An article from one year ago offers a troubling look into the murderous mind of the "heroic" American Sniper Chris Kyle.

After Kyle's death at that shooting range in Texas, most of what has been written about him has been a glowing account of his life as a heroic sniper fighting the bad guys overseas.

I personally did not know much about him, and had no intention of reading his book.

As it turns out, within his book is a look inside the mind of a man who probably should NEVER have been issued the weapon, or given the training, that allowed him to kill 160 people.

Almost exactly one year ago there was an article written and published on a blog called Pro Libertate, and written by a man named William N. Grigg. Mr Grigg DID read Kyle's book and his takeaway was that he was anything but heroic: American Sniper:

The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, the ghost-written memoir for which Kyle claims primary authorship, offers convincing testimony that Kyle not only failed to display genuine courage in Iraq, but was incapable of recognizing it when it was exhibited by desperate patriots seeking to evict the armed foreigners who had invaded and occupied their country. 

The insurgents who fought the American invasion (and the few “allied” troops representing governments that had been bribed or brow-beaten into collaborating in that crime) were sub-human “savages” and “cowards,” according to Kyle. 

“Savage, despicable evil,” writes Kyle. “That’s what we were fighting in Iraq…. People ask me all the time, `How many people have you killed?’... The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives.” 

“The people we were fighting in Iraq, after Saddam’s army fled or was defeated, were fanatics,” Kyle insists. “They hated us because we weren’t Muslim. They wanted to kill us, even though we’d just booted out their dictator, because we practiced a different religion than they did.” 

Actually, most of them probably wanted to kill Kyle and his comrades because they had invaded and occupied their country. They were prepared to use lethal force to protect their homes against armed intruders who had no right to be there. 

Ironically, Kyle’s book offers evidence that he understands that principle; he simply doesn’t believe that it applies to Iraqis. 

“They may have been cowards, but they could certainly kill people,” observes Kyle of the guerrillas. 

“The insurgents didn’t worry about ROEs [Rules of Engagement] or court-martials [sic]. If they had the advantage, they would kill any Westerner they could find, whether they were soldiers or not.” 

If that charge (made on page 87 of Kyle’s book) is accurate, it might reflect the fact that the Iraqi resistance (as well as the tactics of foreign guerrillas who joined the fight) was playing according to ground rules established by the U.S. early in the war. 

On page 79, Kyle describes the Rules of Engagement that his unit followed when they were deployed to Shatt al-Arab, a river on the Iraq-Iran border: “Our ROEs when the war kicked off were pretty simple: If you see anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and they’re male, shoot ‘em. Kill every male you see. That wasn’t the official language, but that was the idea.” (Emphasis in the original.) 

Those orders were of a piece with the studied indifference to civilian casualties that characterized the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign that began the war. In preparing that onslaught General Tommy Franks and his military planners were guided by a computer program that referred to civilian casualties as “bugsplat.” Franks had no compunction about ordering bombing missions that would result in what the computer projections described as “heavy bugsplat.” After all, aren’t the lives of American military personnel “clearly worth more” – to use Kyle’s phrase -- than those of the Iraqi civilians, who were mere insects to be annihilated? 

There is much more, most of it rather stomach churning, but you get the idea.

It can be argued that Chris Kyle was turned into a heartless assassin by a country that needed him to decimate a people who dared to fight back against the Americans who invaded their land, but I am not sure if that is enough to explain the absolute monstrous attitude that he seems to have directed toward these people, that ostensibly. we were there to liberate. And it makes me wonder just how many of those 160 kills were people who presented an actual threat, and how many simply represented a people that he openly despised.

I am certainly not suggesting that Chris Kyle deserved to be gunned down by a PTSD suffering fellow soldier at that shooting range in Texas. I am just saying that after reading this shedding tears of sympathy would seem hypocritical at best.

General McChrystal "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

Talking Points Memo:

In a stark assessment of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in little-noticed comments last month that during his time as commander there,
"We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

The comments came during a virtual town hall with troops in Afghanistan after one asked McChrystal to comment on the "escalation of force" problem. The general responded that, in the nine months he had been in charge, none of the cases in which "we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it."

In many cases, he added, families were in the vehicles that were fired on.

I love my President, but I hate this war. 

