The Battle of Ramadi and Chris Kyle - the Myth

[Zinegata]

I recently did some research on Chris Kyle's supposed kill count, as narrated in his book "American Sniper" and subsequently reported by every news outlet. The problem here is that I was finding a lot of inconsistencies with his story - similar to the sort I find when Tiger battalions claim to have wiped out Soviet tank armies that don't exist - and did a little research.

And really, the picture I found was not a very good one. Here's a repost of my findings that I first posted in another forum:

The Battle of Ramadi and Chris Kyle - the Myth

First of all, it's important to realize "American Sniper" is a biography, written primarily by Chris Kyle own experiences and recollections. Why we've turned Belton Cooper into a punching bag and haven't done the same to Kyle, I'm not sure, but I'm not too busy hero-worshipping to apply the same level of exacting fact-checking that we've applied to SS fanfiction.

And really, it's not a pretty picture.

The first and most important thing to realize is that Kyle was found to be lying about multiple statements. He in fact was found guilty of libel against Jesse Ventura - not a man known for his credibility - because his fellow SEALs testified against Kyle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/chec ... al-sniper/

This is before we consider the fact that he also claims to have murdered two people in cold blood in Texas (in "self defense") and said he was shooting looters during Katrina. Those who say the latter is just a joke or a tall tale would be well reminded that America just went through a couple of riots because of the possibility that police may have shot unarmed black men. Here we have a US Army sniper claiming the government authorized him to murder looters in cold blood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn ... n-history/

But really, all that really pales in comparison to the real problem of Kyle's record: His supposed 160 "official" kill score.

The problem is, I have found zero US Navy sources corroborating these claims, both the official tally of 160 nor his own guesstimate of 220+. In fact, US Special Forces command said this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/american-sniper/facts/

Ken McGraw, a spokesman for the US Special Operations Command, who said: “If anything, we shy away from reporting numbers like that. It's so difficult to prove. And what does it mean?”

The article then goes on to say that Kyle's co-author claims he had to verify the claims with command, but let's be frank here - we don't accept self-reported SS kill claims. Neither should we accept self-reported claims from US snipers.

Moreover, I have in fact tried to look for other sources to maybe try and corroborate the claims. The problem is that they all lead to even more fantastical stories and blatant inconsistencies. For instance:

http://projects.militarytimes.com/citat ... tid=307606

One of the first things I looked at was Kyle's Silver Star citation. At first glance, looks good - 90 confirmed kills over 5 months. "Plausible". But then there's also the rough edges - only 32 overwatch missions, implying 3 kills per overwatch? Only five "snipers with scoped weapons" specifically identified? Sounds like someone is just taking Chris' words at face value and applying the loose standards for kills - which is "as long as the spotter and sniper saw someone go down, it's a kill".

So I took a look at the involvement of the SEALs in the above battle - Ramadi 2006 - and found this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sheriff-Ramad ... 1591141389

Which claims, on the flap cover, this:

Of the 1,100+ insurgents killed in the Battle, Navy SEALs accounted for a third of them.

At which point any sane SS fanfiction hunter goes "hold it, the SEALs claimed a total of 300-400 kills in Ramadi, stretching to a period beyond Chris Kyle's tour" (Kyle's tour ended in August 2006. The book and the battle stretches to Nov 2007). Is Kyle seriously someone so superhuman that he accounted for 1/3 of all SEAL kills at Ramadi despite participating only in 5 of its 24 months?! Something's fishy here.

And guess what? I managed to get a partial copy of the book (more specifically Google Books) and found Chris Kyle's name wasn't even in the index or in the entire damn book. You have Michael Monsoor, who won the MoH by falling on a grenade and a few other SEALs mentioned, but not Chris Kyle.

http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=C7r ... &q&f=false

At which point, I really just have to call bullshit. How the hell can the sniper who supposedly accounted for 1/3 of all SEAL kills in just 5 months of operations be not included or mentioned at all in a book about SEALs in that very battle?

It just doesn't come together. Worse, when I look at USMC accounts of the battle, there's hardly any mention of SEALs, so even the "Sheriff of Ramadi" version may already be overglorifying the SEAL's overall achievements as it stands.

