Can Delta Force defend against the Flying Penis?

We may find out soon. Wired's Danger Room blog reports that the US Army is planning to set up shop in Second Life. Gen. William Wallace (left), who leads the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, said at a recent conference:

Over the next thirty to forty-five days you might, if you’re one of them Second Life avatar dudes, that likes to go populate islands within Second Life, you will find an Army island in Second Life.

GP: While the Army is dealing with a recruitment problem, Second Life doesn't seem like a cost-effective way to solve it. First, SL is so 2006 - the buzz is clearly gone. Second, even in Second Life's heyday its significance was overhyped. Finally, the offbeat SL crowd seems far removed from the Army's typical recruitment pool.

Still, there are virtual items to be had. Gen. Wallace told Wired:

If you perform well in the activities you get points and those points can be used to buy virtual tee-shirts and baseball caps.

Stars & Stripes reports that the U.S. Army will sink $50 million into training-oriented video games. The project will launch in 2010. There's even a new unit devoted to the ambitious project.

Lt. Col. Gary Stephens told Stars & Stripes that the Army will be keeping tabs on developments in the game biz, but doesn't plan to compete there:

The Army takes this seriously. We own gaming for the Army — from requirements through procurement... We don’t have the intent to become a competitor with the commercial gaming industry.

In addition, the Army plans to award a contract in the next few weeks for what sounds like a fabuloulsy cool mod of current FPS gameware:

The new game — dubbed "Game After Ambush" — will be an off-the-shelf commercial product that comes with tools that will allow the Army to make almost any modification necessaryto terrain, scenarios, missions, etc....

 

Col. Mark McManigal, the capabilities manger for gaming under the Training and Doctrine Command, said the selected game must provide low-cost training and must not require large number of technicians to run. It must also have a play-back function for after-action reviews, he said...

 

the Army will have 70 gaming systems in 53 locations in the United States, Germany, Italy and South Korea between February and September 2009... Soldiers will be able to drive virtual vehicles, fire virtual weapons, pilot virtual unmanned aerial vehicles... in a virtual battle space as large as 100 kilometers by 100 kilometers, she said.

Comedy troupe the Yes Men spoofed the New York Times yesterday with an elaborate prank which saw hard copies of a faux NYT distributed in New York and several other major U.S. cities.

The feel-good parody edition was reportedly created to encourage President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises.

There's a game angle to the prank as well. Among the stories in the parody edition is one which reports that the Defense Department's popular America's Army game has been cancelled as part of the elimination of the Army's entire recruitment budget. In its place, the story says, the State Department will offer the more peaceful America's Diplomat.

The avowed purpose of America’s Diplomat is to encourage young people to consider careers in the diplomatic corps, and to present non-military alternatives in a positive light. Where the ability to aggressively attack and kill opponents spelled success in America’s Army, America’s Diplomat stresses situations that demand negotiation, dialogue and peaceful outcomes...

 

Lenny Purvill, a 16-year-old player, noted an initial disappointment in finding his favorite online game replaced. “I liked to pretend I was in the army going on missions in Iraq. And blowing stuff up was fun,” he told the press. Purvill, who has been playing the game since he was 13, had been considering signing up when he turned 18.

His initial disappointment, however, was replaced by fascination as he facilitated a peaceful negotiations between Sunni and Shiite militiamen. “It was like, are they gonna shoot each other? No! They’re not! ’Cause I’m helping them settle their differences with diplomacy. It’s so awesome,” he said.

GP: "Comedy troupe" might not be the most appropriate description of the Yes Men. Their Wikipedia page terms them "culture jamming activists."

The Orlando Sentinel reports that several members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will celebrate Veterans Day by gaming with U.S. troops stationed overseas.

Pro vs. G.I. Joe, the nonprofit group which arranged the event, reports that Madden 09 and the brand-new Call of Duty: World at War will be the weapons of choice. Tamps Bay CB Phillip Buchanon, LB Cato June, TE Alex Smith and CB Aqib Talib will take on service personnel in Germany, Japan, Kuwait and a secret Middle-east location to be revealed during the match.

UPDATE: Activision deserves some kudos here as well. In a press release the publisher points out that it supplied CoD:WaW for today's event and will continue to do so for future Pro vs. G.I. Joe matchups.

