Slashdot Mirror
Linux Games WIth Guns
ZaMoose writes: "Not to beat on the poor America's Army servers any further, but their sitrep for today featured the following interesting tidbit: "That's not all. We're also working on an in-game browser, linux port, and host of other features. Yes, we've been busy the past week!" (emphasis mine). For those not familiar with AA:Operations, it is a free (as in beer) first person shooter developed under the watchful eye of the US Army. It received mounds of praise at this year's E3 and was released to Windows users July 4th." Well, it says Linux server port, anyhow. And JD writes: "Apex Designs have announced that their GTA-style game Payback is coming to Linux. The port appears to already be fully playable as there is a status report here which includes some early screenshots.
(And their website doesn't require IE. :)"
Bah, who needs more than Nethack anyway?
Insert "back in my day, we had lines of text and we LIKED IT!"-type ranting here...
In other news, the US Army decided to scrap the Linux client port after Microsoft announced that it would be assuming control of OpenGL and discontinuing it, leaving only DirectX on Windows.
Microsoft only had the following statement: "All your 3D graphics libraries are belong to us."
The US Army was not available for comment.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
hmm.. yep shure is a great game...
but my 3dfx with only 16mb won't run it,
blarg
Currently, if you want gaming, you need a windows box. Yes Quake 3 may play very well under linux, or your version of WINE might be great, but in the end... your going to need a windows box to play.
I dig linux for many things, just not gaming.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
They've either got paying jobs or they are fat slobs living in their parents' basements. The Army can't get the first and I'm not sure they want the second.
I have been pwned because my
Changelog:
0.1-3.5.89
"Osama Bill Laden" now has proper beard.
0.1-3.5.88
Changed OS Logos to "Axis of Evil" Flags.
0.1-2.7.34
Changed "Hand" cursor in XBill^H^H^H^H^HArmy of One to M-16 target.
Noone uses the Amiga :)
Read the SITREP at the America's Army site: it says Linux server port, not client.
:wq
what will happen when there is another Columbine and this game is blamed much like Doom was then?
You'd think that the U.S. government would be able to put more resources towards this. Are all their programs underresourced like this?
<Joke>Imagine a version of Quake for America's Army players</Joke>
And come to think about it, is it really such a good idea for the government to fund a game like this when it has yet to be decided by a court whether or not games have influenced school shootings and other killings by teenagers?
Since when do courts decide the cause of human action?
What brilliantly twisted country has the United States of America become when it is deemed a necessary function of the Federal Government to provide murder-simulation software for the entertainment of the citizenry?
Please, just heap thousand-dollar bills on the ground and burn them. Delete them. Do ANYTHING but spend MY money on a game that is designed to simulate (as realistically as possible) the murder of human beings.
The only moral justification one could possibly come up with for this game is that it diverts funding from the actual murder of human beings.
On one hand, linux is making advances with more games being ported.
On the other, its a game. You interact with a game, the game interacts with the operating system, which interacts with the hardware. Does it matter what OS it runs on?
Yes, part of this was exactly my point. Why is the goverment throwing tax dollars at such a project when time after time there are reports of real life violence stemming from games?
Whilst I do not agree that games cause violent behaviour, plenty of people have that idea planted in their minds.
After the tragic events at Columbine why would the Army promote such a thing? We don't need any more BS hype about games creating psycho killers.
Is the Army ready to deal with this?
Please, just avoid this propaganda at all costs.
I would if I had mod points. Unfortunately I don't, so your sophmoric rant stands...for now.
the problem with my tax dollars being spend on this is that when it doesn't work on my system, I can't return it for a refund
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Am I the only one who sees the irony in this? What kind of subliminal message will people get while playing this game?
"How do I join the terrorist side?"
"You can't, you are always a terrorist"
"But I look like a US Soldier?"
"There is no difference... "
I just checked the website and it says linux *SERVER* port". I can't find anywhere where it just says "linux port" so I see no indication of any possible client version for linux.
test
It is both funny and interesting.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Who else get's a tinge of 1984 reading this? Government-sponsored violence games...?
(Well, maybe I'm just being paranoid, as I've only just read it...)
I doubt, therefore I may be.
Games create psycho killers? The US Marine Corps might be interested in this technology!
(just kidding all you devil dogs)
If you're always a terrorist in the game it's gonna affect the game flow.
Every few minutes the battle halts and everyone has to pray towards Mecca. That's gonna suck bigtime.
Apparently the army has never been to a Linux convention.
-bugg
Yes, ofcourse all terrorists are Islamic.
Humor and prejudice are sometimes hard to tell apart.
Story I submitted that got rejected follows. Yeah, it's off-topic. Bite me.
The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
The funny thing is, ZaMoose quoted the website, but cut out that most important word, "linux SERVER port". Here's the real quote.
Hopefully next time timothy will actually visit the web page linked, and make sure that at least the emphasised, bold words correspong to reality.
Actually, the US Army is doing a hell of a lot more with Linux then this. I had a job interview a couple of years ago with a private org that is doing research in the war games area and they are using Linux. I assume that they would not give me anything that is secret in an interview so I will repeat what I understood...