Hence, there really is serious doubts about Kyle's kill count or supposed heroic status. Nobody just has the courage to actually look and call it out. And really, given his public record it looks like he made it up. Or worse, if you transplant his Katrina fantasy to Ramadi, you have Kyle acting like a terrorist sniper gunning down people as it pleased him; which the Navy then papered over with a Silver Star that none of his colleagues ever thought was deserved (again, his own fellow SEALs testified against him over Jesse Ventura). The latter is a particularly disturbing possibility when one considers April '06 coincides with the Marines deciding to loosen the rules of engagement around Ramadi with predictably bad results for the civilians - something that was realized to be a mistake.

====

It's worth noting that since posting this, tank&afv blogger Walter Sobchak found one more corroborating piece of evidence from Michael Fumento, who was apparently also an embed reporter in Ramadi:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3BQQPFKU8 ... r_rdp_perm

So we now have two journalists who were at Ramadi who naysay Kyle's Silver Star citation.

[Thanas]

This is really good work. Thank you for that.

[Irbis]

Or worse, if you transplant his Katrina fantasy to Ramadi, you have Kyle acting like a terrorist sniper gunning down people as it pleased him; which the Navy then papered over with a Silver Star that none of his colleagues ever thought was deserved (again, his own fellow SEALs testified against him over Jesse Ventura).

As I said before in this guy's case, look at the end of Brandon Webb's book The Red Circle. Webb was Kyle's SEAL instructor - and his tale of Kyle's exploits in Ramadi reads like work of Nazi SS city cleaning teams. Sad thing is, Kyle might well be responsible for 160 kills, not by sniping, though, by setting up IED traps for random bystanders and indiscriminate gunning down of every male adult he saw. If the account was accurate, and other SEALs were a bit less gun happy, Kyle accounting for 1/3 of all SEAL kills might well be true.

[Elheru Aran]

So either Chris Kyle is a liar, or a serial murderer. Doesn't look good either way for the Kyle-wankers... but then Sarah Palin being an advocate of his cause should have sealed that deal long ago, so there you go.

[Gandalf]

So either Chris Kyle is a liar, or a serial murderer. Doesn't look good either way for the Kyle-wankers... but then Sarah Palin being an advocate of his cause should have sealed that deal long ago, so there you go.

He's like Joe Paterno crossed with Joe the Plumber. He lets the right create a narrative, and being dead means that he's basically untouchable.

[Sea Skimmer]

No people did call it out. Several SEALs claimed a few years ago when the damn book came out that before Kyle came back to the US and began working on a book he was talking about ~45 people killed which is way more likely. I lack the interest though to go waste a lot of time to dig that up.

[Elfdart]

So either Chris Kyle is a liar, or a serial murderer. Doesn't look good either way for the Kyle-wankers... but then Sarah Palin being an advocate of his cause should have sealed that deal long ago, so there you go.

I live in Texas and you'd think he was born in a manger to a virgin mother on December 25th and died for our sins. Seriously though, if one tenth of the bullshit in his book and public statements is true, Eddie Ray Routh may have saved us from another Charles Whitman or Timothy McVeigh.

[Zinegata]

No people did call it out. Several SEALs claimed a few years ago when the damn book came out that before Kyle came back to the US and began working on a book he was talking about ~45 people killed which is way more likely. I lack the interest though to go waste a lot of time to dig that up.

Would it be possible to maybe PM me with a bone so I can try looking in the right direction?

[Adam Reynolds]

Apparently there are actually three versions of Chris Kyle. The real sniper, the braggert that wrote the book, and the cold professional from the film.

According to someone I knew who saw him on Fox News, he would usually smirk his way through interviews in which he claimed to have punched Jesse Ventura. There was only one interview that seemed like the cold professional portrayed in the movie. Guess which one was continually reused after the movie?

[TheHammer]

But I thought autobiographies and personal accounts are all works of 100% fact? Or does that only apply in instances where the account fits my own personal narrative?

[Thanas]

Just a reminder for all to stay on track and not let this thread degenerate into snark.

[Zinegata]

Texas is apparently trying to have the MoH awarded to Kyle. I'm beginning to wonder if anyone in the mainstream media even realizes that there's this enormous gap in his record.

[Elfdart]

Texas is apparently trying to have the MoH awarded to Kyle. I'm beginning to wonder if anyone in the mainstream media even realizes that there's this enormous gap in his record.

