On Feb 2, 2015, mastermindreader wrote:
My biggest problem with Kyle is the admitted enjoyment he got out of killing people. Killing people is sometimes necessary, particularly in war time, but it isn't something I'd consider fun in ANY circumstances.

On Feb 2, 2015, landmark wrote:
I don't know if I'll make it past page 6. Pathetic.

On Feb 2, 2015, mastermindreader wrote:
My biggest problem with Kyle is the admitted enjoyment he got out of killing people. Killing people is sometimes necessary, particularly in war time, but it isn't something I'd consider fun in ANY circumstances.

On Feb 2, 2015, acesover wrote:
I believe we all know what "Poetic License" is. Having said that maybe he should have said Fulfilling rather than fun.

I doubt that Chris while a gifted maraksman under pressure. I do not believe he was also a gifted writer. If one reads the cover of his book you will notice two additional names. That of Jim DeFelice and Scott McEwen.


While I did not research these two individuals I would imagine they helped Kris write the book. Probably they wrote most of it by putting his thoughts and memories to the page. Just something to consider..

On Feb 2, 2015, MaxfieldsMagic wrote:
So why were the Good Friday agreements so heavily predicated on the IRA giving up its cache of arms? Were they referring to baseball bats and bombs? No, the "cache" referred to firearms. What about all of the "knee-capping" incidents that were done with bullets?

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As for your second point, Northern Ireland was not, still is not, an ethnically homogeneous population. There are three distinct ethnic groups up there. They share white skin, but are ethnically different.

No need to comment on that. If that's your position, you have no idea what racial and ethnic diversity and tolerance is. Spend some time in the USA to see the experiment of true diversity play out in reality. We're still struggling with it, yes, but we've come farther than any other country. We don't outlaw minarets, head scarves, or any of the other bugaboos that Europe seems to be struggling with.

Chris Kyle, of Gaelic surname descent, fought for those ideals. When he referred to "savages," he was passing judgement on behaviors and personal choices. Were you there and can you say he was wrong?

On Feb 3, 2015, TonyB2009 wrote:

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On Feb 2, 2015, acesover wrote:
I believe we all know what "Poetic License" is. Having said that maybe he should have said Fulfilling rather than fun.

I doubt that Chris while a gifted maraksman under pressure. I do not believe he was also a gifted writer. If one reads the cover of his book you will notice two additional names. That of Jim DeFelice and Scott McEwen.


While I did not research these two individuals I would imagine they helped Kris write the book. Probably they wrote most of it by putting his thoughts and memories to the page. Just something to consider..

I have ghosted a number of celebrity and non-celebrity biographies. The ghost writers did not help Kyle write the book, they wrote it in its entirety, and he signed off on it. That's how it works. They would have spend days interviewing him at exhaustive length, and they would have distilled his words, attitudes and turns of phrase onto the page. They would also have toned down his attitudes considerably to make them palatable to the public. Then they would have gone over the book page by page with him. I know this because I have done it. If Kyle's book says he was happy to kill 'savages' we know he signed off on that, and it is how he felt. Not how his ghosts felt (though they may well have agreed with his anti-everyone else attitudes).

On Feb 3, 2015, TonyB2009 wrote:

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On Feb 2, 2015, MaxfieldsMagic wrote:
So why were the Good Friday agreements so heavily predicated on the IRA giving up its cache of arms? Were they referring to baseball bats and bombs? No, the "cache" referred to firearms. What about all of the "knee-capping" incidents that were done with bullets?

Quote:

As for your second point, Northern Ireland was not, still is not, an ethnically homogeneous population. There are three distinct ethnic groups up there. They share white skin, but are ethnically different.

No need to comment on that. If that's your position, you have no idea what racial and ethnic diversity and tolerance is. Spend some time in the USA to see the experiment of true diversity play out in reality. We're still struggling with it, yes, but we've come farther than any other country. We don't outlaw minarets, head scarves, or any of the other bugaboos that Europe seems to be struggling with.

Chris Kyle, of Gaelic surname descent, fought for those ideals. When he referred to "savages," he was passing judgement on behaviors and personal choices. Were you there and can you say he was wrong?

On your first point, the reason the Good Friday Agreement took the guns out of circulation is that you do not want armed paramilitaries roaming the streets, ready to resume violence if they do not get their way. You cannot confiscate bombs in the same way. Looking around my kitchen I could find enough to make a very effective bomb and take out a dozen people, with only a basic knowledge of chemistry.