The "game" is under development because they cannot afford to have all the troops training all of the time in the field. So what they are doing is having the people in the field shoot at and kill imaginary targets that the computer is tracking and showing on their screens or whatever. Some of those targets would be controled by troops on computers that are training in maneuvers or something.
I was being interviewed because of my knowledge in Linux and because much of the system would be running on it. I would have been in the field installing these systems and all that shit. I certainly could have had the job, and it sounded interesting and probably fun. But I decided my contribution to the world was not going to be propigating what I believe to be the worst mistake of mankind.
Anyway, yeah...the US army is playing with Linux...a lot.
NR
Hmmm, did anyone actually read the article ?
Is says :
That's not all. We're also working on an in-game browser, linux server port, and host of other features.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Since the Irish laid down their arms, Catholics have been out of the terrorist business. That leaves Muslims and crazy cults like Aum Shinrikyo (but these are usually small isolated incidents, unlike rampant incidents of terrorism by muslims).
It's free for me, I've never paid tax in the US.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
http://www.stricom.army.mil/PRODUCTS/JANUS/
That is a URL to the army's public data on the project. I am not sure if this is the whole deal or a part of it, but this project was mentioned.
NR
I've found another game company that will be releasing for linux.e linux.net/
Reality Undefined : http://realityundef.sf.net/
http://undefined.hom
They are working on a 3d space shotter game, Like Silence Does. Developmet seems active. They also seem to be mainly coding for linux with a windoze port as an after thought.
I read that the game cost about $7 million to make. The 2002 US defense budget is $328.9 billion. So, the amount of money spent on this game would have paid for (assuming I got my math right) 11 minutes of operating the US Armed Forces during 2002. Big deal. Also consider that the US Army (and other branches!) have a hell of a lot of advertising going on, on TV, at movie theaters, in magazines, you name it. Those things cost more, and are just as much propaganda, as this game.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
The server runs in command line mode, so it should run pretty easy under winex. It even uses the Unreal 2003 engine, before the Unreal 2003 game is even out. But don't expect the game to run on your older linux boxes, the game runs on a 800mhz/gf2 basic machine with about 20fps in 800x600. On my AMD 1800/gfti500 I get about 40-50 in 1024x768 with every gfx option turned on. And boy the gfx are the best out, (until doom3!) Skins are handled nicely, where no matter what side you are, your always Americans. The enemy is either arabs, or normal soldiers without backpacks. You can run, jog, walk or take baby steps and each affects your shooting and sound. Walk slow hunched down, or lie on your stomach (and roll left/right) and you can snipe an enemy or surprise ambushed. Very realistic. (Thou we do need a knife in the game.)
:)
And if you like CS, you will really like this. This game isn't CS where you can jump and shoot an awp and kill someone, you have to plan, ambush, take aim, act as a team. The levels are awesome, the HQ mission, where you have to invade a camp and rescue a POW, is fantastic. The tunnel level has a very detailed collapsed ends with cars trapped, where you have to take out the terrorists and not let any escape. The mount mckenna mission is nicely detailed, you have 2 teams, honor or loyalty, and must capture and defend 3 points. Surprising how many people think this is quake3, and Die
And they are going to release special missions, (For free!), where you can train in special ops, sharp shooting, navy seals, etc. Im sure each branch of the armed services wants a mission pack for them.
BTW, not sure how Homelan got to host all the servers (Are they they only game hosting service out?) But they seem to on top of it, switching servers around so people can play. Thou 4th of july was a bad time to release, 500,000 people couldn't play, only 10 servers and buggy code. Hopefully a patch will be out soon, oh yea, that's this slashdot topic!
"This was an honest disagreement about accounting procedures..." - President Bush - The art of spin control.
Besides, who knows what kinds of hidden messages the Army could be putting in these games to influence the youth of America.
Who knows what type of hidden messages they're putting on the TV? Or on the radio? Or in the clouds? (they have complete control over the weather, you know.)
There's no solid evidence of any effective hidden messages. If you can survive the propoganda of school and TV and movies and radio and billboards, I'm sure you can survive the propaganda of America's Army.
The money spent on this game would have been otherwise spent on TV ads, etc. The army gets a certain amount of money each year for advertising (sometimes shrilly referred to as 'propaganda' by people who don't like what's being advertised). This year some of the money went to this game instead of a few more TV spots. Big freaking deal. If you're really serious about your moral indignation by all of these misspent taxpayer dollars, you should be expending 10-100x as much effort railing against all of the taxpayer money that was spent on TV and print ads.
Hasn't the US Army got better things to spend its money on than games?
Go find Osama.
By your own logic, we shouldn't fund U.S. Army commercials either. Commericals are, after all, propaganda paid for by Americans.
The theory behind this game is that the cost/benefit ratio will be much higher than traditional advertising. That is, it costs X dollars to recruit one soldier from commercials, and something less than X per recruit from this video game. All else being equal, this would in fact save American's tax money.
The argument is whether or not this provides more cost effective than traditional "propaganda." If it is, your concern is moot. If not, I'll agree with you.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
But think of the power-boost you get after the praying. All you have to do is find a quiet spot, out of the rush-traffic.
However, the US Soldiers should be able to meditate and do yoga. So they will kick more whopass in the long run.
