Seth Rogen likes being controversial. It's good PR. Just weeks after almost starting WW3 with his movie "The Interview," Rogen is back in the news, for some comments made about the movie "American Sniper."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/01/19/seth-rogen-michael-moore-blast-american-sniper/21988391/
This is the phrase I'm going to be analyzing: "American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that's showing in the third act of Inglorious Bastards."
The movie he is referring to is Nazi propaganda. So he's comparing American Sniper to Nazi propaganda. Before even sitting down and researching as to whether he was right or wrong, many pro-military zealots, (who support the military no matter how many democracies they topple or how many puppet governments they install or how many civilians they kill on purpose), started bashing Rogen for being unappreciative of the military, a traitor to his country, a liberal Nazi, etc, etc.
It's really sad that people jump down each other throats without even thinking. They deem any criticism of the military as unpatriotic and untrue automatically 100% all of the time, without even stopping, calming down, sitting down, and figuring out if it is valid criticism or not. In their eyes, the military can literally do no wrong. They are angels. As soon as you show a valid, clear example of a service member doing something wrong, they yell in your face "YOU'RE UNPATRIOTIC. YOU'RE UN-AMERICAN. YOU'RE A TRAITOR. IF YOU CAN'T STAND BEHIND OUR MILITARY, THEN JUST LEAVE THIS COUNTRY." Because when you really look at the facts, you actually see that Rogen is right. So let's go through this slowly, with rationality and logic, one step at a time.
First, let's look at the similarities between the Iraq war and the wars the Nazis started to gain territory before WW2 started. In the Iraq war, we had the American government fabricating tens of thousands of pages of fake intel to mislead the American people. They claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, (which we never found), that Iraq was helping Al-Qaida, (they weren't), that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, (they weren't), that Iraq was a threat to America, (they weren't), etc, etc, I mean this was a massive effort. Hundreds of people at the head of the Bush Administration and various government agencies were in on it. The U.S. did this so that the American people would support their invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Germany did the exact same thing in their wars of aggression and territory grabbing just prior to WW2. They lied time after time to the German people, and the world, making up lies as a pretense to invade Czechoslovakia, Austria, etc. Hitler said that German people were being persecuted and oppressed there, (they weren't), so it was okay for Germany to invade to help them, that land originally belonged to Germany in the first place so it was Germany's right to have that land, (it wasn't), that the Jews were masterminding to destroy Germany, (they weren't). I mean this was a massive effort. Hundreds of people at the head of the Hitler Administration and various government agencies were in on it. Germany did this so that the German people would support their invasion
and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc.
Okay, so that's one similarity, but one similarity is not enough to associate anything with anything. Hitler drank water, and you drink water, so that means you're a potential mass murderer!! No, that's not how it works. We need more similarities.
The second similarity is that America invaded Iraq on false pretenses, set up an undemocratic government there that would do anything America says because America controlled it, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process, stole their natural resources, most notably oil, broke dozens of different universal human rights that the Iraqi people are entitled to have, kidnapped thousands of innocent people during their occupation, raping and torturing them for seemingly no reason at all other than to brutally force the population to submit. They did all of this, while the media made America out to be the victim! That's right, the media twisted just about everything to make it look the aggressor, the liar, was the victim.
For example, an American patrol would be on their route, and come under attack by Iraqi insurgents. Some American soldiers would die in the fight. The media would make it out to be like the Americans were doing nothing wrong, that they were just innocent victims just walking along minding their own business, and the evil savage Iraqi terrorists killed them just because they are American Christians!
This charade of making the aggressor look like the victim is portrayed in "American Sniper." Just look at the trailer. You're supposed to feel for the wife who is listening to her husband's convoy being under attack. Chris Kyle was just a pure American hero when he came under attack by those evil savages!
Completely devoid in the trailer, or in the movie for that matter, is any context or scenario/location information. Kyle in an
occupying soldier. He is a foreigner on
someone else's land. Kyle is a foot soldier in the
oppression of the Iraqi people. He is the muscle that is protecting the American occupation and the puppet Iraqi government. He is a small part in the big reason why the Iraqi people are dying over lies, why their universal human rights are being repressed by the occupation and the puppet Iraqi government. His patrol, trying to control the Iraqi people, is enforcing the torture, the kidnappings, the rapes, the oppression, the denial of basic human rights. Without his presence on the streets, the Iraqi government would collapse.