As we look forward to Veteran's Day tomorrow, we're reminded that serving with the military in Iraq or Afghanistan must be very difficult, indeed. Our troops face constant danger and are far removed from their families and the things they enjoyed at home.

But a Philadelphia-area woman, Stefanie Doctor Shea, works hard to bring at least one of the comforts of home to the front lines: video games.

As GamePolitics first reported on Veteran's Day, 2007, Stefanie takes a very personal interest in how our military personnel are faring overseas. That's because her husband, Sgt. Michael Shea, spent the last year with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq before returning home recently (Stefanie and Michael are pictured at left).

But while Stefanie's hubby may be back, the nonprofit organization she founded, Fun For Our Troops, is still engaged in its mission. A just-issued press release offers Stefanie's thoughts:

In our first year we were able to provide gaming relief to over 200 deployed troops and several Morale, Wellness, and Recreation (MWR) stations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We hope to continue the momentum this Veteran’s Day and in 2009.

SPC Joseph Burris adds:

As a soldier, I just wanted to say thanks for Fun for Our Troops. Words cannot describe the feelings I get when I see people like you selflessly donate time, money, and energy just to make our lives a little better. Something as simple as a videogame can mean a lot to a soldier who has nothing more to look forward to than another dusty day on convoy.

The Sheas are gamers themselves. While waiting for Michael to be deployed last fall, the couple spent a good deal of time playing the Wii. Stefanie attended PAX for the first time in August of this year.

Fun for our Troops is seeking tax-deductible donations of new or gently used game systems, video games, PC games or MP3 players as well as gift cards for distributors of games and gaming systems. The organization can also make use of monetary donations which are used primarily toward shipping costs and purchasing used gaming systems.  

Donations can be sent to:

Fun for our Troops, Inc.
506 Corporate Drive West
Langhorne, PA 19047

...or via PayPal.

An Army captain who once served as a technical advisor to PlayStation smash Metal Gear Solid has been sentenced to a year in prison for illegally exporting sophisticated weapon parts.

The Associated Press reports that Tomoaki Iishiba, 34, a Japanese man who served with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan and is currently assigned to a military intelligence unit, was sentenced by U.S. District Court judge Marsha Pechman. Although prosecutors recommended probation, Pechman imposed the stiff sentence, saying:

[Iishiba is] a soldier who had abused his trust, using his military address to order parts and then shipping them to foreign nationals. ... The problem with putting something in the stream of commerce is you don't know where it will end up.

Iishiba, who has also written a book and endorsed a line of survival knives, was busted for sending 60 holographic night vision sights to an associate in Japan without an export license. Why, Tomoaki, why?

In court, Iishiba said he sent only accessories, not the firing parts of guns, to Japanese military and law enforcement friends "because they love freedom as much as we do." He added that most of the parts were for use in games similar to paintball...

 

Government lawyers wrote in court filings that Iishiba did not "intend to threaten a security or foreign policy interest of the United States."

GamePolitics previously reported on Iishiba's indictment in July.

Gizmodo reports that the Office of Naval Research has funded a team at the University of California San Diego to begin developing what amounts to a power suit similar to that worn by Gordon Freeman, protagonist of Valve's uber-popular Half-Life series:

The system will monitor a few biomarkers for deviations from safe levels, at which point it will automatically medicate its wearer...

 

...the military applications are what's exciting about this. Take a current soldier's body armor, night vision goggles and communications equipment, throw in an automatic medical treatment unit and voila! You've basically got Gordon Freeman's HEV suit. There is no indication that the suit will make the satisfying "uhhuummuhhuummuhhuumm" sound like Mr. Freeman's, but there's no indication that it won't, either.

Okay, so they may not be the greatest games ever published, but the U.S. Air Force is serving up the full versions of three Midway PC titles - and they are absolutely free:

• The Suffering
• Area-51
• Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War

It's undoubtedly part of the USAF's recruitment effort, since the download site links over to Do Something Amazing, the flyboys' marketing presence on the web.

And, hey, including Area-51 in an Air Force promo is kinda creepy and cool at the same time, no? Somebody at HQ has a sense of humor.

Big Thanks to: GP reader Paulrus...

Another in an all-too-frequent series honoring gamers who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country...

A dedicated soldier who wanted more than a virtual war experience has been killed in Afghanistan.

