April 30, 2005
Thirty Years Later
Gabriel Kolko writes that:
There are so many obvious parallels with their futile projects in Iraq and Afghanistan today, and the lessons are so clear, that we have to conclude that successive administrations in Washington have no capacity whatsoever to learn from past errors. Total defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago should have been a warning to the U.S.: wars are too complicated for any nation, even the most powerful, to undertake without grave risk. They are not simply military exercises in which equipment and firepower is decisive, but political, ideological, and economic challenges also. The events of South Vietnam 30 years ago should have proven that. It did not.
But the historical blindness, and mind-boggling hypocrisy, extends beyond Presidential Administrations, verily permeating the entire culture. Consider:
Results 1 - 10 of about 121,000 for "liberation of iraq" (0.22 seconds).
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,140 for "liberation of vietnam" (0.51 seconds).
And it's not just that the Iraq war, being more current, is simply a much bigger story than is Vietnam: a search for "fall of baghdad" yields 114,000 pages. So, logically, a search for "fall of saigon" should yield about 2,000 results if that were the case, but instead turns up 71,500 pages.
Even more telling, perhaps, is the following:
Battlefield Vietnam is a very popular, very well-reviewed videogame, which has even spawned a loyal "community".
While the blowhards in the FCC are going apeshit over Janet Jackson's nipple, war games are all the rage. But, can you imagine the apoplexy that would result in a "Battlefield America" game in which the player takes on the role of an Islamic Jihadist, and whose objective is to successfully carry out suicide bombings throughout the United States? Or a "Battlefield Europe" game in which the player takes on the role of a grunt in the Nazi army, and whose objective is to finally be able to conquer England and Russia, and to be able to complete the "final solution"?
(In fact, if anybody reading this has any graphics and/or web-design skillz, get in touch. It would be interesting to create a mock advertisment and companion website for the aforementioned "Battlefield America" game and watch the reactions as we tried to get it placed into gaming and computer mags -- or the talk-radio shit-storm if the ad were actually accepted by some publications.)
So atrophied is our historical memory, in fact, that Creedence Clearwater and the Jefferson Airplane are now to be used to "drown out enemy gunfire":
But wait, it gets worse:
That's right. Napalm "can't do it all". But it certainly did plenty (so much so that it's been brought back for use in Iraq, alongside god-knows-what-else in Fallujah).
Back to our previous example, what would be the reaction to an ad for the "Battlefield Europe" game exhorting prospective players that the "ovens can't kill everybody"?
Well, we kinda already know how dastardly chemical weapons are considered to be when there's a chance that they might be used against us. But when we're the ones unleashing the WMD (as we almost always are), it's as a-okay now as it was thirty years ago.
Can hardly wait for the "Battlefield Iraq" game, in which we're duly warned that "Depleted Uranium and Cluster Bombs can't do it all", and whose soundtrack is supplied by Rage Against The Machine and the Dixie Chicks.
What you can do: Seriously, please do get in touch if you've web-design and/or graphical/photo-manipulation abilities, and we'll see what we can do. Otherwise, e-mail Electronic Arts and tell them that war isn't a fucking game, while requesting that all profits made from their war games are donated to victim-relief funds. Yours truly did so a while back, and did not receive a response. But, who knows what might happen if enough people register their opinions?
Posted by Eddie Tews at April 30, 2005 12:43 PM
Comments
A little more research would have revealed that players are able to play as both the U.S. AND Vietcong... and that furthermore, there is already a "Battlefield Europe" game, even more popular than Battlefield Vietnam, called Battlefield 1942, in which the player can play as the U.S., Japanese, or German forces. Your point about war games in general is well taken, but poorly presented in this case! -- Posted by: Q-Bert on May 2, 2005 01:18 PM
Further recommended reading should include the description of another EA game called Generals... in which the player CAN take on the role of middle eastern military forces attacking U.S. forces, or Chinese forces, or other middle easterners if the player so chooses! Try to keep from laughing maniacally as your suicide bomber, strapped to the gills with explosives, runs waving his arms wildly into a group of fully loaded American humvees! Try to top the hilarity of raining down a storm of scuds on a U.S. supply depot! Try to stiffle the chuckles as the stealthy Jarmen Kell snipes unsuspecting G.I.'s from the relative safety of a mosque tower! Say what you will about the desensitizing effect of violent videogames... but don't try to make them into a tool for Big Brother without doing your homework first!
Ed. Response: Interesting...mea culpa.
-- Posted by: Mr. Do on May 2, 2005 01:30 PM
I thought Michael Moore was on vacation stuffing his fat mouth with candy until the next election? Apparently not. Granted that I don't think kids should sit on their butts and play video games, but the majority of people between the ages of 21 and 35 did the same thing growing up. Unfortunatly, they still got an education from liberal colleges and ended up being permantly brain dead, and writing for this web site. For gods sakes people free yourselves, Be a leader and not a follower. -- Posted by: Brad Ridge on May 6, 2005 06:28 AM
I can do the photoshop work. Contact me! -- Posted by: Michael on May 31, 2005 06:45 PM