After the abuse Rania Khalek took (including death and rape threats) for quoting some of the racist, sadistic passages in Kyle's book (as well as supporting a FOIA request for Kyle's military records -you know, what real journalists do), I doubt there's much enthusiasm for it. Khalek didn't just quote the parts about Iraqis being "savages" who deserved to die, or Kyle's wish to kill everyone with a koran, but also where he bragged about looting the homes of the people he shot, for cash, souvenirs and video games.

Matt Taibbi points out that Chris Kyle's tally of dead Iraqis is not only bogus, but quite sinister if the number is true:

(The most disturbing passage in the book to me was the one where Kyle talked about being competitive with other snipers, and how when one in particular began to threaten his "legendary" number, Kyle "all of the sudden" seemed to have "every stinkin' bad guy in the city running across my scope." As in, wink wink, my luck suddenly changed when the sniper-race got close, get it? It's super-ugly stuff).

A better title for Kyle's book would be Killing Iraqis For Fun & Profit.

[Elfdart]

One thing I find curious is how similar Kyle's tall tales sound to those told about Carlos Hathcock (a Marine sniper in Vietnam) and Vasily Zaitsev (Soviet sniper in WW2). The hero is just so awesome at sniping that the villains offer a cash bounty for the hero's death and finally they send their own top gun to kill him. This always struck me as absurd. What are the odds of one sniper being able to hunt down and kill a particular sniper in the opposing army? It's not like any soldier -let alone a sniper- is going to make himself conspicuous like the Red Baron painting his fighter solid red. The Zaitsev -Konig/Thorvald "duel" has been pretty well debunked, and the story of Hathcock's joust with a Vietnamese sniper improved with each re-telling too (though not from Hathcock himself).

[Zinegata]

One thing I find curious is how similar Kyle's tall tales sound to those told about Carlos Hathcock (a Marine sniper in Vietnam) and Vasily Zaitsev (Soviet sniper in WW2). The hero is just so awesome at sniping that the villains offer a cash bounty for the hero's death and finally they send their own top gun to kill him. This always struck me as absurd. What are the odds of one sniper being able to hunt down and kill a particular sniper in the opposing army? It's not like any soldier -let alone a sniper- is going to make himself conspicuous like the Red Baron painting his fighter solid red. The Zaitsev -Konig/Thorvald "duel" has been pretty well debunked, and the story of Hathcock's joust with a Vietnamese sniper improved with each re-telling too (though not from Hathcock himself).

I've read the Konig/Zaitsev account in Enemy at the Gates - the book - and it's pretty clear even from that account that they never really confirmed if Konig was really an uber sniper or not; Zaitsev just shot a guy and they apparently decided he was some uber German sniper dude.

Hathcock's story I've not really looked at hard yet, but there's an awful lot of holes in his stories too based on just some preliminary googling; although some claim that was the author's work (Henderson) and not Hathcock.

For that matter, even the supposed all-time kill leader Simon Haya doesn't actually have a lot of supporting evidence either.

[Flagg]

So Chris Kyle was just a psychopathic compulsive liar. I've known guys like them. Like to call them "Storytellers" because the couple of them I've known will look at you right in the face while telling the most outlandish bullshit stories. Like the guy who was in a Soviet Gulag for 20 years because he got caught when his secret agent buddies and he managed to blow up a Soviet rail rocket launch system. He actually tried to tell me his fucking rheumatoid arthritis (I've seen enough of it to recognize it when it's bad, and his was pretty bad, I'll admit) was from the guards breaking his fingers, letting them heal, and then breaking them again. Oh, and he was caught so his fellows could escape making him the hero. It's classic.

[TheHammer]

So Chris Kyle was just a psychopathic compulsive liar. I've known guys like them. Like to call them "Storytellers" because the couple of them I've known will look at you right in the face while telling the most outlandish bullshit stories. Like the guy who was in a Soviet Gulag for 20 years because he got caught when his secret agent buddies and he managed to blow up a Soviet rail rocket launch system. He actually tried to tell me his fucking rheumatoid arthritis (I've seen enough of it to recognize it when it's bad, and his was pretty bad, I'll admit) was from the guards breaking his fingers, letting them heal, and then breaking them again. Oh, and he was caught so his fellows could escape making him the hero. It's classic.