What are the moderators European or something? Only a eurofag could be so stupid to mod this troll up.
Plus you are helping train future soldiers. This will do more to advertise than all of the TV & radio commercials, because it is targeting the right audience.
This "game" only amounts to taxpayer funded propaganda by the US Army
Is that so bad? I mean really - the game is cool in case you haven't played it. Nice and fun. I would MUCH rather have the army spending money on something like this than buying a SINGLE 30-second ad during the superbowl. Judging by the demand it also seems to be a much greater success than any previous army type propoganda.
Besides which having the gov't develop cool computer games is the last thing we want to discourage.
Every player in that game is US soldier and terrorist at the same time. It only depends on the point of view.
US soldiers are supposed to be able to walk in bright sunlight. The target audience of AA will probably melt or sustain severe sunburns when exposed to direct sunlight. Maybe the US army has remote controlled combat drones in their R&D queue?
Since someone tries to sue the game manufacturers. You can get off your high horse now.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
As Linux is affiliated with Communism, you can only play as the Red Army in the game ;-)
As a guy who server 4 years in the Army, I can't "avoid your propaganda at all costs." Especially when you're sitting at +5. :P
... could it have been spent on better things? Probably. The game is hugely popular it turns out ... will it improve the Army's recruitment problem? I doubt it. Will it improve the perception of the Army with America's youth? Yes, for the same reason Saving Private Ryan and Blackhawk Down did.
... by the way, they're still doing it right now in places like Afghanistan.
... but damn it, these guys are due.
.... nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, the game cost taxpayer money
The Army is trying to portray itself as a professional organization, where a soldier has many educational opportunities and other benefits that most of them would not have otherwise. They're trying to change the typical perception from "People who join the Army out of high school are losers, and had no choice." to "People who choose the Army are doing their country a great service and are fighting for our rights." When the shit hits the fan, the soldiers are the ones who pay the price
In the grand scheme of things, the game cost almost nothing. Ask a Vietnam Vet sometime of the reception they got when they came home. I guarantee it wasn't the patriotic flag waving you see today. (Everyone's a couch patriot). It's PR ploy, that's for sure
One day, I was walking in a freaking toy store, and there was an action figure "Infantry Platoon Leader". I looked at it with some friends, and we were like "Holy shit, we're an action figure!". This game is the same thing --- an action figure for gamers, that's all it is
Think of the costs of this game as the fee for living in a free country. Now, get off your pedestal and enjoy it like everyone else, it's only a game.
Yes, of course all terrorists are Islamic
Yeah, FARC and IRA have been busy killing loads of Americans, too. Like 9/11. Oops, Islamic extremists. Ok, Pan Am. Sorry, Islamic extremists again. USS Cole? Muslims. Embassy bombings? Muslims. 1993 WTC bombing? Muslims. 2000 LAX bombing attempt? Muslims. I won't even get the numerous murderous acts committed against Israel, since a surprising number of people seem to feel that is justified.
It may not be PC to say the main terrorist threat against the US comes from Muslims, specifically middle eastern Muslims, but it's the truth. And no, that's not the same thing as saying all Muslims are terrorists. The actions from the people in that region over the last few decades has certainly lent loads to the image that the whole region is nothing but a breeding ground for terrorists.
United States Marine Corps!
If propoganda doesn't work, why is so much money spent on commercials, PR firms, focus groups, and all the psychologists employed in those places? For that matter, why would the millitary invest so much money in developing a game if they didn't anticipate a return?
You've probably heard who started the diamond engagement ring tradition. People are vulnerable to suggestion; an undeniable fact. If you want to keep a grip an whatever freewill you have left, you have to accept that people really are trying to control what you think. Check out this link if you want to see the tip of the iceberg:
http://www.prwatch.org/
Well, since research has shown that videogames can decrease intelligence, I guess it's perfect for the army.. dont want the recruits to think for themselves.. let's give'em games. //rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
and the army never sees any real life violence do they? that couldn't possibly be what they want the game to do...
Besides being a paranoid citizen you are also a huge FUD spreader. The people in the military pay taxes like everyone else. The army has to try what it can to keep people in or even recruit people. And since most intelligent people such as your selves would rather spend money on other things, just think about the life and living conditions of our military, specialy the army! Those poor folks still have to live in building made in WWII, barely get time off for school or even thier families. Hell they even have to go half way around the world for months with out even seeing their families. What you should be paranoid about is the fact that more and more people are "complaining" that the military gets too much and we don't need it. While this is happening and the military looses it's strength more "holes" will be created and you fears of bomers in america will be a reality.
Anything the government does is oopen to a lawsuit because that is our rights, if we keep worrying about it then nothing will be done.
---ah f*ck it, go freaking live in China, Iraq, or even Russia since this stuff is soo bad.
I wonder how come no one has created a FPS where you go kill terrorists? With the quake source code out under the GPL it should be easy to create one. I've heard that there is some kind of Nazi/KKK racist game out there. That makes me wonder why, if the white trash and inbreds in this country can have their own game where they can act out their dim-witted vendetta against racial and ethnic minorities, why can't there be a game were the rest of us can fantasize about killing terrorists?
