I’ll admit, I don’t play a lot of video games. Nor do I blog about video games. I do, however, love to blog about Russia. And so it caught my eye this week when the two crossed paths. It was reported yesterday that Russia has apparently banned the sale of the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The deal is this: the game takes place in a world where Russia is ruled by extreme nationalists. At one point in the game, you’re an undercover Army officer who participates in a bloody slaughter of civilians at an airport. It’s perpetrated by a Russian extremist cell and the scene begins with its leader telling everyone “No Russian.”
You walk out into the security gate at an airport, with lines full of people swarming to get through to their flights. I cocked my head while playing, as did all the civilians who turned to stare at us, and before I knew what was happening, Makarov and his men opened fire.
My jaw hit the floor as I watched them mow down about thirty people in under five seconds. But then the level actually begins, and it’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever taken part in.
The game forces you to walk at a snail’s pace through the airport, so you get the full effect of what’s happening. All around you, fleeing civilians are being mowed down by Makarov’s team, and you witness some crawling away trying to hide, and some sitting up against walls, nursing their wounds….The entire time the scene was unfolding, I was just thinking in my head “This is the Mumbai Massacre, I am playing the Mumbai Massacre.”
He also pointed to this video of the level:
The Russians understandably took umbrage to the scene and yesterday the internet was afire with reports of the game’s banning. Today, however, Activision says the game has not been banned in Russia, but that the controversial scene has been removed. I haven’t found anything about the game in a cursory look through the English-language Russian press, but if you see anything send it our way.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims to be the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Now, after years of detention in Guantanamo, he’ll be brought to New York for trial, according to unnamed Administration officials Attorney General Eric Holder.
He’ll be joined by four other 9/11 suspects in civilian federal court. The case will be a test for the Obama plan to prosecute terrorists as criminals versus try them in military court. The defense for Mr. Mohammed, known through the 9/11 Commission Report as KSM, already plans to introduce arguments about their client being illegally tortured.
Hey New Yorkers, what do you think – is this justice being served at long last? Or do you not even want him in the US much less in the city? Tell us what you think on Current News.
Don’t say the magazine industry is dead yet – there’s still some space left for expansion – like into the world of international terrorism.
Neal Ungerleider at True/Slant found this gem of jihadi literature online. It’s a dense 73 pages and is titled “The Echo of Battle”. (Maybe the magazine industry just needs to work on its titling?) Interestingly, it seems to feature a lot of discussions of movement philosophy as well as some very charming stock imagery:
Getting caught up on this story from yesterday in the NY Times: Apparently security forces in Iraq are using bomb detecting “wands” that the Pentagon thinks are useless. All those checkpoints that are supposed to keep Iraq’s cities safe from car bombs might not be having much of an effect at all.
The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.
Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”
Iraq is in the middle of a delicate transition period. Things have begun to seem more stable, less violent. US troops have pulled back to their bases, out of the cities. And blast walls in the capital have even come down. But with recent bombings in Baghdad – bomb detection is a really critical part of maintaining security. The New York Times described the wands as working on the “same principle as a Ouija board” – by the power of user suggestion.
On Tuesday, a guard and a driver for The New York Times, both licensed to carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the device. None of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and ammunition inside the vehicle.
During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman.
Tonight is the premiere of a new Vanguard episode: Sri Lanka: Notes from a War on Terror. It is a pretty fantastic piece of journalism and a great exploration of one way to conduct a war on terror: with an iron hand.
President Obama has promised an American troop withdrawal from Iraq by 2011. And Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki has wholeheartedly supported that timeline – building his political credibility on keeping the country secure in the absence of American troops.
The bombers apparently passed through multiple security checkpoints before detonating their vehicles within a minute of each other, leaving at least 155 dead and about 500 wounded strewn across crowded downtown streets. Blast walls had been moved back off the road in front of both buildings in recent weeks.
It was the deadliest coordinated attack in Iraq since the summer of 2007 and happened just blocks from where car bombers killed at least 122 people at the Foreign and Finance Ministries in August, in the continuation of a focused attempt by insurgents to strike at the government’s most critical functions.