As reported by the Boston Globe, Army Specialist Stephen Fortunato was killed on Tuesday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. From the newspaper report:

According to his family, Fortunato's decision to enlist into a war-time Army was driven by a powerful feeling of patriotism; a desire to experience war personally, not only through a video game; and the opportunity to use the GI Bill to pay for college.

"He wanted to change the world," his father, Richard, said in a phone interview from his Florida home yesterday. "How he was going to do it single-handedly, I don't know. But he wanted to change the world."

The Boston Herald reports that Fortunato planned to return to school, possibly for training in video game design.

Green Party candidate Peter Myers, running for Congress in California's 15th District, has come out in opposition to the Pentagon's use of the America's Army: Virtual Army Experience simulator in recruiting efforts.

As GamePolitics has previously reported, Virtual Army Experience sparked protests from anti-war groups at several stops during a summer tour of county fairs and air shows.

On his campaign blog, Myers writes:

This report from CNN shows you what some of your hundreds of billions of dollars of tax dollars pay for when they go to the Pentagon. The military's recruitment process for future wars is slick and neatly packaged, and you and I pay for it every day.

My opponents won't take the initiative to rein in this type of wasteful spending that creates an American culture more militant than ever before. Only I have chosen to stand up against these disturbing military recruitment practices; a vote for anyone else is a vote for more disappointment.

In late August, following protests, the Army agreed to restrict participants to those 17 and older. However, the CNN report referenced by Myers clearly shows a 13-year-old boy in line for the exhibit and having his personal data being collected (see pic). It's unknown when the CNN footage was shot.

The more familiar America's Army PC and console games have been criticized by some peace groups for allegedly violating U.N. protocols barring military recruitment of children.

The Green Party's Myers is running against incumbent Mike Honda (D). Myers candidacy is a long shot.

We don't have much detail on this one, but a brief story on MaxConsole indicates that gamers in the U.S. are unable to use the PlayStation Network to play PS3 games online with friends and relatives serving with military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan:

A writer over at Sony Insider is asking Sony why he cannot play PS3 games over the PSN with his friends who are serving abroad the United States military.

 

According to the report: If you have a friend who lives in a different country, then its likely you will not be able to add them as a friend on your PS3. The reason why is that if you register your PS3 in a specific country, your Playstation Network is limited to that region. So, if my friend from the United States registers his/her Playstation 3 while they are on tour in Iraq/Afghanistan, then I will never be able to add them as long as I’m a US resident.

 

The writer says it is time Sony removed the restrictions of the Playstation Network and made it truly global.

The original post is not showing up at Sony Insider. It's unclear whether it was removed for some reason. MaxConsole does mention a work-around:

There is a workaround, but it is weak - if you purchased your PS3 in the USA, registered it there, and then brought it to another country you can still play your friends.

GP: It's ironic that this situation has become an issue, especially since the SOCOM commercial at left suggests that U.S. gamers could play via PS2 with overseas military gamers.

Occasionally here at GamePolitics we pay honor to the sacrifices made by gamers serving in the military.

Along that line, we note an unusual human interest story posted on The Mad Blog, which is penned by Mad magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond.

Richmond writes about visiting a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany with a group of fellow cartoonists. There they came upon a soldier who had been badly injured while gaming during his free time:

Eventually we made it up to the ICU, where we saw a few seriously wounded soldiers. The first young man we saw told us a story of how he had been serving in Afghanistan and was in his tent taking a little R&R playing a video game when a projectile explosive hit. He was missing a part of one leg and the other was damaged.

 

Chip did a hilarious drawing of him playing his video game which was exploding and he was thinking “Man, this video game is so realistic!” That sounds a little insensitive but the fact is these guys like to talk about their injuries, how they happened and what was going on. He got a big laugh out of that. He was hurt but was going to be okay. He was in a lot of pain but I think we brought some laughs to him.

Did you ever wonder if the America's Army game ever actually inspired anyone to join the service?

Wonder no more.

A 17-year-old Wisconsin boy, Tyler Battig, told the Fond du Lac Reporter:

I felt like enlisting because I have a lot of family that joined the Army and served, plus 'America's Army,' the computer game, came out and that got me thinking more and more... I do face the fact that I could be going overseas, but that shouldn't stop anybody from joining.