You're awfully fucking assertive even when you don't know the facts aren't you? It seems the vast majority of these are merely "unverified" which isn't nearly the same as being "verified false". It also seems that a great many people are conflating the movie (which Chris Kyle did not write) with the book - from which there are several key differences.

I found a rather balanced, very readable accounting attempting to separate fact from fiction:
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelf ... an-sniper/

A few key details from the link above that I've seen espoused in this thread as being "unbelievable" are probably unbelievable because they were fabrications from the movie, and do not appear in the book.

One thing I find curious is how similar Kyle's tall tales sound to those told about Carlos Hathcock (a Marine sniper in Vietnam) and Vasily Zaitsev (Soviet sniper in WW2). The hero is just so awesome at sniping that the villains offer a cash bounty for the hero's death and finally they send their own top gun to kill him. This always struck me as absurd. What are the odds of one sniper being able to hunt down and kill a particular sniper in the opposing army? It's not like any soldier -let alone a sniper- is going to make himself conspicuous like the Red Baron painting his fighter solid red. The Zaitsev -Konig/Thorvald "duel" has been pretty well debunked, and the story of Hathcock's joust with a Vietnamese sniper improved with each re-telling too (though not from Hathcock himself).

Both of these are apparently fabrications and or exaggerations from the movie:


Is the enemy sniper Mustafa based on a real person?

Yes, but he holds far less significance in the book, at least in relation to Chris Kyle. In the movie, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) engages in a film-long pursuit of an enemy Syrian sniper named Mustafa (Sammy Sheik), whom the American soldiers refer to as "Kaiser F—in' Söze." In Kyle's autobiography, the enemy Iraqi sniper Mustafa is only mentioned in passing in a single paragraph. He is described as "an Olympics marksman who was using his skills against Americans and Iraqi police and soldiers."


Did Chris really kill the enemy sniper Mustafa?

No. In reality, Chris Kyle never actually encountered the enemy Iraqi sniper Mustafa, who he believes was killed by other U.S. snipers. Chris does make a 2,100-yard shot in the book, but it was to take out a random combatant on a rooftop who was about to fire an RPG at an Army convoy. "It was my longest confirmed kill in Iraq," writes Chris, "even longer than that shot in Fallujah."

Did the insurgents really put a bounty on Chris Kyle's head?

Yes, the insurgents put a $20,000 bounty on the heads of all snipers, not just Chris Kyle. The bounties did fluctuate and Kyle has stated that they went up to around $80,000. The movie raises the bounty on Kyle's head to a fictional $180,000. During an interview with Conan O'Brien, the real Chris Kyle makes the same joke about the bounty that Bradley Cooper's character makes in the movie, "Well, don't tell my wife. She might take that number right now."

So, there was no duel mention in his book and the enemy sniper got one reference in a lone paragraph. The Bounty was real, in so much as that there was a bounty on every sniper's head, not specifically Chris Kyle's, and I don't see any evidence that he ever asserted to the contrary.

The first and most important thing to realize is that Kyle was found to be lying about multiple statements. He in fact was found guilty of libel against Jesse Ventura - not a man known for his credibility - because his fellow SEALs testified against Kyle...

Did they testify against him? This article leads me to believe a great many of them actually supported his side of things:
http://www.startribune.com/local/267170441.html

I'm sure his court case was hurt by the fact that he wasn't there to be able to testify on his own behalf. But just because his estate lost the case doesn't mean it was conclusively false.

This is before we consider the fact that he also claims to have murdered two people in cold blood in Texas (in "self defense")...
...

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2013/0 ... n-in-2009/

Several of Kyle’s friends were familiar with the incident, and they had heard virtually the same story. After our talk, I called the police chiefs of several towns along 67. Most of them had heard of the incident. One, speaking only on background, said he knew some of his men had at least seen the tape. But request after request provided no police reports and no tape.

So while that incident is unconfirmed and perhaps disputed, it is hardly "conclusively false".

...and said he was shooting looters during Katrina. Those who say the latter is just a joke or a tall tale would be well reminded that America just went through a couple of riots because of the possibility that police may have shot unarmed black men. Here we have a US Army sniper claiming the government authorized him to murder looters in cold blood.

