Just a game

The video release from WikiLeaks of the US military bombing unarmed journalists in Iraq has been met with much hostility. One of the comments getting passed around commonly is how much the sequence plays like a video game. In truth, it is just like a video game.

After witnessing the debacle that is Modern Warfare 2, it is easy to understand and assume that the first Modern Warfare is a bit of an enigma. In the midst of the military celebration is a sequence that speaks against war very eloquently. I've spoke on it before, but briefly, here are the two scenes.

The first level is that of an intense firefight. The player assume control of a random Marine and struggles to gain ground, fighting against a never-ending supply of enemy combatants, tanks, and artillery. Slowly, and with constant fire all around, the player must push forward to capture various points of the map until the level concludes.

The second level is from a gunship high above the fight. The player himself cannot die. Rather, the level is lost if the player does not provide appropriate cover fire for the Marines below. In a grainy black and white monitor, the player must fire various cannons from the gunship, eliminating white dots that represent the enemy. As this goes on, the pilot of the gunship comments on the action in a dry tone, mocking the death of the soldiers.

What makes this such an interesting sequences is that the player is able to, in a loose sense, "experience" the action of the soldier on the ground with the detachment of the gunship above. War is hell, so they say, and when death is immediate and almost probable, it is more intense than cushioned hundreds of feet above a battle. It is an antiwar sequence because it shows the common detachment of war, the ease of it, by eliminating any danger.

So, when the video of the WIkLeaks "Collateral Murder" appeared, this sequence immediately jumped to mind of many people. We've seen in recent years the detachment of war. Predator Drones fly unmanned and bombing people, "enemies" and civilians, and not much fanfare is made. And while many people can make not that the video from WikiLeaks shows innocent people dying, or the military covering up the video, or the ethics behind leaking a video while we are in a current war, this is not what concerns me the most. What concerns me is this detachment. In the video, the pilots and people are laughing at the people dying below, callously dismissing the death of the innocent and children who "dare" to bring minors into the battlefield, a battlefield that didn't become one until the military opened fire. The people "over there" may be our "enemy", but they are human, they are people, we are bound by the common connection of flesh, bone, and blood, and though we may need to strike and kill to preserve our precious "way of life", we need not do so with callousness and malicious intent. To do so is to lose our humanity and undermine our very purpose as a society.

The military pushes this detachment, supports it, covets it, and uses video games, such as the official US Army sanctioned game, to recruit. When does it end and become no longer "just a video game?"

Don't support the troops

In any political climate, the phrase "support the troops" gets thrown around by both sides as a non-partisan football. Regardless of any disagreements people may have about a war, a President, or a political issue, it is important that the country "supports the troops". Yet, in movies, this isn't the case.

While watching the impressive District 9 a few weekends ago, I got to thinking about this very issue about the military in films. What struck me is that in a movie like District 9, the audience did not like the portrayed military. We're expected to cheer when the politicians get their comeuppance, but the audience also cheered when the military got theirs. Is this simply because the audience wants the hero to win more than the military? Perhaps.

But examine the role of the military in the film. Bureaucrats order the military to evict, move, and eventually hunt down aliens and one lone humanoid. These are their orders. Now, the audience is justified in hating those that ordered the military to do these things, and the audience does, but the military gets caught in the fray. When the fighting intensifies near the end of the film, and members of the military are killed, people applauded.

In our political climate, this should not be the case. These men aren't acting that far outside their orders. These military men are fighting pawns of the political kings. We can hate the kings, we can hate the war, but we aren't supposed to hate the military. In the film and real life Judgement at Nuremberg, the defendants of Nazi war crimes claimed that they were only following orders, and shouldn't be held accountable for their actions as a result. The ultimate verdict found that a defense of superior orders isn't a valid defense, and the people should have acted against orders on moral grounds.

In Vietnam, some peace advocates actively hated the military, spitting on them and shouting profanity at uniformed officers. The extent that this happens today, amidst two unpopular wars supported by less than half the country, is much less. If people don't support the war, they shouldn't support the troops. The film audience knows this.

Mortal

So, let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Are you okay? (In memoriam)

September 20, 2001

With Jon Stewart

Good evening and welcome to the Daily Show. We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City and there is really no other way to start the show then to ask you at home the question that we asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody we know here in New York since September 11, and that is, "Are you okay?" And we pray that you are and that your family is.

I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host--and television is nothing if not redundant. So I apologize for that. Its something that, unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven’t been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone has checked in already. I know we are late. I’m sure we are getting in just under the wire before the cast of Survivor offers their insight into what to do in these situations. They said to get back to work. There were no jobs open for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying. . . which I gladly would have taken. So I come back here and tonight’s show is not obviously a regular show. We looked through the vault and found some clips that we think will make you smile, which is really what’s necessary, I think, right about now.

A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say? I mean, jeez, what a terrible thing to have to do." And you know, I don’t see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does. The show in general we feel like is a privilege. Even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks. . . which is really what we do. We sit in the back and throw spitballs--but never forgetting that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds like it goes without saying. But that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open. The difference between free and. . . burdened. And we don’t take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination. And our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. And what it has become I don’t know. "Subliminible" is not a punchline anymore. Someday it will become that again, Lord willing it will become that again, because it means that we have ridden out the storm.

The main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be, not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country, but we’ve had an unenduring pain, an unendurable pain and I just. . . I just wanted to tell you why I grieve--but why I don’t despair. (choking back tears) I’m sorry. . . (chuckles slightly) luckily we can edit this. . . (beats lightly on his desk, collects himself).

One of my first memories was of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass. . . (choked up). . . When I was five and he was shot, this is what I remember about it. I was in school in Trenton and they turned the lights off and we got to sit under our desks. . . and that was really cool. And they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there were riots, but we didn’t know that. We just thought, "My God! We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese!" And that’s what I remember about it. And that was a tremendous test of this country's fabric and this country has had many tests before that and after that.

The reason I don’t despair is that. . . this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery, is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream.

Whatever barriers we put up are gone. Even if it's just momentary. We are judging people by not the color of their skin, but the content of their character. (pause) You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They got together and their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill. . ." It's all a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding. . . that’s extraordinary. And that's why we have already won. . . they can't. . . it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.

They live in chaos. And chaos, it can't sustain itself--it never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying. The view. . . from my apartment. . . (choking up) was the World Trade Center. . .

Now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of. . . of American ingenuity and strength. . . and labor and imagination and commerce and it's gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. . . the view from the south of Manhattan is the Statue of Liberty. . .

You can’t beat that. . .