Noam Chomsky's Take on "American Sniper"

American Sniper strikes me as a modern western of sorts. The old westerns had this horrible take on Native Americans. They were portrayed as the instigators of violence, savage and hostile not because of any grievances but by their very nature.

To those who condemn the Iraqis for killing US troops, ask yourself this. Would you react any differently if your country was invaded, occupied and a puppet regime was put in place?

The audio quality is a little sketchy, so I've taken the liberty of transcribing it for those who might benefit: "Let me begin with something that may seem pretty far-afield: a film review in The New York Times a couple of days ago. It begins (I'll quote it) by ridiculing "America's coastal intelligenstia which busied itself with chatter over little seen art dramas, while everyday Americans showed up en masse for the patriotic, profoundly filmed picture which broke all attendance records in its opening days". At the end of this quite laudatory review the reviewer mentions that there was another film that opened the same time but with quite limited attendance, Selma which was timed for release with Martin Luther King Day. Well, what was the "patriotic, profoundly filmed [picture]" that so entranced "everyday Americans"? It's about the most deadly sniper in American history, [?] Chris Kyle, who claims to have used his skills to have killed several hundred people in Iraq. And he wrote memoires and in the memoires he describes what the experience was like, so I'll quote him. His first kill, he said, was a woman who walked into a street with a grenade in her hand as the marines attacked her village. He (Chris Kyle) killed her with a single shot and explains how he felt about it: "I hated the damn savages I'd been fighting. Savage, despicable evil - that's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy 'savages' - there was really no other way to describe what we encountered there." The film... I've read a lot of reviews, I haven't seen the film incidentally, but I've read reviews of it - they varied. The New Yorker thought it was great - they kept to the 'cinematic values' - it was well-done, nice photographs, and so on. There were others who found it apalling. One of them was Jeff Stein, he's a former US intelligence officer working in Vietnam, and he wrote a very critical review, keeping to the content. And he also recalled a visit that he made - an invited visit to a marine base, to a clubhouse for sinpers. And I'll quote him: "the bar room walls featured white on black Nazi SS insignia and other Werhmacht photos and regalia - the marine shooters clearly identified with the marksmen of the world's most infamous killing machine, rather than with regular troops." Well, going back to Chris Kyle: he regarded his first kill as a terrorist - this woman who walked into the street with a grenade when the marines were attacking her village. But we can't really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer because we're all tarred with the same brush, at least insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy. And that mentality - and there's very little commentary about this incidentally, except for Amnesty International, ACLU, and so on - the mentality helps explain why it's so easy to ignore what is clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever: Obama's global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us. If that's what they're suspected of doing in the morning session with Brennan and so on, then we blow them away. And I really advise you to read some of the transcripts of the drone operators - they're hair-raising. The advisors who are sitting in front of computers in Las Vegas or somewhere... you can't repeat it. Obama, you may recall, when he won the Nobel Prize - he said 'make no mistake, evil does exist in the world'. And he's right... [in other words?] he knows exactly where to find it." Any corrections are welcomed. I'm not very technologically adept - if somebody could please use this for the basis of subtitling this video, I hope that would be appreciated by those who are hard of hearing, or without advanced or native English, or whatever else might make subtitles useful to them.

Chris Kyle was also a compulsive liar.

American Sniper, Act of Valor, Zero Dark Thirty, Lone Survivor...  Even Goebbels would blush. Go back to sleep America.

Stop aging, Chomsky.  :\\   We don't have your replacement, and Gore Vidal is dead.  C'mon, man.

WBGH?  Seriously?  This audio equals that of of a seventh grade A/V assistant in 1973.

Obama "There is real evil in the world' Chomsky "He know where to find it'

The problem is that there's hundreds of right-wing conservatives, "left" (neo)liberals and generally entire mainstream political establishment in comparision to the very few people like Chomsky. People hate me for holding him in high regard and I know that he's not faultless, but at very least he's right on the spot on many issues concerning foreign policy, very factual and knows how to debate and answer complex questions. It will be a grim day when Noam passes away.

Obama winning the Noble Prize is one of the biggest jokes I've ever witnessed. The whole institution lost it's value and respect right there and then.

That woman with a grenade was acting in self defense, and not only that but walking out against american troops with nothing but a grenade shows amazing courage. What a sociopath this sniper is.

I always thought snipers were dispised by ordinary soldiers because of the callousness of their actions. To celebrate one of these individuals as a hero means that we are all going insane.

The film should be called American psychopath as that would be more fitting. Of course Americans in general are becoming more pathological in there thought processes.We now like to glorify people that in the past would have been seen as having questionable ethics.

that mic is just rubbish.

I remember when this movie hit the theaters and I was like “what is everyone so happy about?”

You have him mic'd with a lapel.... what the hell was your audio guy doing?! I can barely hear the man and it really upsets me.

here's a fun thing I do.....ask a conservative if they like the film "Red Dawn". they always say yes and fantasize about protecting Merica. ask them if the Iraqis are any different then the Wolverines in the film. they are always flummoxed

What's so sad about all this, is that there are so many suffering with having to deal with their, " cognitive dissonance ".

Could they post the full video without that cut at 3:33? I would like to know what he says about 'official policy'.

why does every Noam Chompsky clip have godawful audio?