Following the terrorist bombing at a Moscow airport on Monday, the government-financed Russia Today television network has aired a report linking the gruesome event to the “No Russian” mission from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The mission, in which an uncover CIA operative joins a group of terrorist as they open fire on civilians at a fictional airport near Moscow, already came under a lot of media attention when the game was released in November 2009.
The report, which emphasizes the fact that the game was developed and published by American parties, also includes a short interview with Dr. Walid Phares, who serves as the terrorism analyst for Fox. Phares states that he believes “those who have been radicalized already — let’s suppose in this case jihadists, Al Qaeda or [some] other kind — they look at the games and say these games will serve them to train.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs70mIbzCok[/youtube]
Good to know America doesn’t have a monopoly of alarmist “journalism”.
Not to counter your point (which is entirely correct, considering journalists in my proud nation believed grog to be a real beverage drank by reckless teenagers), but aren’t these people americans financed by ruskies?
On this, well, i’d say as a rule of thumb trust the bomber’s reasons over the fantasy tv made up ones. Not really familiar with the case (ruskie government being 4sshole against separatist countries?) but it’s pretty darned silly to say games are to blame for stuff like these. What next? AIDS?
I HOPE terrorist use games as their sole source of training, that would make it much less likely for them to succeed. Talk to me when playing a game is like plugging into the matrix, then we can say that playing games is a semi-accurate representation of the sensation of killing.
I might get where they’re coming from if the airport in the game was an accurate representation of the real airport. But the airport in Modern Warfare 2 is based on Zakhaev International Airport, but the terrorist attack was at Domodedovo International Airport, an entirely different airport (though both in Moscow). And even so, the bomber obviously had access to the airport, wouldn’t it be more effective to simply walk around in it in real life? (which I’m assuming he did).
Lastly, yes violent games can have an adverse effect on a persons psyche, this as acutally been proven. But a violent game won’t make a balanced mind violent, it’ll only reinforce an already violent attitude. Otherwise there’d be millions of airport shootings and bombing, estimates say that Modern Warfare 2 is approaching 20 million in worldwide sales…
I’m no fan of Modern Warfare 2, actually I think it kind of sucks, but this is just getting stupid.