The Iraqi insurgents are portrayed as savages. They are not humanized. They are not given depth, character, reason, etc. They are one faced, one dimensional monsters that only exist to kill Americans. The movie completely leaves out the fact that it is completely logical and rational to take up arms against a fascist corrupt government and a foreign occupation that is supporting it. In fact, it is an American value. Our country was born out of our fighting a corrupt puppet government and a foreign occupation that supported it. The pro-military crowd regularly spout that it is their right to use force in self-defense or when their rights are being violated. But, exposing their double standard, they don't believe every person, regardless of race or creed, gets to enjoy that right. White Christians enjoy that right, in their mind, but brown Muslims do not. That's why they demonize the Iraqi insurgents, even though they are doing the exact same thing that they would do if America was invaded by another country, and a puppet government was set up in Washington D.C.
Everyday Americans from all backgrounds would employ the same tactics
used by the Iraqis (i.e. roadside bombs, suicide vests, urban warfare,
women/children, etc...) against any foreign aggressor. Why should
Iraqis tolerate American tanks rolling down their streets when the very
same Americans wouldn't tolerate Iraqi (or any foreign military's) tanks
rolling down theirs?
Imagine that
thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American
streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices
of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their
strategic interests." Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and
that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and
then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally
killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children,
most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences.
Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched
and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were
fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America
would be better off without their presence. Imagine if some Americans
were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined
together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty,
because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so.
Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for
their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured
by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude
was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would
stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up
arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. The reality is that
our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people
that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed
in Texas.
Compare that to Nazi propaganda. Nazi Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia on false
pretenses, set up an undemocratic government there that would do
anything Germany says because Germany controlled it, killed hundreds of
thousands of civilians in the process, stole their natural resources, broke dozens of different universal human rights that
the Austrian and Czech people are entitled to have, kidnapped thousands of innocent
people during their occupation, raping and torturing them for seemingly
no reason at all other than to brutally force the population to submit.
They did all of this, while the media made Germany out to be the victim!
That's right, the media twisted just about everything to make it look
the aggressor, the liar, was the victim.
For example, a German patrol would be on their route, and come under attack by Austrian or Czech
insurgents. Some German soldiers would die in the fight. The Nazi media
would make it out to be like the Germans were doing nothing wrong,
that they were just innocent victims just walking along minding their
own business, and the evil savage Austrian or Czech terrorists killed them just
because they are blonde and blue eyed Germans!
See, word for word, it happened exactly the same in both cases. All I changed was the identity of the actors. But the actions were exactly the fucking same.
"American Sniper" practically elevates invading US soldiers to civilian status and natives who target the armed invaders are evil terrorists. Okay, so that's two major similarities down. Let's keep going.
Pro-military zealots often use the phrase "The military is over there, dying to protect our freedoms, which were under threat." What a load of complete and utter fucking bullshit. No one has been able to answer my question "What American freedoms did Iraq threaten or break? What oppression did Iraq lay unto us? What rights of yours were being infringed on by Iraq?"
No one has ever been able to answer that question, because the answer is NOTHING. FUCKING NOTHING. Iraq was doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to us at all. So the zealots continue to spout lies. Lies. Lies! LIES!!
Nazi zealots did the exact fucking thing. Hitler ranted on about how neighboring countries were oppressing Germany, and how the rights of German people in Austria were being threatened, therefore, he had an obligation to invade Austria. ALL FUCKING LIES.
Wow, that's 3 similarities now. We're on a roll.
The 4th similarity is that America had an overwhelmingly more powerful military than Iraq. We had tanks, jet fighters, artillery, satellites, APCs, the most powerful military in the world. What do the Iraqi insurgents have to combat this? AK47s. RPGs. Homemade bombs. Grenades. It's not even comparable firepower. It's like comparing a gnat to an elephant. And yet through this seemingly incredibly one sided fight, "American Sniper" makes it out to be that Kyle and the Iraqi insurgents are fighting on equal terms, that he is in just as much danger as the insurgents are, that he is fighting against overwhelming odds, that he is the vulnerable good guy going into danger for the greater good, etc, etc. Michael Moore called snipers cowards. He's right. It's not brave to go after people with pea shooters when you have artillery and jet fighters and stealth bombers and attack helicopters to back you up in case you get your ass whooped. The other guy doesn't have any of that to back him up. He just has the gun in his hands, maybe a grenade or two, and that's fucking it. Oh, what danger you're in! That's why we only lost less than 5,000 troops in 8 years of fighting, when we killed over 26,000 of them in the same time frame.