Mr. Maliki is running for re-election in January and security is issue number one for the Iraqi people. If these attacks are followed by more violence he’ll have a hard time making the case that he’s the right leader for an American-troop-less Iraq. But if Maliki loses – would whoever takes his place be able to improve security or would the cycle of violence continue? And for President Obama – will an Iraq returning to the violence of 2006 and 2007 really allow for him to complete a troop withdrawal in the next two years?
Riding a huge wave of popularity after defeating the insurgent Tamil Tigers this year, Sri Lanka’s government has called early elections. From the BBC:
Mr Rajapaksa, who is hugely popular among the Sinhalese majority, is likely to score a clear victory.
The opposition is weak and the president is hoping for a two-thirds majority which would enable him to change the constitution, possibly making provision for more than two successive presidential terms.
He has said that he will wait until after the vote to introduce political reforms aimed, for instance, at addressing Tamil grievances.
The Tamil minority will probably not be happy waiting that long to have their greivances addressed, especially with over 200K Tamils still in refugee camps that are likely to flood with the coming monsoon season. If the government waits too long could they kick off another Tamil insurgency? It’s a danger they might be running. And after a thirty year war, it’s probably something they should be concerned about.
The new season of Vanguard features a report by Mariana van Zeller on Sri Lanka’s fight against the Tigers: “Sri Lanka: Notes from a War on Terror”. She looks at what it took for the Sinhalese majority to finally stamp out an incredibly resilient insurgency – and what counter-insurgency campaigns the world over can learn from their efforts (and what not to do).
Mariana’s first report in the new season airs tomorrow night on Current at 10pm ET and again at 10pm PT. It’s called The Oxycontin Express and deals with prescription drug abuse in the US. You can also catch her on Dr. Phil today talking about what she learned on that story.
As Sri Lanka’s civil war came to an end earlier this year, camps in the north of the country overflowed with refugees fleeing the fighting. The camps, though they’re only to be temporary, have drawn criticism from human rights groups for their conditions and for the fact that some of them will not let refugees leave. Now, after massive flooding in August, officials are rushing to get the camps ready for monsoon season:
In August, sudden storms flooded many of the vast camps, submerging toilets and contaminating water.
Thousands of makeshift homes were also damaged in the rainfall.
Now the Sri Lankan government says it is rapidly installing drainage systems in the camps ahead of the monsoon.
About 10% of refugees have been allowed to leave, and the government says it intends to resettle most of the others by the end of this year.
The camps are helped in great part by international funding – but some critics abroad are less than enthused with the Sri Lankan’s government reluctance to allow refugees to return to their homes or villages. The UK has recently announced its intention to withdraw all but emergency funding for the camps, saying that about 70% of the inhabitants could leave.
The announcement came after the UK Development Minister Mike Foster visited the biggest camp at Menik Farm.
He said 70% of people should be able to leave and stay with host families.
Refugees say conditions are poor, with inadequate drinking water and drains, and illness due to the hot conditions. Many are pleading to be allowed home.
The government’s treatment of the Tamil refugees is a cause of concern for international observers, particularly after the devastating end to the civil war. Will Sri Lanka come through on its promises to treat the refugees humanely and restore civil government to the formerly rebel-controlled regions?
Despite pledges from Pakistan to dismantle militant groups operating on its soil, and the arrest of a handful of operatives, Lashkar has persisted, even flourished, since 10 recruits killed 163 people in a rampage through Mumbai, India’s financial capital, last November.
Indian and Pakistani dossiers on the Mumbai investigations, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times, offer a detailed picture of the operations of a Lashkar network that spans Pakistan. It included four houses and two training camps here in this sprawling southern port city [Karachi] that were used to prepare the attacks.
Not great news for India or for India’s testy relationship with its neighbor, Pakistan. The NYTimes also points out that the influence of the group could hurt coalition efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan has become the fulcrum of a lot of the battle against international terror, what with the remnants of Al Qaeda in its Northwest Frontier Province, and being the home base for the Mumbai attacks of last year. But is Pakistan doing enough to combat terror? Is the ISI, the country’s spy agency, secretly backing some of these groups? Or does the government have enough power to effectively fight terror?
Related from Current:
- Terror in Mumbai (Video) – Video from last year’s attacks
- Our Close Ally? (Video) – Vanguard’s Adam Yamaguchi investigates how the US fares in the eyes of Pakistanis
