re: American Sniper movie discussion thread (No book talk, no political bickering)

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I didn't read the book but what I probably think happened is that Kyle and his buddies created the myth of Mustafa. There would be no way to know it was actually him in most of those engagements. I'm sure there was some real Intel that there was a Syrian guy running around who was really good but they probably buit him up in their heads more than anything. Like the guy giving the brief before the final mission said

"He can be whoever the frick you need him to be. Just get him."

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There was a legend running around in my area of a Saddam-era field grade officer (I want to say a major) who was trained by the East Germans (and that's not too far-fetched - I ran into a lot of officers who were trained by/in the DDR) who was just deadly as frick. There was legitimately an insurgent who had a head shot on an American soldier from 500+ meters while he was moving. Whether or not it was actually this particular guy, who the hell knows. A lot of this stuff got started by local sheiks so that we'd pay more attention to their areas and bring them more money and power.

Concerning the movie, I thought it was superb. I more or less will cop to agreeing with Paul Rieckhoff's take in Variety - it is easily the best and most accurate Iraq film made yet, even if I don't jibe with Kyle's worldview (or Eastwood's take on the book). They screwed up the Marine tactics in Tour 1, but other than that, I don't have too many qualms. I was in the area that Tour 4 took place in quite a bit, and they got the look and feel of that place about as close as I could imagine any movie ever getting other than a documentary.