Apparently, Kyle told the story to some Navy SEAL buddies as they were hanging out drinking in his San Diego hotel room one night in early 2012. A few of them in turn relayed the story to the writer of The New Yorker article. Kyle had told them that in 2005, he and another sniper went to New Orleans during Katrina and picked off thirty looters from the top of the Superdome.

You have a second hand accounting of a story Kyle supposedly told his buddies while drinking. A story that Kyle was never asked about, and didn't appear in his book. And this is viewed as evidence that he was lying? It's extremely likely that it was a joke, or he was pulling his buddy's legs. You don't know the context of the conversation, and as a second hand accounting details would already be sketchy to begin with.

Regarding specifics about his war record, you need to do more homework as to what's valid and what isn't. His official Silver Star recommendation credits him with 90 kills, which you question but you do so with no evidence aside from your own suspicions. Questioning is fine, drawing a conclusion from the question is not.

To be clear, I'm not saying he was a saint, or that there aren't questions. Is his kill count over-estimated? Possibly, I don't think we've gotten a conclusive answer yet. Are other accounts embellished or outright made up? Possibly, but at present they are merely unverified. As I noted in another thread, these accounts are often fraught with exaggerations and fabrications and you're free to question anything that sounds questionable and ask for evidence. But any of you who jumped my ass because I "dared question the sacred testimony of a Gitmo detainee" - that means YOU in particular Flagg who are on the "Chris Kyle is definitely a liar!" bandwagon without any evidence to support it are fucking hypocrites.

He very well could have been a "psychopathic killer", and "pathological liar" but I've seen nothing in the way of actual evidence to support that. I just see a lot of people wanting to push an agenda.

[Zinegata]

I found a rather balanced, very readable accounting attempting to separate fact from fiction:
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelf ... an-sniper/

A few key details from the link above that I've seen espoused in this thread as being "unbelievable" are probably unbelievable because they were fabrications from the movie, and do not appear in the book.

You really need to realize that I already looked at articles like these and found them to be very shallow, hence the in-depth digging of the Ramadi case.

Yes, the insurgents put a $20,000 bounty on the heads of all snipers, not just Chris Kyle. The bounties did fluctuate and Kyle has stated that they went up to around $80,000. The movie raises the bounty on Kyle's head to a fictional $180,000. During an interview with Conan O'Brien, the real Chris Kyle makes the same joke about the bounty that Bradley Cooper's character makes in the movie, "Well, don't tell my wife. She might take that number right now."[/i]

Michael Fumento disagrees. There was apparently no bounty at all, and he was an embed in Ramadi in that period.

Did they testify against him? This article leads me to believe a great many of them actually supported his side of things:
http://www.startribune.com/local/267170441.html

I'm sure his court case was hurt by the fact that he wasn't there to be able to testify on his own behalf. But just because his estate lost the case doesn't mean it was conclusively false.

Note I said that "his fellow SEALs" testified against him. Two of the four witnesses interviewed in that article were SEALs, but both admit not being at the incident and simply being told by Kyle his version of the events. The two who claim to actually be present were not SEALs.

I highly doubt that him not being able to testify changed matters at all; if anything that should have created an environment of sympathy. Instead what it seems is that the judge believed all the other witnesses instead of guys who just claim to have heard the story from Kyle.

So while that incident is unconfirmed and perhaps disputed, it is hardly "conclusively false".

If it's not false then Kyle did kill people and got away with it. You realize this is worse than the tale being a tall tale, yes?

You have a second hand accounting of a story Kyle supposedly told his buddies while drinking. A story that Kyle was never asked about, and didn't appear in his book. And this is viewed as evidence that he was lying? It's extremely likely that it was a joke, or he was pulling his buddy's legs. You don't know the context of the conversation, and as a second hand accounting details would already be sketchy to begin with.

Again, even if you use a tall tale excuse you are talking about unsanctioned murder of American citizens - and let's face it, the implication of Katrina looters being black people - in a country that just endured Ferguson. Again, how is this in any way responsible behavior to begin with?

Regarding specifics about his war record, you need to do more homework as to what's valid and what isn't. His official Silver Star recommendation credits him with 90 kills, which you question but you do so with no evidence aside from your own suspicions. Questioning is fine, drawing a conclusion from the question is not.