America's Army has sparked protests in recent months from anti-war groups. In August, protesters marched outside Ubisoft's San Francisco HQ. Ubi published the console editions of America's Army, although the more popular PC version is freely distributed by the Department of Defense.

In the photo Tyler is seen with his mother, Kim Battig, who also enlisted, as well as two Army recruiters.

Given recent criticism that the America’s Army game is being used to recruit children for military service, perhaps the last place you’d expect the Army to take its game is to America's high schools.

But in a move that’s sure to raise eyebrows, the Army has teamed with non-profit organization Project Lead The Way “to enhance student curriculum by using a variety of Army technologies to promote student interest in the engineering and technical fields.” 

The platform used for the curriculum will, of course, be America’s Army. Col. Casey Wardynski, project originator and director of the game project said:

The U.S. Army is committed to educating today's youth. We are honored to work with Project Lead The Way to employ our technologies to allow students to explore critical subjects like math, engineering and the sciences in an innovative and hands-on manner.  Encouraging our youth to develop expertise in science and engineering is imperative. The America's Army Technology Education program provides a unique offering by combining the power of gaming and simulations with real life equipment to create a compelling academic program.

AE: Reading the press release, it looks like the partnership will be doing more than simply dropping the game in students’ laps and saying, “have fun.”  Rather, it appears they‘ve used the game as a backbone for specifically tailored educational software with a pro-military slant.

Via: Water Cooler Games

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen... 

Planning a high level raid is tough enough in World of Warcraft, but a Pentagon researcher warns that al Qaeda could plan a nuclear attack on the White House via the popular MMO.

Wired's Danger Room reports that  Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University laid out such a scenario at the National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, D.C. last week:

...two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the "White Keep" inside the "Stonetalon Mountains." The major objective is to set off a "Dragon Fire spell" inside, and make off with "110 Gold and 234 Silver" in treasure. "No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast," one player, "war_monger," crows.

 

Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "Dragon Fire" is an unconventional weapon. And "110 Gold and 234 Silver" tells the plotters how to align the game's map with one of Washington, D.C.

 

... details are a little fuzzy. The terminology doesn't match World of Warcraft lingo, all that precisely. There is no "White Keep" in World of Warcraft; "Dragon Fire" is a spell in EverQuest, the old-school role-playing game, not WoW. But the banter is reminiscent enough of World of Warcraft talk, to give outsiders an idea of how such a conversation might go down -- and how hard it would be to identify.

But Steven Aftergood of the Federation of the American Scientists was skeptical:

This concern is out there. But it has to be viewed in context. It's the job of intelligence agencies to anticipate threats and counter them. With that orientation, they're always going to give more weight to a particular scenario than an objective analysis would allow. Could terrorists use Second Life? Sure, they can use anything. But is it a significant augmentation? That's not obvious. It's a scenario that an intelligence officer is duty-bound to consider. That's all.

For his part, Toavs believes that anti-terror operatives may have to go undercover in games like WoW.

GP: This issue comes up periodically from the counter-terror community. Usually, Second Life is the main suspect. But would terrorists really go to all the trouble of using WoW as an assembly area when IMs, PGP-encrypted e-mail and steganography are readily available?

Besides, wouldn't WoW-playing terrorists become addicted like everyone else and neglect their jihad?

Finally, We've reported previously that Middle-East expert Juan Cole has dismissed the MMO terror cell notion:

What's the real game here?

...The notion that wandering around such an imaginary world with a computerized body is dangerous to anyone seems itself cartoonish and calls into question the public hand-wringing by security experts.
 

Another in an irregular - but all too frequent - series:

This morning comes word that 20-year-old Army PFC Tan Quoc Ngo was killed in an August 27th ambush in Afghanistan.

As reported by a lengthy obituary on Oregon Live, Ngo's parents were refugees from Vietnam. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski was among those who attended the young man's funeral on Friday. From the news coverage:

He liked nothing better than playing pickup basketball or football, or playing cards with friends in his Beaverton neighborhood... He also liked video games, including Grand Theft Auto and Halo...

GP: Why do we do this? The gamer generation is much maligned these days. With so many gamers currently serving in U.S. military forces around the world, GamePolitics makes it a point to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks to: Reader Kojiro for the link.

