This week I stumbled upon a lot of articles on the new Call of Duty: Black Ops video game. The game is attracting attention due to its controversial dual player mode which allows gamers to play as the Taliban, hunting down U.S. Troops. The game has been banned on U.S. military bases and is coming under scrutiny as its release date approaches.
As I surfed the Internet looking for reviews of the game and commentaries on its depiction of the war, I came across articles that portray it as some type of virtual zeitgeist piece, while others label it as simply disrespectful. The perspective presented in this opinion piece written by a soldier seems to provide the perfect response to all the uproar. Benjamin Busch, a retired Marine gives a brief history of war games, from the neighborhood games years after the World War II to the video games of today. Although Busch doesn’t like the depiction of the current war as a fictional game, he claims that “reality has a way of correcting misconceptions.” What Busch is trying to say is that the game and the war are in no way comparable.
In response to Busch’s piece, he seems to be ignoring the extent to which the public remains distant from a war that is now an afterthought. The war has been reduced to mere numbers in the media, as we receive the number killed in Afghanistan each day. The push to bring troops home further trivializes the mission. What the game and its resulting outcry represent is a decline in the public’s sensitivity towards the mission. Although some claim that it is possible to support the troops without supporting the mission, the war mission in the White House is to get troops home, while the military still has the objective of securing Afghanistan. Such a disparity between war aims at home and the goals on the battlefield will naturally lead to a fall in morale both at home and in Afghanistan.
The game represents the increased banalizing of the war after nearly a decade of fighting. We have been at war so long that the excitement of troop withdrawals in Iraq are negated by the troop increase in Afghanistan. The achievements of our troops in Afghanistan are no longer welcomed with excitement and praise, they are simply a realization that the war continues and our troops remain in harm’s way.