“[F]ilms like American Sniper are not meant to be relatable or accurate accounts of war. They are meant to push a particular worldview where America, as a shining beacon of freedom and democracy, “finishes fights” and frees the planet from the “bad guys”. The “bad guys” are, of course, whoever America says they are. No questions permitted. This is called propaganda. And propaganda like American Sniper has debuted with regularity in the maintenance of American imperialism.

Just two years ago Zero Dark Thirty (2012) was all the rave, a film which practically exonerated the CIA’s torture program in the eyes of the American public. But more than that, like American Sniper, it idolized the military exploits of American soldiers — specifically the men of JSoc (Joint Special Operations Command) and their intelligence operatives whom adopted gross disregard for Afghani and Pakistani life in pursuit of Osama bin Laden. Arguably the film’s greatest purpose then was not to make money, but rather to anesthetize the public of any objections to the CIA’s blatant human rights violations (torture) and JSoc’s extra-legal operations.

[…] Much like Eastwood’s film, in Zero Dark Thirty we get a picture of Jsoc that suggests patriotism by ALMOST any means necessary. Indiscriminate violence is permissible, so long as it leads to the capture of Osama bin Laden. Since the audience already knew bin Laden inevitably would be killed, it follows therefore that any violence pictured was necessary. The reality, which we are never allowed to see, is Jsoc has engaged in grossly unnecessary and unimaginable crimes. As Jeremy Scahill, co-producer of the film Dirty Wars, explained in the Guardian:



“In Gardez, [Afghanistan], US special operations forces [Jsoc] had intelligence that a Taliban cell was having some sort of a meeting to prepare a suicide bomber. [On the night of 12 February 2010 Jsoc] raid[ed] the house in the middle of the night, and they end up killing five people, including three women, two of whom were pregnant, and … Mohammed Daoud, a senior Afghan police commander who had been trained by the US.”

Scahill then recounts the testimony of Mohammed Sabir, who watched helplessly as the Jsoc soldiers dug the bullets out of his wife’s corpse with a knife. He and the other surviving men were then flown by helicopter to another province, likely to be tortured at a black site — a tactic Zero Dark Thirty unabashedly displayed in theaters. Footage captured from survivors of the ordeal later revealed that the meeting had nothing to do with the Taliban, but was rather a lively celebration of a child’s birth. No charges have ever been filed against Jsoc soldiers for their crimes.

In the same year that Zero Dark Thirty aired, almost as if imperialism were in vogue, at the 2012 Oscars its primary competition was another piece of American propaganda. In this case, however, the CIA was out to save the world from another Muslim “threat” — the specter of Iran. And although Ben Affleck’s Argo (2012) was historically centered on the Hostage Crisis of 1979, it conveniently hit theaters during a time when Israel’s beating of the war drums for US-backed intervention against Iran’s nuclear program had reached a head. It was no surprise then that Affleck’s revisionist film completely ignored the Hostage Crisis’ historical trajectory drawn directly from the United States’ overthrow of Iranian democracy in 1953. Accurate political sensitivity there might have told Americans the truth that Iran’s quest for international sovereignty is, to this very day, still a justified response to 1953.

Writing for Counter Punch, Joe Giambrone explained:

“Both films [Zero Dark Thirty and Argo] show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems. TheArgo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit. The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy. There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries. When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition — with the help and training of the CIA — is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good. We rescue our people. We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people. We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world.”

The patriotism pumping blueprint has been used in other films too: Jarhead 2 (2014) Lone Survivor (2013), Act of Valor (2012), The Hurt Locker (2009),Jarhead (2005), Black Hawk Down (2001), etc. It is not a new concept. Hollywood’s history of supporting US imperialism extends as far back as World War I. But no matter how far back Hollywood and imperialism may go, the crux of the issue is as Giambrone suggested: America is and must ALWAYS be the good guy. Neither context nor details really matter if they corrupt that narrative. And the truth matters least of all if it would break the brittle myth that America is the Sheep Dog of the world.

– American Sniper: The Casualties of War Live Far Beyond the Grave