I for one would love to exorcise some of the anger I feel about everything that's happened by pumping some lead into some Al Queda knuckle-draggers. I even have a title for the game: "Operation Kill'em all," under which could be the sub-title "Give the enemy a first hand lesson in what a real Jihad looks like."
In truth I'm kind of concerned as to why we haven't heard much from the news lately. Six months ago all you heard was who we were killing in Afghanistan. Is there no one left that needs killing? I doubt it. Oh well, the way I see it if there are more terrorist attacks then that will be fine. Cockroaches are easier to step on when they're where you can see them. Maybe we're just gearing up for an operation to invade Iraq and hang old Saddam from a street light. I personally think that would be a very good thing to do. Even if Saddam himself is not much of a threat, our willingness to use overwhelming force in order to get rid of him will be a very effective demonstration of power to the rest of the world, and more importantly it would instill fear, which is often the most effective weapon of all. We wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for the fact that the american people voted for Bill Clinton twice in a row. Our war on terrorism is nothing but us having to play catch up after nearly a decade of extremely bad foreign policy. If Clinton had handled the situation in its infancy back in 93, none of this would be necessary. But instead he tried to apply european style pussy politics to a region of the world where force and power are the only languages that are understood. Oh well, like I said, Cockroaches are easier to kill when you can see them. In the long run it might be for the best since we're now killing off the fuckers instead of just trying to contain them. In the long term offensive strategies are almost always better than ones based upon the idea of perpetual defense. Defenses can fail, but that doesn't matter when your enemy is dead and his friends piss their pants in terror at the mere mention of your name. Too bad Clinton didn't have a modern day Machiavelli as a foreign policy adviser.
In any case I think a good game would be one in which you get to kill terrorists, the more graphic and gory the better.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
no, but all islamics are terrorists.
They are either terrorists by practice, design, or belief.
I think that was his point.
O.k. maybe a few people such as yourself might actually take a minute to think of something, most people don't ponder something like this for a conspiracy.
Killing people is as American as apple pie. The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people in 33 years, partly by bombing 14 countries. Is the U.S. the culture with the biggest anger problem?
Ofcourse. To defend the GPL against certain terrorist companies that try to Take Over The World.
karma capped
"Please, just avoid this propaganda at all costs."
No. I like it.
Ok, assuming that you are correct and the region is indeed a breeding ground for terrorists (I personally think you're wrong, but I'll play along), why do you suppose this is?
Think about it.
A few months ago, I went through [most of] basic training at Ft. Benning, in a platoon with a bunch (as in, all but 3) of geeks, though not all of them were Linux geeks. I noticed a strange domination of Cisco yuppies with Novell skillz, harping on about Win2k. Plenty of UNIX programmers, though, which is what matters.
These geeks were in Ft. Benning (which normally only trains infantry) because Ft. Jackson (whom normally trains these sorts) was booked solid.
Thus, I'd like to say that not only is the Army hiring Slashdot-reading linux-using teenagers, but that they're recruiting them in droves.
And, yes, it -did- look like a Linux convention for the first week or so, but they were all looking and -acting- like soldiers within a couple of months. Even the former three-pack-a-day gamers were partaking in nonsensical pushup competitions, and the platoon was top in the company for fitness scores.
It was a strange transition to see, watching the flabby, pale, quiet Linux kids turn into hardcore rope-climbing, gun-toting freaks.
And in a few months, when those same kids are done training at Ft. Gordon and get shipped out to the front line as communications geeks, I'll be very glad to have them there, while I sit on my once-again flabby, civilian ass and read Slashdot.
Kid-proof tablet..
Palestine's attacks on Israel are at least as Justified as Israel's attacks on Palestine, considering that Israel has stolen most of the land from Palestinians.
Note that I am a born and bread USA citizen. I am not Muslim, nor do my ancestors come from the Middle East... let me try to open your eyes... (note the list below is by no means exhaustive, complete, or detailed)
What about all those Muslims who had their mosques fire bombed? What about all those who looked like they might be from the ME, the ones who were killed, harrassed, etc... by Americans?
What about all of the Kurds and Iranians who were killed by the USA using Iraq as a proxy? Giving killing machines and technology and giving them the go-ahead-and-kill-them-iranians is surely a morally questionable act.
What about the attacks on Iraq, which killed thousands of innocent civilians? Oops, American extremists.
Ok, that Iranian civilian passenger (747 sized btw) airplane that was shotdown by the USA? Sorry, American extremists again.
How about the bombing of Afganistan, which killed hundreds of innocent civilians and lead to the starvation of hundreds more? Need I remind you, it was the work of the good ol US of A!
What about the USA's use of tried and true imperialism in the middle east? Its all about oil when it comes to the USA and the ME. Damn their holy land! Damn their Mecca! WE NEED OUR OIL!
I won't even get into the numerous murderous acts committed by the USA using Israel as a proxy against Palestine, since a surprising number of people seem to feel that is justified. Wait, those aren't USA supplied war machines? Thats not USA nuke technology? That wasn't Prez Dubya calling Sharon a man of peace, while at the same time calling Arafat a corrupt leader? Do a little search on "Sharon war crimes" in google. Not necessarily the kind of guy that I would call a "man of peace".
