\n — @adurdin is thinking aloud

Modern Warfare

Two years ago, I purchased Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It’s a great game, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. But there’s this one level that made me feel very uncomfortable.

I was the gunner in an AC-130 gunship, slowly circling an area to support a friendly squad moving through to an evacuation point. My only view was through the infrared gunsight of a cannon, shooting back at the numerous enemies that were shooting at the friendlies. Not really shooting back though: the gunship was way out of range of the enemy infantry, and its cannon was powerful enough to blow them through the air. It was like crushing ants.

It made it more unsettling that the crew of the gunship would say sardonically, “Ooo, that’s gotta hurt”, or “Oopsie-daisy” after each kill. Despite feeling a bit odd about it, I did finish the level, and went on to enjoy the rest of the game.

I’m now uninstalling it, and throwing out the game.

Yesterday, Wikileaks posted a video, leaked from the U.S. military, of an AH-64 Apache attack in 2007, in Baghdad. The helicopter attacked and killed a group of 8 or 9 men, mostly unarmed, including two Reuters employees, journalist and his driver, and injuring two children. You can see the whole video at that link, but it is not pleasant watching.

I’m not going to argue about the legality or morality of war, or the act in the video here. But while watching it I felt sick hearing the comments the pilot or gunner made during the attack: All right, haha, I got ’em! And when one man, severely wounded, was trying to crawl away—they were wishing him to give them a reason to shoot again: Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon. And just a little later, a van pulled up, and three unarmed men began to help the wounded man in, the gunner asked for permission to engage, and said cajoling, Come on, let us shoot!

I was strongly reminded while watching of the gunship sequence in Call of Duty 4. I had to keep reminding myself that this video was not just a game, this was real people being really killed. I had excused the sequence in the game by thinking it was exaggerated, a Hollywood-like view. But having seen the exact same thing actually happening in reality, well… I don’t think I want to play that game anymore.