COMMENTARY: A Muslim’s take on ‘American Sniper’

According to director Clint Eastwood, “American Sniper” makes an anti-war statement. Maybe. And it is surely not gratuitously violent, like so many other movies which do not even concern war. Every shot, as it were, counts.

But this is not just an anti-war film; like so many other war films produced by Hollywood, it is insulting to our military. Here is why.

To begin with, it portrays our soldiers as loudmouthed, foulmouthed thugs who are incapable of holding an intelligent conversation. In the entire movie, there is not a single intelligent dialogue where the soldiers rise above the most brutal cliches about how the Iraqis — all Iraqis — are nothing but “savages.” Perhaps Chris Kyle was like this (and I don’t know because I didn’t know him), but to generalize about the entire military in this way is to insult the intelligence of our armed forces.

Then, consider how our young men are depicted in their interaction with the Iraqis: They are presented as terrorizing the Iraqis, bursting violently into their homes, terrifying their women and children, and treating them with nothing but scorn and brutality. There is not a single humane interaction; perhaps the only moment that gestures toward humanity is when Kyle wills the small boy not to pick up the rocket launcher so he doesn’t have to kill him.

But as in this very incident, where the boy struggles to lift a rocket that is much too heavy for him, it could be argued that Eastwood actually foregrounds the courage of Iraqi women and children who go against the might of the American military in the certain knowledge that they will die. They clearly believe in something.

Kyle, on the other hand, is presented as fundamentally mindless: He has only one thought on his mind, which is killing. He never once thinks of the larger picture or reflects on what the issues are. Indeed, he resolves to join the military after seeing images of the twin towers falling — but those 9/11 bombers were Saudi; not a single one of them was Iraqi. So he clearly has no idea of why he’s actually fighting or whom he is fighting against. The one soldier who does begin to reflect is quickly silenced by Kyle, and his thought process reverts suddenly back to resuming the fight. And he ends up getting shot in the head. Coincidence? As for Kyle’s girlfriend, he encourages her to drink so many shots on her first meeting with him that she has to run outside of the bar to vomit. How romantic and how realistic.

Is the American military really like this? Is it full of mindless, bloodthirsty, bullies who know nothing about the world, and who are proud of their ignorance?

Not in my experience. Not only is this picture disrespectful to our military but it is also harmful to our culture by parading a false image of what heroism looks like. I have known quite a few veterans of the Iraq War, and some of them have been students in my classes. I have found nearly all of them to be intelligent, mature and humane people. They often bring a great deal of maturity, experience, and wisdom to the discussion.

I remember one vet in particular who took my class in Islamic Literature and Philosophy in 2011. This young man was a fabulous student and contributed unique insights that no one else could have offered, and he had a positive impact on the dynamic of the class for the entire semester. The texts we studied, of Islamic philosophy and theology, were often extremely difficult and he handled them all insightfully and was consistently articulate.

Moreover, while in Iraq, he had learned a great deal about the culture there and had made close Muslim friends, with whom he stayed in contact. He was just one example of an intelligent vet, and there were several more. Whenever I have a war vet in my class, I know it is going to make the class more interesting for everyone.

Just because we are at war with a particular group of people in a given country does not mean that we have to hate everyone that is not us, or that we cannot learn about other ways of life. Our military personnel often contribute to our understanding of the world. And the overall objective is surely peaceful cooperation, and not endless, pointless, war.

So let us give our uniformed young men and women a little more respect. They are placed in danger often by the self-serving decisions of politicians, and these very politicians don’t treat them well when they come back. Look at how the Bush administration, which sent our troops to fight, neglected them when they came back. Our vets were subjected to disgraceful conditions, for example at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and poor treatment in terms of disability claims and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In fairness to Eastwood, he does hint at the problems that returning soldiers encounter, but he completely overlooks this shameful treatment of vets, which is well documented.

You might recall that Veterans for Common Sense, a veterans’ advocacy group, sued the VA in federal court. Thousands of vets after the Iraq War were homeless and at one point they were committing suicide at the rate of 6,000 per year. So let us not make things worse for them. They are not to blame for foreign policy that is based on ignorance or deception.

Let us stop portraying our military (in film after film) as a bunch of mindless and barbaric thugs who simply enjoy killing and revenge. And let us stop equating toughness and patriotism with being stupid. Serving one’s country requires a far more noble mentality, one that projects the highest values of our democracy.

Rafey Habib is professor of English at Rutgers University–Camden.