ABSTRACT
American Sniper shows the trigger man, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, as fighting an epic crusade against evildoing Muslims, who in the case of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Sources of blowback thus include not only violence against Muslim nations and communities regularly perpetrated by the United States and Israel, but strong disenchantment felt by Muslim populations across Europe and North America. If blowback takes multiple expressions—terrorism, insurgency, sabotage, rogue operations—its origins are concentrated mainly in one source: U. S. imperial power. Since 9/11 there have been few American politicians or officials able to grasp the cycle of militarism and terrorism, imperial assault, and jihadic resistance that presently shapes international politics. Consistent with the narrative of American Sniper, "terrorism" will always be the work of evildoers bereft of humanity, of natural motives and desires.
