Imagining for a second we had a functioning non-corporate news media. It is so easy to run with the prepackaged news other giant corporations so conveniently provide. Some intrepid reporter might spend more than a few hours filing freedom of information act requests for pentagon statistics on kill statistic for marine snipers in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. They might then be able see how many standard deviations from the marine sniper norm Chris Kyles proclaimed 250 kills were.
https://www.youtube.com/...
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I disagree with Michael Moore's portrayal Chris Kyle as a coward. The idiots on the right called John Kerry the same thing. (remember Kerry volunteered for combat duty while his opponent hid out in the national guard). Chris Kyle was clearly not a coward.
The real problem I have with Chris Kyle is statistics and math. Vasily Zaytsev, the famous WWII sniper in the battle of Stalingrad, claimed fewer killers that Chris Kyle. The Russians at the time were facing a army of over a million uniformed German infantrymen in a battle theater that was less than 100 square miles. While Vasily was the most celebrated Russian sniper, there were others who surpassed or were close to his kill totals. This is what you'd expect from a group of elite soldiers with the same training and weapons, in the same battle conditions, following the same rules of engagement.
Chris Kyle was in a theater where the total number of insurgents was less than 100 thousand and spread across a region thousands of square miles. The enemy was also not identifying themselves with uniforms. In these battle conditions you'd expect far fewer kills for a sniper, and that is the case for just about every other sniper doing as many tours as Chris Kyle. So how did Chris Kyle kill 20 times as many "combatants" as the average marine sniper, and almost 3 times his nearest "competitor"? Either he was the most superhuman sniper ever, and also had the good fortune of 250 combatants falling into his sights, or he was not following the same rules of engagement. Based on Chris Kyles own words, referring to the Iraqis and "savages" and "ragheads", and his staunch insistence that his lord (the lord Jesus) was the true lord, I feel like the second explanation is more plausible. I think it dishonors the efforts of men who played by the rules, seeking to win the Iraqi hearts and minds by not killing innocents to celebrate one self promoting man for a pretty grotesque kill total. Personally I'd rather celebrate guys like Garett Reppenhagen who had 1/10 the kills but were genuinely conflicted about the war, and who took te time to get to know some Iraqi people:
http://www.salon.com/...
Now this is stuff I quickly pulled off wikipedia and some other trusted sites; if I had more than a hour to spend on this topic. If I were say... a professional journalist being paid for 40 hours of journalism work a week, this is something I'd put some time into examining the after action reports related to Chris Kyle, tracking down the infantrymen closer to the action who saw the remains of the people he killed. Was he following the same rules of engagement? How do you tell from 500 yards if a woman is carrying a grenade or a green apple?
I don't profess to have these answers but Chris Kyle's claims are remarkable and remarkable claims require remarkable proof and scrutiny. Something the Corporate Media won't do.... at least until all the "American Sniper" Blu-rays are sold.