What it’s like to be a sniper in an unpopular war

In democracies the principle is ostensibly that wars are ordered by leaders voted into office by the people, but the act of killing is almost exclusively carried out by soldiers. In Remembrance: The Sniper, an anonymous UK sniper ponders the disjunctures between the ‘craft’ of sharpshooting, the psychological impact of killing an enemy target, and questions of responsibility when a government sends its soldiers into an unpopular war. Paired with scenes shot in a weapons factory, the sniper’s reflections leave a haunting impression of a society bound to warfare without understanding why.