AMERICAN SNIPER has fast become a national hit. The ‘hero’ kills and kills and kills only the bad guys. Every one of his targets deserved a tap on the head or a shot through the heart. Audience cheer the death of Iraqi insurgents without remembering that the USA’s occupation of Iraq was a complete failure and the military has been severely damaged by the endless war thousands of miles from our shores.

Hollywood has a funny way of shifting our perception of reality.

Recently I bought a copy of AMERICAN SNIPER from the Chinese bootlegger on the Upper East Side.

“Very good movie.”

“Those three words are her only English.

I like watching films on my MacBook and that evening fast forwarded through the film, editing out his childhood in Texas, SEAL training camp, and his relationship with this family and wife. All that remained was thirty minutes of Chris Kyle’s killing of Iraqis defending their land from foreign invaders.

Head shots and boy shots.

Close and far away.

He was called ‘The Legend’ by the other soldiers.

He made them feel safe.

One man same as Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev from ENEMY AT OUR GATES, but no one was safe from death in Stalingrad or Bagdhad.

Snipers are killers and this week the director Michael Moore twittered this, “My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.”

AMERICAN SNIPER fans railed against this accusation, but I got to agree.

No one lights three cigarettes with a match.

In World War I a sniper had the time to aim at the third man on the line.

Pop.

No smoking for # 3.

Snipers are saints on your side and devils on the other side of the battle line and death doesn’t respect any rules in war, for as Charles De Leusse so aptly said, “The sniper of heart misses only flowers. (Le sniper du cœur – Ne rate que les fleurs)”