It may not be PC to say that the main terrorist threat against the Muslim world in the Middle East comes from the USA, specifically jingoists like yourself, who are too small minded and selfish to realize that their shit stinks too. Your justifications for killing are the same justifications that your "enemy" uses. Until people begin to realize that such reasoning is flawed, the violence will never end.
What surprises me is how people like you can't see the forest for the trees.
A wise man once said, "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone". I hope you can try to think outside of what the TV has told you. The way you think is biased towards a particular political agenda. The way you think contributes to the furthering of violence in this world. Has the USA sinned against the Muslim nations of the middle east? Most definitely! So why are we so quick to throw stones?
"Because we have a right to defend ourselves", you say, in justification of waging war. "Because we have a right to defend ourselves", the Muslim extremists say, in justification of waging war against the USA. And the circle goes round and round till we all fall down.
Every few minutes the battle halts and everyone has to pray towards Mecca. That's gonna suck bigtime.
Sure, every few minutes the terrorists stop and pray, and the US team, who appear in the game as NFL players, stop for a commercial break.
Was Noam Chomsky one of the programmers?
why do you suppose this is?
Ineffectual religious leaders who face being made irrelevant by the onslaught of technology and social progress. They fear basic human rights because it is the specter of equality of the sexes that threatens to unleash the pent up anguish of the long subordinated and denigrated women. They see in America and Israel obvious scapegoats to heap all of their society's ills upon. They fear education because it threatens to undermine their monopoly on wisdom and knowledge. The West glorifies everything that scares them the most.
They keep their subjects as dumb and seething as possible in order to legitimize their power. By giving their subjects a target, they have sown the seeds for terrorism.
why do you suppose this is?
Perhaps due to the political and intellectual repression in the region.
A wise man once said, "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone".
No, Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Since Christians are washed in the blood of the Lamb, they are without sin. Christians can cast as many stones as they like with impunity.
Oh really. Please don't use the word 'Murder' when you mean 'Warfare'. Whatever your views on the training capabilities of computer games (mine are that if you think teaching people that the best way to win a gunfight is to run in circles around the opposition having developed the ability to see through walls then you are a f*cking moron, but thats just me) or the morality of Bush's tactics in dealing with terrorists (here I'm against their 'whatever you do, its better to kill a couple hundred foreigners just in case, rather than investigate if they might actually be terrorists' 'strategy'), calling the game a 'murder-simulation' is just tabloid sensationalism.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I think you missed the parent's point, sir. In effect, it is our fault. Or rather, America's fault. Had we not done what we had done during the cold war, most of these leaders would never have entered into power. Had we not been so eager to strike a blow against Communism, as we are now so eager to do against "terrorism," then most of the leaders who have opposed us these last few years would never have come to power. Furthermore, it's obvious that we are going to see the results of our current meddling five or ten years down the road, when Afghanistan, having killed it's current leader, will simply turn to the next zealot with a gun and a cause.
Silly person! ;-)
1) I am not a US citizen... I never paid for this game. Thus I do consider it free.
2) It was developed to aid the US forces in tactical learning... it is a cheap superior teaching aid. They only decided to give a bit back to the people who funded it!
3) It is a propoganda aid for poor silly countries like mine to make us think that the US may not be so bad after all...
Hey, not to mention that recent research from some Japanese guy which the www.bbc.co.uk reported went on to prove that playing Vidio Games too much (7 days per week and 4 hours plus) makes for violence and anger (Just what you need in soldiers), albeit controlled and channeled effectively.
When I first heard about the game i was surprised to think that any of the games main audience (14-25 year old males) would want to join the army. People that want to join the army are probably out playing football, or getting into fights. Not sitting at home re-compiling their Linux Kernel :p.
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Might I suggest you try Counter-Strike? Or Rainbow 6? Or SWAT 3? Or Infiltration? Or Rogue Spear? Or indeed America's Army?
Frankly, these days I look forward to that rare FPS that _doesn't_ involve a Terrorist v Counter-terrorist scenario!
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
No, I got the point. However, I put the blame at the terrorists' feet, not America's. It isn't the US that is demanding an all or nothing Palestine, that's Hamas. It isn't the US that kills Afghani citizens who dare to step out of line like some sort of Orwellian nightmare. It isn't the US who has perpetuated years of armed conflict in Afghanistan, turning what was once a beautiful pastoral land into dust and rubble. The US wasn't alone in its attempt to stamp out its ideological rival, Russia was hard at work to undermine capitalism around the globe.
We don't have to wait five years to see what has happened to the new Afghani government. The vice president has already been assassinated. The US has given the country a blank check to establish a government that will benefit all the people by establishing routes of commerce and communication, establishing schools for both genders, and food to feed the hungry and war-torn population. Then someone comes along and kills the second highest government official. No doubt someone is gunning for the president of Afghanistan as we speak. These are not the actions of a people who are ready for peace. However, without the peacekeeping influence of the US along with the UN, Afghanistan would be in a much worse situation than it is now.
Maybe I am just being paranoid, but has any body consider that this game may contain spyware enabling the CIA to increase their spying powers?
Nope. Your tax dollars. My taxes are in Euros.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
A large misconception about this game is that it's "free". When you consider the fact that it was paid for with our tax dollars, you can throw that idea out the window.
