Evening at a backwoods shooting range

Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL revered as a national hero was worth more dead than alive, financially and politically. Martyred, murdered by a former US Marine, or so we assume, his political capital is soaring as Americans relearn love of bravado and swagger and, as is so often the case, embrace mythology and outright lies.

As the trial continues, the narrative becomes more and more fanciful, two heroes gunned down while armed to the teeth, country boys at a millionaire’s dude ranch, a killer who shoots, gets tacos, and moves right on with life.  Nothing wrong here, not so far, happens every day.

Living or dead, there was little truth behind Chris Kyle, now a Hollywood “golden calf” and poster boy for more wars, for torture, a poster boy for indecency.

The murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh, the admitted killer of Chris Kyle, the self-proclaimed “most lethal killer in history,” begins this week. Kyle, portrayed in the blockbuster film, American Sniper, is portrayed by Bradley Cooper. Kyle’s death is left out of the film and perhaps for good reason. It is very likely that Kyle, killed by Routh, an Adam Lanza clone, was murdered simply to shut him up.

Dead, Kyle is a key asset supporting America’s illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cleanses the filth from the Bush name, as Jeb plans his run for the American presidency.

The American Sniper phenomena is surprising. There is enough “out there” to trash Kyle already. His “aw shucks” demeanor on TV appearances had been overshadowed by his nearly endless fabrications.

Every time Kyle opened his mouth, he put his foot in it, from his wild claim of beating up former governor of Minnesota and professional wrestler, Jesse Ventura to stories about killing looters in New Orleans or “street thugs” trying to steal his car.  Perhaps Kyle had seen Ventura with Alex Jones?

None of these stories stood up under scrutiny.

The Gun Range

We were told Kyle was shot at a gun range. I immediately pictured where I shoot, a wooden bench on a state sponsored range with paper targets stapled to stacks of tires. Actually, it wasn’t just Kyle but Kyle and Chad Littlefield that were killed, on what we were told was place on Kyle’s farm that he set up to test out his guns. This was the story released to the press, not a word of it was true.

What they didn’t mention that this wasn’t a simple shooting range but a “dude ranch” for millionaire big game hunters who pay to kill exotic animals raised by hand and flown in. We didn’t see a giraffe on the list but, who knows? The lake is stocked with fish of every kind though divers probably don’t catch them and put them on your hook.

An hour from Dallas, home of George W. Bush, his private suite at the Rough Creek Resort and Lodge, where Kyle was actually killed, is available to anyone who can afford it. Mind you, this isn’t the only “presidential suite” at “Rough Creek.”

“President George H.W. Bush Suite
Our Presidential suite is the grandest of our suites at 1,343 square feet. This suite includes a large living area with a Bose system, LCD HDTV, DVD player and 1 ½ bathrooms. The over-sized Master bathroom is totally luxurious with soaking tub and large stone shower. There is a King bed in the Master Bedroom, a dining area that features a billiards table that can be converted to a dining table that seats eight people and and adjoining library. If needed, this suite will open up into two additional private guestroom rooms (there is an additional charge to have one or both adjoining rooms).”

We wonder if Kyle and his friends had lunch first, prepared by internationally renowned chef, Gerard Thompson:

“Chef Thompson’s talents and culinary interpretations of rustic American and wild game cuisine have garnered national attention, and his philosophy is simple… “Make the meal memorable.”

Imaginative menus featuring the absolute best ingredients are created daily. Tomatoes grown specifically for Rough Creek, locally grown organic micro-greens and specialty products like fresh grits from a small Alabama mill all reflect Gerard’s detail-driven style. He’s received superlative reviews nationally by the Zagat Survey, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, and Food & Wine, and recently was awarded a perfect score from the North American Restaurant Association.”

The resort is complete with a 5 star restaurant, a water park, tennis court, ready for its normal clientele, oil and defense executives and politicians. This was no “shooting range” and certainly not somewhere unsupervised. This is also somewhere with extensive HD video security, particularly on the shooting range, the kind of video security that never filmed Adam Lanza, the reputed Sandy Hook shooter, who also supposedly frequented this kind of establishment.

Could Rough Creek be where deals are cut, such as planning security drills for the Boston Marathon?

Unlikely Scenario

At any shooting range, particularly where amateurs and “posers” shoot, and this was very much such a place, there are very strict rules, strict supervision and, of course, everything is on video as required by insurance.

At such a range, an amateur shooter with a jammed pistol or, worse yet, an “empty gun” will often as not turn pointing the weapon dangerously at others. This is expected. Anyone suspect, either from medication or idiocy or both is carefully watched and incidents, on purpose or by “accident” are the rule, not the exception.

