A videogame based on one of the
Iraq war's bloodiest battles is generating a backlash across the country:
The game, “Six Days in Fallujah,” is being made with the help of Marines who fought in the battle, and its defenders say it provides a history lesson about what Atomic Games President Peter Tamte has described as “the largest urban military assault in about half a century.”
But it has hit a nerve because U.S. troops still are dying in Iraq — on Friday, five soldiers were killed in the deadliest attack in a year. The controversy raises questions about the line that divides art and entertainment. Books and movies about the Iraq war haven’t aroused similar protests.
“ ‘Game’ is the key word here,” Karen Meredith, 55, of Mountain View, Calif., said Friday.
Meredith was notified on Memorial Day 2004 that her only child — 1st Lt. Ken Ballard, 26 — had been killed in Iraq. She said the game trivializes the war.
Actually, the cable noise networks have been turning war into a video game since the
first Gulf War in the '90s. That was one of the reasons that Gulf I was such a 'feelgood war' for American citizens; we were removed from the suffering and devastation of the war. It was all a great Nintendo game, with 'smart' bombs hitting buildings and bridges in green, night-vision views.
Actually, most of the bombs dropped were the old fashioned gravity bombs without guidance, and many of the smart bombs and cruise missiles missed their targets and hit civilians.
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