Isn't about time to walk away from Bush's ill conceived war and to stop killing innocent Afghans?

Civilian casualties continue to rise while America occupies Iraq.

Eight civilians have been killed in an air strike by US military helicopters north of Baghdad, Iraqi police say.

Two children were among those who died in the attack on Wednesday evening near the town of Baiji, the police said.

Baiji's police chief said the attack targeted a group of shepherds in a farming area. The US military said the incident was under investigation.

In other violence, an Iraqi TV cameraman is reported to have been shot dead in crossfire in Baghdad.

A US military spokeswoman, Lt Col Maura Gillen, said one of its helicopters fired in the Baiji area after noting "suspicious activity", and she said people travelling in a car had ignored warnings to stop their vehicle.

Locals said some of those killed had been people running away on foot after the US forces entered the area.

A local man, Ghafil Rashed, told Reuters that his brother and son had been killed in the attack:

"The Americans raided our houses... People started fleeing with their children, then the aircraft started bombing people in a street along the farm."

So long as the Republicans continue their illegal occupation of Iraq we will see our soldiers murdering civilians and terrorizing innocent Iraqi's as their mission becomes less defined and paranoia permeates their every action.

I am not suggesting that these soldiers do not have anything to fear, because they certainly do, but what I am saying is that as long as they keep killing innocent people the danger to them will continue to grow.

This is the difference between our occupation of Iraq and our military presence in Germany, or Japan, or Korea. In those countries we are not using our weapons on unarmed civilians.

If John McCain is too ignorant to understand that then he has no business even being considered for the highest office in the land.

Civilian deaths increase tension between Iraqi government and US Military.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met Sunday with the top U.S. military commander in Iraq to voice his outrage over the reported deaths of Iraqi civilians during a Sunday morning military raid in Baghdad's Sadr City, a government spokesman told CNN.

Al-Maliki expressed his concerns to Gen. David Petraeus over Iraqi reports that 10 to 15 civilians were killed in the raid, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told CNN's "Late Edition."

The U.S. military said its ground forces are "unaware" of civilian deaths in the early morning raid that it said left 49 "criminals" dead.

"There is a great tension in the Iraqi government" over the incident, al-Dabbagh said.

I just think it is ridiculous for the American military to even think that they can kill the "enemy" without also taking out a number of civilians. These people live virtually on to of each other, and our bombs are certainly not sophisticated enough to only kill the "bad guy" while sparing the life of the woman or child in the next room.

I understand the concept of keeping American troops safe by trying to kill the target from a distance without putting our people within striking distance, but then we have to ask does that mean we are placing more value on a soldiers life then the life of an Iraqi mother? Or an Iraqi child?

Air strikes kill women and children in Iraq.

Iraqis voiced outrage Friday over a U.S. military airstrike that killed an estimated 15 civilians -- nine children and six women, one of the highest reported civilian death tolls from an American bombing in months.

The bombing occurred Thursday evening after U.S. troops raided a suspected leadership meeting of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq that was taking place south of Lake Tharthar, near the city of Samarra in western Iraq. The U.S. military's account of the violence said troops were shot at during the raid and called in an airstrike in self-defense. In addition to the civilians killed, the U.S. military estimated that 19 suspected insurgents died.

"This could have been done through the infantry," said Ibrahim al-Khamas, a Samarra city council member. "But the American Army prefers the easiest solution, which is the air bombardment."

Yeah I know that the US Military argues about the accuracy of information about civilian casualties coming from the Iraqis. But I am sorry, I find our political leaders and military commanders completely untrustworthy. I have not yet caught an Iraqi lying to me.

And let's face it, how can an air strike NOT kill innocent people?

God I am just so done with this bullshit, let's get our people out of there!

While America pleads with Bush to end his war in Iraq, he answers by doubling the air attacks and killing even more civilians.

Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq , dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago.

It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties.

The rate of such reported civilian deaths appeared to climb steadily through 2006, the group reports, averaging just a few a month in early 2006, hitting some 40 a month by year‘s end, and averaging more than 50 a month so far this year.

You know Bush and his cohorts never miss an opportunity to talk about how evil the Iraqis are that kill their fellow Iraqis, but what do we call a country that simply flies over head raining death on innocent people from above?