:)
Not for those of us who aren't USian as has already been pointed out
Besides, I'd rather see as much military cash as possible being spent on computer games if the alternatives are to spend it on bombs and bullets.
Please don't use the word 'Murder' when you mean 'Warfare'.
All war is murder - it just depends on which side you're on as to who you see as the perptrator.
Country X goes to war with Country Y
X's citizens justify it by saying Y is murdering innocent people
Y's citizens justify it by saying X is murdering innocent people
Who is right? Well, both are. If everyone from both sides agrees that murder is being performed, then murder must be being performed. Cogito ergo sum.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Why hide messages in it? You suspicions do not make sense when you consider that the obvious message is in your face, plain as day. The game is the message. No need for conspiracy theory subliminals...
Sounds like you have issues.
Aaah, I see. Its the 'our soldiers'=='innocent people' argument. Yes, I've seen that used as well, so if you really want to stretch it then you could possibly justify that. My basis for being offended at the source comment was that at no point in the game are you really given the opportunity to shoot at anyone other than terrorists, 'real' terrorists whose objective is to shoot you or plant a bomb, rather than the somewhat looser definition frequently used of 'whoever happens to wander in front of our boys guns'. No implementation of hostages yet that I've seen, and killing your fellow soldiers (team killing) causes the player to get chucked out of the game, which is hardly rewarding them.
Whatever your opinion of the morals of the game, its not quite Postal, Carmageddon or GTA. Besides, if you do believe that any killing in war is murder, then the expenditure of Army budget on a bunch of games rather than bullets strikes me as a good thing anyway. There is no shortage of games like this (many are even free mods for FPS games that the players will have already purchased as well), and its money that would have otherwise been spent of TV or Cinema adverts for the Army. Therefore I don't see a big threat.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Noam Chomksy barely knows that 2+2=4, let alone how to program anything.
I'd trust him for lingustics insights. Beyond that, he is a colossal dope.
Now there's an idea I like! Next time we have to fight a war, we'll just ship the enemy a bunch of computers and challenge them to a game of CS.
// TODO: fix sig
That's not all. We're also working on an in-game browser, linux server port, and host of other features. Yes, we've been busy the past week! More servers, providing for the addition of community servers, more missions, and more Army training! But that's just the tip of the iceberg, troops! Stay tuned for more! [Bacchus]
/. subscription.
Sigh. i'm not renewing my
"May I remind you of the countless military actions against countries in the middle east (not limited to middle eastern countries) for the US's personal gain? Oil anyone?"
Countless? You'll be hard pressed to name one. Kuwait, for example. This action was 100% anti-imperialist, and not for the US's personal gain.
" Oil anyone?"
A simplistic, cartoonish approach to things that does not hold out when you look at real events and motivations.
"Need I also remind you that the US equipped the Afghan people (Taliban too mind you) with arms during their war against the Russians.
Did the Taliban even exist then?
Then, when Afghanistan won, the US saw their mission as complete and left them in poverty and dispair
The continuation of poverty and despair was the choice of the warlords. It would have taken a direct US intervention to stop it. The could have rebuilt the place themselves, they choose not to.
"You see, appart from the other problems, you fuckups have destroyed the environment, have killed innocent people, have invaded Vietnam just to prove that you`re "macho" and have elected idiot after idiot to drive your country forward"
About "destroyed the environment":Which country is cleaner? Greece or the US.
Invaded Vietnam? The US was invited to hold off a Soviet invasion. The Soviets invaded, conquered, and annexed that place. You seem to forget that.
"America is a bastard nation"
Explain this? Were America's parents unmarried?
"you baptize someone a terrorist and then you decide to kill him"
The terrorists "baptise" themselves as terrorists.
"Appart from your technical achievements (witch actually are created from immigrands
Thomas Edison was native to the U.S. So was George Washington Carver. So are most of these inventors. You might know Greece, but you certainly do not know America!
Sorry to disagree with you but it that past spending on bombs and bullets that enable you to be speaking and writing in English today instead of German or Russian or Chinese. Granted the military and military spending has not always served the 'higher' purpose, that of allowing a 'mostly' free country to stay that way but the country is still only run by humans. As such mistakes will always be made but I would much rather those mistakes be made in a democratic county then any other. At least we have the opportunity to keep an eye on things. How much disagreement does China tolerate with its citizens? How about North Korea? I will gladly support the government continuing to spend the small percentage of tax dollars (in comparison to the total budget) on military related tasks and supplies. On average, it is that spending that allows me to own my car, house, toys, etc. and what allows us to disagree on things like this without worrying about jack-booted storm troopers kicking in our doors and dragging us out into the night to be never heard from again!
I have to use this cause I can't afford a real sig...
An interesting feature of the America's Army FPS game is that *both* sides play American troops.
The missions are set up so that you're either attacking or defending a base, and your team is always the Americans, and the other team always looks like terrorists. This creates an interesting unstated message to the game: American troops are exactly the same and have the same objectives as terrorists. I understand why the army doesn't want to encourage people roll-playing the axis of evil, but I'm not sure if this is the subtext they want to create either.