The Defense Deparment's Virtual Army Experience game continues to make waves as it tours air shows and summer festivals.

In the latest flap, the Ohio chapter of Veterans for Peace agreed to drop its planned protest after Army officials agreed not to admit players under 17 to the interactive game, which depict a firefight between U.S. soldiers and virtual insurgents. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

The Army recruiting video game originally targeted teens as young as 13 to use simulated machine guns to kill virtual enemies in a projected Middle East war setting. Show-goers sit in a replica of a Humvee, virtually speed through desert terrain and shoot fake machine guns at life-size pictures of people projected on a wraparound screen.

The Army utilizes the simulator as a recruitment tool.

When we think of marathon video games, it's usually some 100-hour RPG.

So how does a 14-year-long game sound?

It's a spoof, of course. the Onion Radio News serves up an audio report on Middle East Meltdown, a new game based on the Iraq War. The fanciful title includes fun activities like building and re-building the same infrastructure, beheadings, and spending time in rat-infested V.A. hospitals.

A new YouTube video spoofs Republican presidential contender John McCain with a Mario Bros. flair.

In John McCain - POW Bros. video game journalist Jared Rea depicts McCain as exploiting his five years spent as a prisoner of war to counter just about every issue.

Jared, clearly not a McCain fan, writes:

John McCain uses his prisoner of war status as both sword and shield. It’s the entirety of his foreign policy experience and ultimate defense against legitimate questions and concerns rolled into a single onomatopoeia.

A number of GamePolitics readers have suggested that Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a 2001 first-person shooter, foreshadowed the current hostilities between Russia and Georgia.

The Bulletin serves up a detailed analysis:

Sometimes life imitates art, rather than the other way around, and the 2001 video game "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" stands as a prime example. The game... accurately predicted the eruption of hostilities between an expansionist Russia and Georgia... the player takes on obstacles posed by South Ossetian rebels intent on creating a pretext for a Russian invasion.

 

The game's opening sequence features a Russian leadership intent on bringing the former Soviet republics back under its control. The narrator describes a Russian leader eerily similar to Vladimir Putin... As the game's intro opens, a lone 2008 flashes on the screen before the narrator reads the following words: "The year is 2008, and the world teeters on the brink of war. Radical ultranationalists have seized power in Moscow - their goal, the reestablishment of the old Soviet empire... The world holds its breath, and waits."

The Bulletin also points out that the National Review Online has noticed the eerie similarity between game and real-life events in McCain, Obama Respond to Scenario Out of First Level of 'Ghost Recon.
 

In this Associated Press photo by Maya Alleruzzo, U.S. Army Capt. Charles Ford plays an unknown video game with Wa'ad, a seven-year-old Iraqi boy who lost an arm and leg to an IED near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. From the AP report:

Soldiers from Hammer Company, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment are arranging for the child to be fitted with prosthetic limbs.

Via: Franklin Now

Yesterday GamePolitics reported on a planned protest march outside Ubisoft's San Francisco office.

Peace group Direct Action to Stop the War hoped to persuade Ubisoft to drop its support of the America's Army franchise, which the organization claims violates U.N. protocols against recruiting children into the military.

Two representatives of the group apparently scored some face time with Ubi's U.S. CEO Laurent Detoc. MTV Multiplayer has a response statement from Ubisoft:

Ubisoft is a leading publisher that strives to create the best entertainment experiences possible. Ubisoft worked with the U.S. Army to create America’s Army games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 in order to deliver a compelling experience for our customers. As we discussed with the Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) organization, our games are created to meet a diverse range of interests and not to express or endorse any political view. We respect DASW's First Amendment rights, and would hope they also respect and recognize ours.

Wired Game|Life's Chris Kohler has a lengthy (if slightly snarky) running commentary on the protest.

Does the America's Army game franchise violate United Nations protocols regarding military recruitment of children?

GameDaily reports on a group called Direct Action to Stop the War which says that it does and has taken Ubisoft, which publishes console versions of America's Arm, to task. On its website, the San Francisco-based Direct Action writes:

"America’s Army” ...is the property and brainchild of the US Army, which admit freely, and with pride, that it is one of their principal recruitment tools...
 
The military recruitment of children under the age of 17, however, is a clear violation of international law (the U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict). No attempt to recruit children 13-16 is allowed in the United States, pursuant to treaty.  In May, the [ACLU] published a report that found the armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment.  The report highlighted the role of “America’s Army...”