If you turn with a loaded weapon and try to point it at a Navy SEAL, the likelihood you will retain the weapon and still be standing are remote. Strict rules, common sense and the awareness of a PTSD combat vet, and Chris Kyle was certainly that, would make him an impossible target for an assailant.  Chris Kyle and his raging PTSD would, by our estimation, make him a very poor target, thus our belief in the scenario at the trial is unlikely.

There is nothing whatsoever that can be believed about the cover story here.  No one turns his back on an unreliable stranger…or even a friend…at a shooting range, not a chance, never happened.

The Patsy

Our shooter, Eddie Ray Routh, a PTSD veteran, 3 names like so many other killers, too many to count, is by accounts a long-term chemically “modified” patsy. On a minimum of 8 medications including several powerful anti-psychotics, Routh has a well-established and convenient history of threatening himself and others with guns.  I no more believe Kyle turned his back on this armed nutcase than the story about smacking down Jesse “the body” Ventura.

Routh had been diagnosed disabled with PTSD and had been under treatment by government psychiatrists. The medications he was on, he and thousands of other veterans, are cited as being a “lethal cocktail,” one as likely to bring on murderous attacks and suicide as to cure PTSD.

At least 40% of American combat troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were on the same medications leading inexorably to not only high suicide rates but even higher rates of battlefield abuses, torture, mass murder and criminality on an unimaginable scale.

In Afghanistan, mass graves have been discovered with thousands of bodies, dead of suffocation while in joint US/Northern Alliance custody. Wild parties, “dancing boys” and drug use are a legacy of the mixed “warrior-contractor” regime American now fights its wars with, a legacy Kyle was steeped it from the first.

In a scene from American Sniper, Bradley Cooper, portraying Kyle, is tearfully forced to kill an Afghan mother, child in hand, supposedly threatening American Marines with a hand grenade. A grenade with a 5 second fuse, tossed a few feet at heavily armored troops in the open is relatively harmless. Marines are known to throw grenades at each other as jokes.

As the scene is described by Kyle in a BBC interview, it could as easily have been interpreted as a woman approaching Marines under very different circumstances; “My son found this, please take it from me, it looks very dangerous.”

If the Marines nearby chose not to shoot her, why would Kyle, hundreds of yards away? In the interview, Kyle said he was afraid politicians would charge him with murder? Could this be why?

Confirmed Kills

This week, a British sniper came forward claiming he has more “confirmed kills.” Marine sniper from Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock, though claiming to have “confirmed” only 93 kills is believed to have killed hundreds.

Kyle claims that every time he shot someone he received authorization and had witnesses at hand. One wonders how, exactly, a witness would see a “kill” in the middle of the night viewed through a light amplification scope costing over a hundred thousand dollars?

How would someone see a “kill” over a kilometer away, a normal range for today’s “any idiot can use one” sniper rifles?

Then again, claiming to have killed hundreds of people, in each case supposedly “authorized kills” based on the targets being “armed” brings to light a nasty contradiction. You see, in Iraq and Afghanistan, each family is allowed to have one weapon, usually an AK 47. This is the law.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Afghanis and Iraqis received those weapons from the United States, over 2.5 million were distributed to military, police and auxiliaries and militias. In Afghanistan alone, 250,000 AK 47 rifles paid for by American taxpayers simply disappeared.

What was common practice in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as exposed by Julian Assange back in 2010, is the use of drones, Apache helicopters, and yes, snipers, to rack up impressive numbers of “kills” that are often as not armed civilians or, too often simply families gathering for weddings or funerals. By America’s own admission, 62% of casualties were “collateral damage.” For snipers the percentage might well be higher with no mechanism in place for accountability.

In fact, many of those reporting such crimes, according to Mohmand Khadir, former Mujahedin commander in a recent article in Veterans Today, were themselves killed or imprisoned in retaliation.

Chris Kyle had little to worry about.

Conclusion

Chris Kyle was reputedly killed at a millionaire resort a short drive from Dallas, Texas. Such gathering places, frequented by the Bush family, Supreme Court justices, leaders of congress and industry, are breeding grounds for conspiracy. The murder of John F. Kennedy was likely planned at such a place as was 9/11.

Wars are planned in such places as well. Poor “country boy” Chris Kyle, “flavor of the day” killer, would have been popular among the “chickenhawk” elitists, who love collecting special operations types as “novelties.”

Was Kyle being groomed for bigger and better things or was he simply killed for the obvious reason, to create a martyr and cultural folk hero to cleanse America of its conscience? Was Kyle’s killing really an accident, an overmedicated homicidal PTSD vet or was this something else, time to get rid of Kyle before he buried himself in lies?

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”