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calls for ban of MoH in UK

It is supposedly possible to play through Deus Ex without killing anyone--but I always go for the high body count. :lol:
 
Goliath said:
A soldier who acts under authority, and who obeys the laws and customs of war, is not a murderer.
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Not in the technical sense, no. But folks don't care to consider the precise definition of murder anymore than they care to consider the distinction between rape and sexual assault: it robs the word of its evocative power. "So you're a murderer? Cool, I'm a Yankees fan."

So, roughly, how many people does it take cheering one on before it becomes ok to kill someone? How much of one's responsibility for one's actions must be deferred to an amorphous mass before his actions are no longer his own? How many pieces of paper must one sign before one completes the transition from individual to cog in the great meat grinder?

But then, I wouldn't expect someone like Rii to understand such a clear moral truth.
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A clear moral truth? It's simple enough to understand, but the distinction is in no way moral. As Leo Szilard, Curtis LeMay and others have suggested; had America lost WW2 there's no doubt that many Americans coordinating the war against Japan would have been tried, found guilty of war crimes, and executed. That it was instead Germans who were tried, found guilty of war crimes and executed amidst lofty rhetoric from the Allies had nothing to do with morality.
 
If these games are suppose to be gritty realism, how come I can't kill civilians and then stick a shovel in their hand and claim they were planting a IED?
 
captcalhoun said:
One map apparently is set in Helmand where most UK troops are based and players are told to 'win at all costs' and 'score points for killing allied troops'.
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The article I read says that isn't even part of the campaign....it's a multiplayer map.

There's nothing to see here, folks.
 
Goliath said:
Jeff O'Connor said:
Rii said:
I like how it's cool to slaughter some folks but not others. To think that there are those who actually deny that these games are propaganda. :lol:

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

QFT, Voltaire; QFT.
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Voltaire. <3
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Indeed. That's why it saddens me to see that even Voltaire could be deceived by that kind of pacifist gibberish.

A soldier who acts under authority, and who obeys the laws and customs of war, is not a murderer. It's really just that simple, no matter how often pacifists try to deny this plain truth, and no matter how many sophistries they concoct in order to obscure it.

War is litigation by other means, and will continue until both sovereign states and would-be sovereign states are compelled to submit their disputes to arbitration. So long as they have no judge to decide between them, and no power to overawe them, they will and must fight. The only alternative is to capitulate to injustice.

Accusing soldiers of murder, even if they fight in a bad cause, makes about as much sense as accusing defence lawyers of the crimes their clients have committed.

But then, I wouldn't expect someone like Rii to understand such a clear moral truth. This is, after all, someone who cavalierly disregards the property rights of others, and who loudly defends his own right to steal.
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The bold part is a very poor analogy. Defense attorneys don't do anything that would be illegal under other circumstances. Soldiers, on the other hand, actually kill people.

I agree that you can't technically call a soldier a murderer, but only under a strictly legalistic definition in which murder is considered the unlawful taking of a life. A soldier's duty is entirely lawful under the legal code of the country he serves, obviously.

But, as Rii points out, history is written by the victors, and while the winners of a war are exalted as heroes, the losers are considered war criminals.
 
Robert Maxwell said:
Goliath said:
Accusing soldiers of murder, even if they fight in a bad cause, makes about as much sense as accusing defence lawyers of the crimes their clients have committed.
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The bold part is a very poor analogy. Defense attorneys don't do anything that would be illegal under other circumstances. Soldiers, on the other hand, actually kill people.
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Unless I'm mistaken, they would be accessories after the fact to whatever crimes their clients committed.

I agree that you can't technically call a soldier a murderer, but only under a strictly legalistic definition in which murder is considered the unlawful taking of a life. A soldier's duty is entirely lawful under the legal code of the country he serves, obviously.
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Murder has always been considered separate from warfare, even in the ancient root, which distinguished it, "secret slaying", from "slaying". Only revisionist definitions have treated the distinction as only legalistic; murder is wrongful, purposeful killing, not merely killing.

What soldiers are guilty of akin to justifiable homicide; the persons they kill also seek to kill them, which means that they technically kill in self-defense.

But, as Rii points out, history is written by the victors, and while the winners of a war are exalted as heroes, the losers are considered war criminals.
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Rii is mistaken. The allied war crimes tribunals did try German and Japanese officers for crimes of which allied leaders were equally guilty - in fact, Grand Admiral Donitz's conviction on the charge of waging unrestricted submarine warfare carried no sentence because of testimony by the British Admiralty and American Fleet Admiral Nimitz that they had done the same. Many of the crimes prosecuted, however, were not military in nature, relating instead to the atrocities against the Jews, Slavs, and Chinese, and to questions of the treatment of prisoners. The allies (except the Soviets, whom the other allies were too weary to oppose) were generally not guilty of these.
 
Also you need to look no further than the Iraq war to see US soldiers being convicted of war crimes. Nowadays everyone has a camera in their phone.
 
captcalhoun said:
Lindley said:
captcalhoun said:
One map apparently is set in Helmand where most UK troops are based and players are told to 'win at all costs' and 'score points for killing allied troops'.
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The article I read says that isn't even part of the campaign....it's a multiplayer map.

There's nothing to see here, folks.
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that's their point though. you play as the Taliban and SCORE POINTS FOR KILLING ALLIES!!!
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Except not really. You play as part of one team and score points for fragging the online avatars of other players. The labels mean nothing.
 
Incidentally, I was playing as a terrorist in Counter-Strike when the first plane hit the towers. Got the news over the server channel. :shifty:
 
Wow.

That takes my 'walked into my 9th grade business tech class and noticed everyone was really quiet' and smashes it into pieces.

That's... striking, Rii.
 
Yeah. I even remember the map (although I've long since forgotten the name) and where I was in it when the match ground to a halt as everyone went to turn on their televisions. One of those flashbulb memories I guess.
 
Lonemagpie said:
captcalhoun said:
Lindley said:
The article I read says that isn't even part of the campaign....it's a multiplayer map.

There's nothing to see here, folks.
Click to expand...

that's their point though. you play as the Taliban and SCORE POINTS FOR KILLING ALLIES!!!
Click to expand...

Except not really. You play as part of one team and score points for fragging the online avatars of other players. The labels mean nothing.
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yes, i know. some people just don't seem to have grasped the concepts of 'fantasy' and 'make believe'...
 
Frank Gibeau, head of EAGL, made a statement on this earlier:

“There’s a lot of furore around games that take creative risks – like games that let you play terrorists in airports mowing down civilians,” he said in reference to Modern Warfare 2 – published by industry rival Activision.

“At EA we passionately believe games are an artform, and I don’t know why films and books set in Afghanistan don’t get flack, yet [games] do. Whether it’s Red Badge Of Courage or The Hurt Locker, the media of its time can be a platform for the people who wish to tell their stories. Games are becoming that platform.

“Games have been set in Afghanistan before. We anticipated this [controversy] when we decided on the concept of the game – this is about being a special forces solider.

“What’s really important for us is that we partnered with the US military, and the Medal of Honor Society as well. We’ve gone out of our way to produce the best story for the game.
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Full article

This particular, um, issue aside, I think it comes off as a pretty good defense of the medium in general.
 
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