 

The game is having an effect.  An informal study showed that 4 out of 100 new recruits in Ft. Benning, Georgia credit America’s Army as the primary factor in convincing them to join the military... 

Direct Action will be staging a protest today at noon near the San Francisco office of Ubisoft as well as two other local companies, GameLoft and Secret Level:

Ubisoft is not the only South Park neighbor engaged in the development of the game, Gameloft is working on the cell phone application and Secret Level was a designer on the 2005 Xbox version...  This August 6, on the 63rd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, come out and ask the producers and developers of America’s Army to stop helping the Army recruit children. 

Last month Direct Action sent a letter of protest to Ubisoft CEO Laurent Detoc. The group claims that it has heard back from Detoc, who said:

Ubisoft has already planned not to make any further games of America's Army, that they may announce that decision in the future and he discouraged us from continuing our Hiroshima Day action... If Ubisoft's claims are true, why have they not publicly announced the end of the work for the Army's recruitment videogame, and why have they not ended their contract with Army, set to expire in 2015?

A few weeks back GamePolitics covered the so-called PlayStation War raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The issue revolves around Congo's supply of the mineral coltan, used in PlayStation 2's and many other consumer electronic devices.

In the latest development, a press release issued by the Panafrican Press Association charges that U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama just doesn't get it when it comes to the relationship between coltan and the ongoing conflict in Congo. Claiming that Obama has mistakenly portrayed the strife as ethnic, the PPA writes:

Statements... attributed to Obama, explains in part why there is such silence around the tragic situation in the Congo. The conflict is unfortunately and wrongly presented as ethnic bloodletting. The ethnic rationale... plays into long-held stereotypes that Africans are interminably trapped in "tribal bloodletting," hence, nothing can be done...

 

The central reason for the nearly six million dead in the Congo since 1996 is not "ethnic strife" but rather the scramble for Congo's enormous treasure trove of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, timber and more...

 

Beneficiaries of Congo's resource war include foreign corporations and consumers... Coltan is a key mineral that drives the conflict in the Congo and is found in our cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, video game consoles and many other devices. Congo has anywhere from 64% - 80% of the world's reserve of coltan.
 

GP: We were surprised to learn that conservative Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) is taking an active interest in the Congo coltan situation. Indeed, however, Brownback and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Conflict Coltan and Casserite Act in the Senate on May 23rd. Of the legislative proposal, Brownback said:

We are witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in Congo, and we must act now to put an end to the death and suffering. Everyday, Americans use products that have been manufactured using inhumanely mined minerals. The legislation introduced by Senator Durbin and I will bring accountability and transparency to the supply chain of minerals used in the manufacturing of many electronic devices.

Sen. Durbin added:

Without knowing it, tens of millions of people in the United States may be putting money in the pockets of some of the worst human rights violators in the world, simply by using a cell phone or laptop computer. We ought to do all we can to make sure that the products we use and the minerals we import, in no way support those who violate human rights abroad.

Recruiters for controversial Blackwater Worldwide, which provides "paid contractors" (i.e. - mercenaries) to supplement United States forces in Iraq, apparently distribute consoles and popular video games to spread good will among American forces.

That's likely because former military personnel make up the bulk of Blackwater employees. An Associated Press profile on the company notes:

[Blackwater exec] Bill Mathews... said during a recent interview with The Associated Press. "This is sort of the quintessential veteran-owned, -operated and -managed company. Almost everybody is a former U.S. serviceman..."

 

Blackwater recruiter James Overton is working on packing a Microsoft Xbox video-game console, modem, TV projector and "Guitar Hero" video game into a kit that can be kicked out of a Blackwater cargo plane and dropped to troops in Afghanistan.

 

"When I was in Baghdad, we'd bring soldiers over to our camp over there, and we'd play this thing for hours on end," Overton said. "Every (military) place I've ever been to overseas, they've got like backgammon and Parcheesi and chess, and they're all gathering dust. But this is the stuff they play at home. And any semblance of home we can give them is best."

U.S. and British military forces are increasingly utilizing video game technology, according to Wired's Danger Room blog.