Of course it is a realistic portrayal of the way asymetrical warfare works. Everyone thinks they are fighting to defend freedom.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I'll play. Ok, I happen to believe that all men are created equal, more or less. At least, whites aren't any better than blacks, etc. I don't think that that can be said for societies, though. Or countries. Some of them flat out suck, and wind up producing terrorists. If many sucky countries happen to share the same religion, you can't bitch when people make the correlation.
Well... I'm talking about asymetrical warfare, i.e. small bands of armed rebels/freedom fighters/terrorists against a larger, established power. Think the IRA, PLO, Al-Quaeda, heck even the Boston Tea Party.
But in a way, yes, the Nazi's were fighting for freedom. Hitler worked the population into a fervor by appealing to germanic values and traditions, claiming that their historical rights had been imposed upon. Germany had a somewhat legitimate claim to Poland. Sure the invasion of France and the events of and following krystalnacht were obviously about totalitarian dominance, but by that point the ball had already been rolling for quite some time.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
You mean like where it says "Well, it says Linux server port, anyhow."?
That seems to cover it pretty well, right? Or are you complaining about something else entirely?
And come to think about it, is it really such a good idea for the government to fund a game like this when it has yet to be decided by a court whether or not games have influenced school shootings and other killings by teenagers?
AAAAAARRRRGGG!! You don't get it!!! You just don't get it!!! It wasn't the video games, the trenchcoats, or the Marylin Manson music that caused it. Every perpetrator of a school shooting was discovered to have taken the dangerous chemical, Dihidrogen Monoxide within 24 hours before their rampage. This has been settled.
I am by no means defending the nazi or fundamentalist ideologies. My point about Poland, was that in the beginning, the Nazis were acting within the bounds of historical precedent. Al-Queida aren't fighting for freedom in the American sense, but rather the freedom to organize their society the way they see fit, without intrusion from other cultures.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Exclusive -
On July 3, 1988, and American warship shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 civilians. This is the true story of how it happened -- and how the Pentagon tried to cover up the tragic blunder.
SEA OF LIES
The modern navy has many ladders. Its officers can earn their stripes at sea or in the air. They can prosper by navigating the shoals of technocracy. But the one sure path to glory is the same as in the Roman times: victory at sea. Sailing in harm's way is a matter of vocation.
Capt. Will Rogers III, USN, spent his career preparing for combat. Winning his commission in December 1965 at the age of 27, Rogers came late to the navy, but he made up for lost time with a gung-ho attitude and - after a spell on the staff of the chief of naval operations - friends in high places. In 1987, Rogers won command of the navy's most prized high-tech warship, an Aegis cruiser. The billion-dollar Vincennes seemed a sure ticket to flag rank. But Rogers, who like many peacetime naval officers had never been under fire, longed to see action.
On July 3, 1988 Captain Rogers got his wish. He sought out and engaged the enemy in a sea battle in the Persian Gulf. From the captain's chair of a warship combat information center, he made life-and -death decisions in the heat of conflict. It was the moment he had yearned and trained for, and it should have been the apex of his life in the service.
Only it wasn't much of a battle. Rogers had blundered into a murky, half-secret confrontation between the United States and Iran that the politicians did not want to declare and the top brass was not eager to wage. The enemy was not a disciplined naval force but ragtag irregulars in lightly armed speedboats. Fighting them with an Aegis cruiser was like shooting at rabbits with a radar-guided missile. And when it was over, the only confirmed casualties were innocent civilians: 290 passengers and crew in an Iranian Airbus that Captain Rogers's men mistook for an enemy warplane.
The destruction Iran Air Flight 655 was an appalling human tragedy. It damaged America's world standing. It almost surely caused Iran to delay the release of the American hostages in Lebanon. It may have given the mullahs a motive for revenge and provoked Tehran into playing a role in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. For the navy, it was a professional disgrace. The navy's most expensive surface warship, designed to track and shoot down as many as 200 incoming missiles at once, had blown apart an innocent civilian airliner in its first time in combat. What's more, NEWSWEEK has learned , the Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters a the time of the shoot-down - in clear violation of international law. The top Pentagon brass understood from the beginning that if the whole truth about the Vincennes came out, it would means months of humiliating headlines. So the U.S. Navy did what all navies do after terrible blunders at sea: it told lies and handed out medals.
This is the story of a naval fiasco, of an overeager captain, panicked crewmen, and the cover-up that followed. A NEWSWEEK investigation, joined by ABC News's "Nightline," encountered months of stone-walling by senior naval officers. Some of the evasions were products of simple denial; a number of the seamen and officers aboard the Vincennes that morning in July 1988 are still in therapy today, wrestling with guilt. But the Pentagon's official investigation into the incident, the Fogarty Report, is a pastiche of omissions, half-truths and outright deceptions. It was a cover-up approved at the top, by Adm. William Crowe, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Captain Rogers insisted to "Nightline" last week that he had made the "proper decision." He had opened fire only to protect his ship and crew, he said. But drawing on declassified documents, videotapes and audiotapes from the ships involved in the incident, and well over 100 interviews, NEWSWEEK has pieced together an account that belies the skipper's stoic defense. It is almost a parable for an era of "limited" warfare, with its blurry rules of engagement and its lethal technology in frightened young hands. It is as well an age-old story of hubris, of a warrior who wanted war too much.
