Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura ratcheted up his rhetoric against Chris Kyle, the subject of the widely cheered “American Sniper” movie, suggesting that the now-deceased U.S. Navy SEAL was hardly the hero that he’s painted — that if you think about it, even the Nazis had heroes.
“A hero should have honor,” Mr. Ventura said during an interview on Fox News Radio with Alan Colmes. “A hero is not how many people you’ve killed. You know he’s obviously a great sniper. He’s obviously a great shot. He obviously did his job correctly. Alan, let me fire this one at you: Do you think the Nazis have heroes?”
Mr. Colmes said the Nazis fought for a cause “we can’t condone,” the transcript of the interview stated.
And Mr. Ventura’s reply: “Wait. Wait. Wait. When they invaded a country, when they invaded Poland, when they invaded France and if a Nazi soldier killed a hundred people that had lived there, would he be classified a hero in Germany?”
Mr. Colmes then asked is he was comparing the Nazi conquests with the U.S. missions in war.
“Well what I’m stating is we invaded Iraq, we were not asked in. We invaded a country, we overthrew its government, and then we killed people that lived there,” Mr. Ventura said.
Mr. Colmes: “Are we analogous to the Nazis?”
Mr. Ventura: “Well, and the communists, yeah.”
This isn’t the first time Mr. Ventura has taken public shots at Kyle. He called the sniper a “liar” and not a “hero” in recent weeks, sparking widespread backlash from military supporters, movie watchers and others.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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