By way of example, arms manufacturer Raytheon displayed its Universal Control System for drone aircraft at an air show last week. Company exec Mark Bigham commented on the system, which employs video game-like controls:

Gaming companies have spent millions to develop user-friendly graphic interfaces, so why not put them to work on UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]? The video-game industry always will outspend the military on improving human-computer interaction.

In another application, the Wiimote is being used in place of traditional joypads to control the robots used to disarm roadside bombs in Iraq. Paul Marks writes in New Scientist:

The problem with the joypad is that it takes a lot of concentration and can monopolize the attention of the soldier using it… The Wiimote is far more intuitive because movements of the hand directly translate into movements of the robot.

Meanwhile, UK blogger Paul Mander noticed that a modified Xbox controller is being used to fly a drone in the British Army recruiting video at left.

Via: Hard OCP

The Tacoma News-Tribune reports that a former technical advisor on the original Metal Gear Solid has been charged by federal officials with attempting to ship sophisticated holographic night vision gunsights to Japan.

Capt. Tomoaki Iishiba left Japan in 1993 to join the U.S. Army. Iishiba served in Afghanistan and wrote A Japanese Lieutenant from the 82nd Airborne, a Japanese language book about his military experience.

More recently he has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington as an intelligence officer. From the report:

In a two-paragraph charging document filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, prosecutors wrote that Tomoaki Iishiba bought 60 of the EoTech 553... then mailed them to coconspirators in Japan without obtaining an export license. The company’s Web site lists the sights at $639 apiece...

 

He faces one count of conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States and is scheduled to enter a guilty plea at the end of the month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said...

Iishiba has also endorsed a line of knives.

Last week GamePolitics reported on a peace group's protest that forced changes to the America's Army exhibit at Wisconsin's Summerfest.

Huntsville, Alabama's WAFF-48 now reports that a similar protest is planned at an Air Show in Duluth, Minnesota. Michele Naar-Obed of a group called Loaves and Fishes criticized the game, in which players seated in a Humvee shoot at virtual enemy combatants:

I'm very upset over this. I think this is just insane that they would use this kind of venue to train our youth to kill people.

An Army recruiter dismissed the criticism, however. SFC John Haymond told WAFF:

It's kind of curious that some people would object to a virtual army experience game when the central draw to the Duluth Air Show is the Blue Angels who are flying F-18 Super Hornet strike aircraft, which last time I checked, was a military weapon.

Haymond added that no one under 17 is permitted into the exhibit. The air show is setting up a separate area for protesters of the game.
 

The U.S. Army has removed a combat simulator from its display tent at Wisconsin's Summerfest music festival following complaints that the exhibit glorified war.

As reported by Milwaukee's Fox-6, the original display, which allowed players to sit in a HumVee and fire simulated weapons at realistic human combatants, has been replaced by one in which players shoot at inanimate targets.

Protests over the Army display began with a pair of groups, Veterans for Peace and Peace Action Wisconsin. Julie Enslow, a spokesperson for Peace Action Wisconsin, told Fox-6: 

[War] is not a game... and it should not be presented as such. Especially at Summerfest.

 The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has more:

Under the combat scenario initially presented in the game, fest-goers as young as 13 could hop into a Humvee simulator and fire machine guns at near life-size human likenesses on a computer screen.

 

According to a description of the game on the Army’s Web site, an Army ground task force attempts to rescue trapped aid workers and refugees in the imaginary city of “Nradreg” from a “well-armed genocidal faction.”

Is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots designer Hideo Kojima's treatise on the war in Iraq? America's Neo-cons? Stateless combatants? Nuclear war?

All of the above?

Reporter David Itzkoff probes the issue for the New York Times:

Is [MGS4]... a critique of America’s domination of the global stage? A metaphor for the struggle between determinism and free will? ...The original Metal Gear Solid... called attention to the scourge of nuclear proliferation...

 

[MGS2]... introduced a shadowy supernational group called the Patriots, so powerful that even the president of the United States answers to it. (A commentary on the disputed 2000 election? The cabal theories of post-9/11 politics?) And [MGS3]... explored the cold war origins of its characters... intertwined with the rise of the military-industrial complex...

 

[In MGS4]... the forces [Solid Snake] battles are... the mercenaries on the payroll of private military companies... an allegory of war in the era of Blackwater Worldwide and stateless enemy combatants?...