Videogame Mocks Everything America Stands For

This makes me SICK TO MY STOMACH.

On Oct. 12 Electronic Arts, one of the world’s biggest game publishers, is set to release a first-person combat title called Medal of Honor. Developed with advice from elite American special forces, the new game is set during Operation Anaconda, part of the Western war in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

So far, so conventional. But in Medal of Honor’s online multiplayer mode, in which teams of players battle over the Internet, one side in each match will be the Americans and the other side will play the role of Taliban fighters.

New York Times videogame critic Seth Schiesel predictably tries to explain why this is not a big deal, using the kind of mealy-mouthed and obfuscatory words we’d expect from a paper whose agenda is dictated each morning by the imams in Iran, but I think we can all agree that this is WRONG ON EVERY LEVEL. When the Taliban attacked the World Trade Center on that dark day they committed the greatest atrocity against humanity ever perpetrated. The fact that less than 10 years later these purveyors of video garbage think it’s acceptable for gamers to portray them-even in multiplayer mode-is a deliberate punch in the gut to every loyal American who knows that the events of September 11 are a gaping wound which will never ever heal, and never should. We need to remain eternally vigilant. (I, in fact, think we should shoot down every airplane that flies over Manhattan, just in case, but I’m aware that this viewpoint is slightly out of the mainstream and I don’t want my agenda to distract from the outrage that we should all be manipulated into here.)

And do you want to know the worst part? I called the national videogame chain GameStop to see if they planned to carry this filth, AND THEY DO. AT THEIR 270 GREENWICH STREET LOCATION. Non-New Yorkers might be unfamiliar with the neighborhoods of the city, but 270 Greenwich is FEET AWAY FROM GROUND ZERO. I mean, thousands of feet, but it’s practically right there. It is like GameStop is digging up the corpses from that pit of horror and sticking a controller in their hands and making them play a videogame IN THE ROLE OF THEIR TALIBAN KILLERS.

Now, look, I understand we have a First Amendment in this country. I’m not saying GameStop shouldn’t be able to sell their MULTIPLAYER JIHAD KILLER MUSLIM GAME blocks away from the most awful attack in the world’s history, I’m saying that just because you HAVE a First Amendment right doesn’t mean you should be able to EXERCISE it. Or even have it, really. If GameStop wants to be sensitive to the victims of Ground Zero, and their families, and New York, and Jesus and Pat Tillman and every good-hearted white-faced person in America, they will do the right thing move this game to where it belongs: their outlet in Times Square. I’m not going to stand for this. Who’s with me?