This is classic SS fanfiction fanboy argumentation. The standard of evidence isn't to prove that Kyle didn't score 160 kills. The standard is that he should have proved the 160 kills first.

First of all, "confirmed" kills means nothing. Again, US Special Forces command does not acknowledge them. They are unofficial. "Confirmed", if you had done any homework, only means, "the sniper and one other witness a body fall to the ground". It does not require producing bodies or having a higher superior witness the kills.

Second, again there is a book about the SEAL's battle in Ramadi - "The Sheriff of Ramadi" - which covers the entirety of Kyle's deployment there and beyond. In that book, the SEALs are claimed to have killed 300-400 of the enemy in total. This means for the Silver Star citation to be true, 1/3 to 1/4 of all enemies killed by the SEALs were solo'd by Chris Kyle.

Yet the book doesn't mention Kyle even once. There are plenty of other SEALs mentioned, but not the guy who supposedly bagged 1/3 of their kills in just 5 of 24 months! Add to that we have Fumento, who embedded with the SEALs in Ramadi, who also did not corroborate the Silver Star and instead said the man was a loser who kept making up tall tales.

That's a massive hole in the record, and again it's increasingly clear that Kyle made it all up at best or worse was engaging in his Katrina fantasy and was gunning down innocent people.

I've been collecting further research on the topic (which I'm compiling for a second parter), and really while the second bit is currently speculation, I've gotten accounts from other snipers who said that the rules of engagement Kyle described was bullshit. If Kyle had shot a woman and child and it turned out they had no weapons, he would have gotten off scott free. In particular, there's an incident wherein the snipers were ordered by an intelligence officer to shoot up an armed Iraq truck column - even though the Iraqis clearly saw them and were not showing any outward signs of hostility. The sniper refused to fire but the intelligence officer kept ordering to fire, until someone on the ground panicked and finally opened up. A bloody firefight ensued and in the aftermath it emerged they had in fact shot up the bodyguard of the local governor. The intelligence officer, quite contrary to Kyle's assertion that he'll fry in Leavenworth if they got it wrong, got away without even a reprimand.

Quite simply, Kyle is just the poster boy of the growing problem of the "culture of impunity" that is now afflicting the US military. Nobody wants to question the blatantly obvious holes in the story for fear of denigrating "heroes". What people don't realize that this is in fact militarism - you're holding the military at a looser moral standard than everyone else - and is not a good trend. And there are former and current military men taking advantage of this - I mean how many SEALs have come forward to claim they killed Bin Laden? Aren't there like 3 of them now? And why are almost all news outlets using the words "confirmed" kill count when they are all in fact just copying the figure off Kyle's book?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Man, it is not at all surprising that TheHammer decided to wade into the thread to defend Kyle. That might be the most predictable thing that's happened all week.

As I noted in another thread, these accounts are often fraught with exaggerations and fabrications and you're free to question anything that sounds questionable and ask for evidence. But any of you who jumped my ass because I "dared question the sacred testimony of a Gitmo detainee" - that means YOU in particular Flagg who are on the "Chris Kyle is definitely a liar!" bandwagon without any evidence to support it are fucking hypocrites.

You are drawing a false equivalence. The reason people were jumping on you in that thread isn't because people wanted to unquestioningly accept random unverified anecdotes about Gitmo; everything the detainee said was corroborated by other accounts of what was going on at Gitmo, and as some people pointed out in that thread it didn't even really matter if that particular detainee was exaggerating because we have endless evidence of the terrible things that have gone on there anyway. In the case of Kyle, we have his random unverified anecdotes that are NOT corroborated by other sources and evidence as was the case for the Gitmo detainee. And, naturally, you decide you want to accept THESE stories, because clearly they are not as farfetched as that crazy Ay-rab's Gitmo nonsense, right? You are the one being a hypocrite here with respect to what you consider burden of proof.

[Thanas]

If this thread descends into another "no no, let us not discuss this, let's dicusss GITMO again" derail I will temp-ban the people involved.