Do you know what is brave though? Going against the powerful military in the world, going up against APCs and tanks and radar artillery armed with only an AK47 and an RPG. That's courage. That's dedication. It's the Iraqi insurgents that were brave, not Kyle. They didn't flinch going into battle knowing that against such overwhelming odds that they were most likely going to die. An American going into the same battle wasn't most likely going to die. Most likely he would live.
Guess what? Nazi Germany did the exact same thing. They had the most powerful military in Europe. They had tanks, artillery, bombers, etc, etc. What did Austrian and Czech insurgents have? Bolt action rifles. Submachine guns. And yet through this seemingly incredibly one sided fight, Nazi propaganda makes it out to be that Germans and the Austrian and Czech insurgents are
fighting on equal terms, that the Germans is in just as much danger as the
insurgents are, that he is fighting against overwhelming odds, that he
is the vulnerable good guy going into danger for the greater good, etc,
etc.
The 5th and last similarity is that the films conveniently omit any flaws, any negatives, any bigotry, about the soldiers that they elevate to God like status. Kyle is shown as fully human, likable, complex, multidimensional, etc. There is absolutely no negative aspects about him shown on camera at all. He is, like the pro-military zealots believe, perfect, flawless, utterly impossible to do wrong. The movie conveniently leaves all these parts out about how Kyle was:
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Substitute "Koran" for "Bible." Would you like someone who said that about your holy book?
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Likewise, no Iraqi is shown as likeable, complex, multidimensional, capable of showing anything but hate. But the Iraqi insurgents are people just like you, me, and Kyle. They have jobs, they have families, they have problems, they have lives, they have little quirks in their personality, etc. But no, the movie paints them as all, one tracked minded killers.
The same thing happened in Nazi propaganda. The Nazi soldiers are shown as likeable, human, complex, capable of thought, opinion, etc, even though they, in reality, are murdering civilians by the millions. And the Jews? No, they're subhuman. Rats. Greedy rats. All they do is scheme and plot against the poor innocent blonde Germans. That's all they do. The French resistance? Terrorists, killers, unhuman, evil, etc.
Look at some of the reactions people had after the film:
Now, substitute the words "ragheads", "Arabs," and "Muslims" with any other religion or any race.
- "Teared up at the end of American Sniper. Great fucking movie and now I really want to kill some fucking Jews."
- "American Sniper makes me wanna go shoot some fucking Christians."
- "Nice to see a movie where the white people are portrayed for who they really are- vermin scum intent on destroying us."
- American Sniper made me appreciate soldiers 100x more and hate black people 1,000,000 more."
In conclusion, there you have it. A step by step analysis of why Rogen's comments are actually true, and that the only reason why people see them as "incendiary" or "offensive" is because they want no one to criticize the military no matter what they do. People will counter with "Well, it's the politicians who started the war, the military didn't start it at all, they were just following orders." That is true, but that simply dodging the subject. The military still committed crimes. They should've said "No, that is against my American values. I took an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not the current government, administration, or president. Attacking a country based on lies is against the Constitution. Installing a puppet government is against the Constitution. Killing innocents is against the Constitution. Killing people who are simply protecting their lands against foreign occupiers is the against the Constitution."
But they didn't. Some soldiers refused to go, but not a lot. The ones who refused to go are the heroes. But the majority of American soldiers still followed their traitorous orders without question. The politicians would not have been able to put in a puppet government if they troops didn't invade Iraq and overthrow the government.
The pro-military zealots will say "Not all American service members have
killed innocents." True. I never said otherwise. But there were plenty
of Nazis who never killed an innocent either. They were either an office
worker or a soldier who got wounded before he shot anyone else. That
doesn't mean the Nazi party, as an entity, is not an evil and despicable
organization.
It's not insulting to say that the military doesn't fight to protect our freedom. The pro-military fanatics want us to believe that, as to shut down as criticism of the military's actions before the criticism can even be stated. We are not allowed to explore the topic because it is "offensive" to suggest anything otherwise. I'm not saying it to offend anyone. I researched the topic, and I can find no freedom that Iraq was taking away from us or that was even under threat from Iraq, that the American military got back for us. If it's offensive for me to simply ask the question "What freedom did the American military fight for in Iraq" then you have to seriously ask yourself what type of society we have created here. Certainly doesn't sound free to me, we can't even ask questions.
