both ways.

j dubb

Not seeing it. Have no desire to watch post 911 war propaganda.

Same with BlackHawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, Hurt Locker, etc etc.

Simon

I don't think many of these movies can be considered war propaganda as such. Like the Vietnam war, it takes a few years before all the "rah rah" dies down and people can make movies showing the war how it truly was, warts and all.

Some will focus on courage, bravery and sacrifice to show the "noble" side of things, others will highlight the pointless nature of it all, the suffering and the inhumanity. Some will do both. I don't know what this movie does yet but it sounds more like Hurt Locker-ish which was a good movie.

As for the not being rules in warfare ... yes, there are. There are standards - you cannot simply carpet bomb a city or shoot into crowds of civilians. We usually claim to be fighting in the first place to stop that kind of evil.

How difficult it is to enforce rules will vary but it's good to see cases where murder of civilians by soldiers is resulting in prosecutions. Acts of barbarism don't help to win a war or win over the populace you claim to be trying to help - people who commit these are traitors and should be punished. Acts committed by your enemy don't justify lowering your own standards - they should remind you why you need to keep them.

This is why use of drone-strikes needs to be strictly monitored and controlled - indiscriminate use is akin to firing into a crowd and doesn't help the overall situation vs carefully targeted strikes.

Bungi Bill

As for the not being rules in warfare ... yes, there are. There are standards - you cannot simply carpet bomb a city

Were I given to sarcasm, I would likely reply "Go tell that to the residents of Dresden!" However, sarcasm never was my scene, and I don't intend to start now.

Instead, Simon, I will ask you which set of international agreements (Geneva, The Hague, etc) prohibit the use of carpet bombing? Terror bombing of civilian targets was a central part of Allied air warfare strategy in World War Two - particularly that carried out by Britain's Royal Air Force. Also, the two atomic bombs were both exploded on civilian targets (the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Furthermore, no one was ever tried as a war criminal over any of those acts. Has there been a new set of international agreements drawn up in the 70 years since then that ban carpet the bombing of civilian targets? To the best of my knowledge, there have been none. (Throughout the Cold War, both sides had their strategic nuclear missiles trained on each others cities - i.e. civilian targets. This would tend to indicate that if any such international agreements had in fact been put in place, then nobody ever had any intention of taking a blind bit of notice of these!)

The work of a sniper, of course, is quite the opposite of that carried out by that of weapons of mass killing. Snipers seek out specific individual targets, usually enemy officers - the very antithesis of indiscriminate slaughter.

There are rules of warfare, which cover such things as the treatment of prisoners of war and the status of the wounded. These also prohibit the use of such ammunition as soft tipped / hollow tipped bullets, or the fitting of explosive charges into rounds of less than a certain calibre. Nowhere, though, are there any recognised rules of warfare that start even trying to specify what is "fair", "gentlemanly", "cowardly" or similar!

Bill.

PS: Before anybody starts sending a stream of tomatoes flying in my direction, I am in no way advocating the use of carpet bombing of civilian targets - just merely pointing out that no recognised rules of warfare prohibit its use.

_Morpheus

J dub, respectfully i say its clear you havent seen either american sniper or hurt locker. Neither of those films glorifies the iraq war any more than schindler's list glorifies ww2. Those two movies are rather stark portrayals of the toll war takes on individuals and in particular the haunting choices made by soldiers (one fictional, one historical) in iraq.

Im not suggesting you watch them nor am i trying to change your view point on that war or in any way debating the pros and cons of americas role in that region, but i am pointing out that to rationally comment on those films one should see them before forming an opinion.

Hairtrigger

'...Haunting choices..." is the 'mot juste' . I've seen both the Hurt Locker and AS. And I agree with B.Bill 's views

The work of a sniper, of course, is quite the opposite of that carried out by that of weapons of mass killing. Snipers seek out specific individual targets, usually enemy officers - the very antithesis of indiscriminate slaughter.

Smiddy makes a valid point. My view would be to refer to them as protagonist and antagonist depending on where one's sympathies/loyaties lie.As for cowards and heroes- imo, it's situational .One's control on fear or lack of it in a given scenario. Let's say a person sees his friend drowning, But for reasons known only to him, doesn't go out to rescue him. The same person ,on the other hand rushes into a burning building to rescue a baby while sustaining severe burns.

There is the motivation factor. Is one willing to die for a cause? The movie brings out the dichotomy in the mental makeup between the two brothers. While one feels the cause is worth dying for the other wants to end it and go home.Subjectivity ,too, plays a big part in deciding who is which in any given situation. My personal view is - I'm sitting in my favorite couch wrapped outside of a cozy drink and an aromatic cigar. The Al Quaida, ISIS , are unrelenting in their efforts to enslave all into their idea of what the world should be -at gunpoint!!. The American marines and all members of the American armed forces have my undying gratitude ,respect and honor for doing what they do - for keeping me safe from circumcision and making that cozy drink, couch and the Cuban possible !!

American Sniper - courage or cowardice?

Share this