Bombs were used for the majority of the killings. Guns were used for fund-raising. Armed robberies, etc. As well as a portion of the killing. But they were very tangible, so they were easy to take out of circulation. You cannot take bombs out of circulation unless you are going to ban sugar, fertiliser, parafin, and all the other things we can blow up. A terrorist bomb is not like a US Army bomb, neatly packaged and factory made. That is one of the reasons the Good Friday Agreement focused on guns. They also included grenades and rockets in the arms ban, by the way.

As for your other point, we all applaud the success of merging ethnically diverse groups in America. Although there are wobbles and issues, as a whole that has been very successful, and is great to see. Many areas of Europe (the UK for example) are similarly ethnically diverse with all groups mixing and working together. I think we can all agree that is what we should be aiming for.

My point about Northern Ireland was simply that there are three ethnic groups there, as distinct as Shiite and Sunni. They don't look different, just like a Shiite and a Sunni don't look different. But they came from different parts of Europe, they have different religious and cultural backgrounds, and they are ethnically distinct. Now they get on in harmony. If you accept that Shiite and Sunni are ethnically distinct, you have to concede the same point to the people of Northern Ireland. The country was colonised in the 1600s and that is the result.

Lobowolf, as you rightly pointed out Nevil Chamberlain did not do well talking to Hitler. I am not saying that talking to our 'enemies' always works. It can fail. But it does sometimes work, and should not be dismissed. And passive resistance to Hitler saved many hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives in France, Italy and other European nations.

Finally, Chris Kyle took pleasure in shooting an Iraqi woman, maintaining she was a savage whose soul was worth less than an American soul. Yet he was the one occupying her country, preventing her people having self-determination, and imposing their will by armed force. Who was the savage in reality? From her point of view she was fighting an occupying force who had stolen her country.

I am not condoning what Iraqi people do to American troops. But we have to at least acknowledge that they can justify themselves just as easily as their American opponents.

On Feb 3, 2015, acesover wrote:
While you may have helped write some. I doubt you ever helped such a works as this. Yes he signed off on it but he signed off on it because he was told it was what will work and it will sell. Again you have not addressed poetic license. I am definitely not berating your capabilities as a writer but I doubt you could have done the job the two people have done as it is what they do for a living. You can also direct a home video but that does not make you a Spielberg.

Yea we know he signed off on the book. He is not an editor. When advised by professionals as to what will work you go with the flow. Obviously they were correct because of the sales of said book and now the movie. They just may know something you don't. If Chris tells you to hold the crosshairs of the rifle a foot above the head of your target you should listen to him because HE KNOWS. There are experts in every field. If they say leave the word "fun" in you should probably listen to them. But yea he signed off on it.

On Feb 3, 2015, TonyB2009 wrote:

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On Feb 3, 2015, acesover wrote:
While you may have helped write some. I doubt you ever helped such a works as this. Yes he signed off on it but he signed off on it because he was told it was what will work and it will sell. Again you have not addressed poetic license. I am definitely not berating your capabilities as a writer but I doubt you could have done the job the two people have done as it is what they do for a living. You can also direct a home video but that does not make you a Spielberg.

Yea we know he signed off on the book. He is not an editor. When advised by professionals as to what will work you go with the flow. Obviously they were correct because of the sales of said book and now the movie. They just may know something you don't. If Chris tells you to hold the crosshairs of the rifle a foot above the head of your target you should listen to him because HE KNOWS. There are experts in every field. If they say leave the word "fun" in you should probably listen to them. But yea he signed off on it.

I haven't helped write some. I have fully written many. For four of the big six publishing houses worldwide, for books that have hit the bestseller list. Some of the books have been politically sensitive. In this field I am one of the experts. And I can tell you the word 'fun' did not come from the ghosts. It came from Kyle. And I strongly suspect they toned down his attitudes, as I would have done. That's the way the ghosting process works.

They did not put words in his mouth. What he said about finding killing fun was not a marketing ploy, but what he actually felt.

On Feb 1, 2015, balducci wrote:
An American sniper who served in Iraq speaks:

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/01/i_was_an......_my_war/

On Feb 3, 2015, mastermindreader wrote:
Aces- So which parts of the book should we believe and which parts are just "marketing ploys?"

On Feb 3, 2015, mastermindreader wrote:
Aces- So which parts of the book should we believe and which parts are just "marketing ploys?"