With the Oscar-nominated action movie American Sniper raising controversy around the country due to a questionable presentation of the facts surrounding the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan, rapper Immortal Technique spoke with HipHopDX about the issue leading up to the award ceremony.
Technique, who beginning in 2008 helped establish an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan, offered a countering perspective to what he hinted is a glorified and unfair depiction of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The story of American Sniper is not a truthful story about a guy,” Immortal Technique said. “Obviously a lot of the things are edited out about the horrific reality of coming home from the war and being ripped apart by it. But it also goes to show, ‘Hey, I can justify killing this child.’ So that when you hear about kids dying in a battle field, you don’t feel as hurt or shocked by it because you can think to yourself, ‘Man, they were trying to blow up US soldier with grenades. That means that they should’ve been shot in the fucking head. It’s okay to shoot them. That’s what we do with people like that.’ Unfortunately, this is the logic we’re confronted with, which is why terrorism is so frightening to people because that’s what’s not supposed to happen. Those kids that got shot up in Connecticut, people were terrified by that. Why? Because it wasn’t supposed to happen. But no one is terrified by a child in Yemen or a child in Afghanistan or Pakistan getting blown apart by a drone because that’s supposed to happen over there. That’s what you’ve been conditioned to think. And for the people who are ignorant and say, ‘Well of course, that’s what happens in a war zone.’ Sure. And we made it a war zone. And the places that we visit become even worse war zones. We don’t cure anything. We just make it worst with militarization.”
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