[Flagg]

Well, now we know TheHammer has a vendetta against me since he jumped right on me, not on every other poster on the board who agrees with me that Chris Kyle was a completely unrepentant psychopath who got his jollies by killing "savages" (Iraqis).
In the past (and I assume in the book as well, I refuse to read ghostwritten anything, let alone manifestos) he's lied about almost being carjacked by 2 black guys (what a shock that they are black) before drawing on them with incredible speed and dropping them both with 2 headshots before they knew what had happened. He claims that the cops (or Rangers, whatever, they're the delusions of a psychopath) came and took his report and blah blah blah Chris Kyle so good and strong hero!
Of course when multiple (meaning like, every) newspaper of note decided they wanted to see the police report because man, that Kyle guy is one hell of an American hero, am I right? Of course since the incident never happened, there is no police report of it happening. Anywhere. And no big evil head-shotted black people were in any ME's office, funeral parlor, or crematorium. So unless all of the evidence of this event was raptured up when he got his head blown off, Chris Kyle is a proven liar [/I]without even including the whole "Post Katrina Superdome" thing where he claims to have shot countless filthy ni- err looters from atop the Superdome. Yeah...

And since you've already chosen to ignore the fact that Chris Kyle blatantly lied according to almost everyone involved about slugging Ventura, something that he never did to the tune of what was it? $1.5 million? You really think a judge and/or jury is going to award someone who got punched in the nose for badmouthing SEALs (especially since he is one, and I don't give a flying fuck that they were called something else at the time) when he not only is a SEAL, he's known for doing a lot of good work for returning SEALs and soldiers in general (as opposed to therapy by firing range) IIRC. You can claim there's tape and every cop in Texas knows THE TRUTH, but since this is an incident used to prove a pattern of deceit in the Ventura trial, you'd think all of those great outstanding Texan Angels to send a copy of that and the police report to the poor Widow Kyle's defense team. But you know, it never happened, so...

[Elfdart]

Actually, Kyle's defense team fought tooth and nail to keep his bullshit stories about Katrina and the Cleburne carjackers out of the trial and the judge agreed. Trying to defend one pack of lies in a defamation case was already more than they could handle.

[Adam Reynolds]

Matt Taibbi points out that Chris Kyle's tally of dead Iraqis is not only bogus, but quite sinister if the number is true:

His article made another interesting point about the fact that most modern Hollywood portrayals of wars never show any trace of politics. When we see one that tries, like 2010's Green Zone by Paul Greengrass, it doesn't do very well as it seems to vilify American Soldiers, a complete non-starter.

This tweet is one of my favorite summaries of what is wrong with this film: "I saw American Sniper last night, and frankly if someone is a hero for murdering over 160 people, the term hero has lost all meaning."

This point from Slate is interesting with regard to the idea from the movie about Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs. The short version is that most people are sheep, productive members of society. A much smaller number are wolves, with a capacity for violence and no empathy for fellow citizens. Then there is the sheepdog, the true warrior, who combines the capacity for violence with a deep love for one's fellow citizens and looks to defend the sheep from wolves. However there is the obvious problem with that logic.

In reality, some sheepdogs act an awful lot like the wolves. Take Jimmy Lewis Fennell, Jr., a police officer who was convicted of committing sexual assault on duty. If he’s not a wolf, then who is? And how does a sheepdog handle that threat?
...
After leaving his service as a Navy SEAL and publishing his memoir, Chris Kyle started mentoring other veterans with PTSD. As the movie mentions in its conclusion, Chris Kyle was killed by another veteran, a Marine. Are Marines not sheepdogs? Or did Kyle’s killer turn into a wolf? Most importantly, as the analogy goes, why couldn’t Kyle tell the difference?

Because the analogy is simplistic, and in its simplicity, dangerous. It divides the world into black and white, into a good-versus-evil struggle that the real world doesn’t match. We aren’t divided into sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. We are all humans.

[Zinegata]

You guys do realize the sheep, sheepdog, and wolf analogy was wholly stolen from David Grossman, right? And that Grossman in fact specifically said that being a sheepdog is merely a choice and that does not give him any moral superiority over the sheep?

[madd0ct0r]

A link to Grossman's writing, in case anyone feels the need to pleasure themselves by confrontation http://www.killology.com/sheep_dog.htm

I still think Slate is correct in saying the metaphor is simplistic, and in that simplicity, dangerous. It's just mil-wank industrial complex wearing a sheen of philosophy. Next they'll be referring to the UK as a nation of shopkeepers...