Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, a movie about Chris Kyle, the Navy Seal who claimed to have killed more than 250 people, has been nominated for six Oscars. It has broken box-office records. Warner Brothers is calling the film a cultural phenomenon.

As a war resister, I felt somewhat of a duty to run out and see the film so I could write a scathing review. I was expecting to only add to the string of antiwar reviews that have condemned American Sniper for misrepresenting the true Chris Kyle, ignoring history, perpetuating Muslim stereotypes, denying the full range of experiences of American soldiers who have fought in Iraq, and inspiring reams of reactionary and racist responses to the film.

And American Sniper deserves every bit of criticism the Left throws at it. But the film’s racism and enthusiastic support for American empire shouldn’t blind us to its lessons about the sociological and ideological factors that have allowed the US to stay at war for fourteen years with at least the partial support of an all-volunteer military.