A MURKY MORNING
At 6:33 local time on the Vincennes, on the morning of July 2, the phone buzzed in Will Rogers's cramped sleeping quarters. The captain was shaving. Already, just two hours after the sunrise, the 100-degree heat of the sun was overwhelming the ship's air- conditioning systems. Fine-grained sand whipped across the gulf from the Arabian Desert, creating a yellowish haze. Rogers picked up the phone. It was the duty officer in the ship's combat information center, the nerve center two decks below Rogers's sea cabin: "Skipper, you better come down. It sounds like the Montgomery has her nose in a beehive."
Some 50 miles to the northeast, the U.S. Navy frigate Montgomery was coming through the western entrance of the Strait of Hormuz. Everyday, tankers bearing half the world's imported oil wend their way through the strait, only 32 miles wide at its choke point. The Iran-Iraq War had turned the strait into a gauntlet. Gunboats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, based on the islands of Hengam and Abu Musa, had been attacking tankers and merchantmen bound to and from Kuwait, Iraq's main ally in the war. Anxious to keep Kuwait's oil flowing, the United States had agreed to provide escort to Kuwait tankers registered under the U.S. flag.
On this July morning, the Montgomery spotted a half-dozen Revolutionary Guard launches venturing out from the island hideouts. On this own, Rogers decided to enter the fray. At 6:33 the Vincennes log records, he ordered "all ahead flank." The cruiser's four massive gas-turbine engines cranked up to 80,000 horsepower and sent the warship smashing through the waves at 30 knots.
By 6:50 - according to the official version of events later offered by the navy - the Montgomery had spotted 13 Iranians gunboats in the strait. Several were said be milling about near a Liberian tanker called the Stoval. At 7:11, the Montgomery reported hearing "five to seven" explosions coming from the vicinity of the tanker. It was only when the radio crackled with the report of these mysterious explosions that the fleet headquarters in Bahrain thought to call the Vincennes. Rear Admiral Anthony Less, the commander of the Joint Taskforce-Middle East, ordered the cruiser northeast to support the Montgomery. The Bahrain command wasn't interested in drawing the Vincennes into action, however. Admiral Less merely wanted to dispatch the Vincennes's helicopter on a reconnaissance mission. So Capt. Richard McKenna, Less's chief of surface warfare, relayed what he thought were clear orders to Rogers: send your helo north to investigate, but keep your ship farther south, in case more boats emerge from the Revolutionary Guard base on Abu Musa.
At 7:22, the Vincennes's SH-60B Seahawk helicopter lifted off and sped north; within 20 minutes it was circling over the Iranian gunboats. The pilot of Ocean Lord 25, Lt. Mark Collier, found the gunboats hovering around a German cargo vessel, the Dhaulagiri. They weren't shooting. It was a common harassment tactic.
In Bahrain, as he listened to the radio traffic, Capt. Richard Watkins, Admiral Lee's chief of staff, decided that the situation was, as he later put it, "defusing." He left the flag plot to do some paperwork. But aboard the Vincennes, things were just heating up. With a blast of the klaxon, Rogers sent his crew to battle stations and ordered the small arms stations along the sides of his ship into readiness against small-craft attack.
The Vincennes had a dubious reputation inside the U.S. fleet in the gulf. Officers on other ships sarcastically referred to the ship as "Robocruiser." In deskbound war games in San Diego, just before the Vincennes left for the gulf, Rogers consistently pushed beyond the exercise's rules of engagement, according to another participant. At a Subic Bay, Philippines, briefing on the rules of engagement in the Persian Gulf, the most senior officer attending from the Vincennes was a lieutenant. In early June, Rogers infuriated Capt. Roger Hattan, the commander of the frigate USS Sides, by ordering him to close in on an Iranian warship in a way he deemed provocative. Hattan refused - and fleet headquarters in Bahrain backed him up. By early July, Rogers was widely regarded as "trigger happy," according to several high-ranking officers.
He was unquestionably eager to get at the gunboats trailing after the Mongtomery, Onward the Vincennes charges, past the German merchantman (which nonchalantly flashed an "A-OK" signal) until it drew abreast of the Montgomery at 8:38. By now Oman's coast guard was on the radio, ordering the Revolutionary Guard boats to head home. The Omanis wanted the Vincennes to leave, too. "U.S. Navy warship," an Omani officer intoned over the radio, "maneuvering at speeds up to 30 knots are not in accordance with innocent passage. Please leave Omani water." By chance, a navy cameraman named Rudy Pahoyo was aboard the Vincennes that day, shooting videotape on the bridge. His video captures the officers' response to the Omani request. They smirked at each other, and did not bother to reply.
The Omanis weren't the only ones who wanted the Vincennes out of the area. At 8:40, Captain McKenna in Bahrain returned to his command center and was startled to see that the Vincennes was on the top of the Omani peninsula - about 40 miles north from where he believed he had ordered Rogers to remain. In some irritation, McKena called Rogers and asked what he was doing. Rogers reported that he was supporting his helo, and that he'd been having communication problems. Unimpressed, McKenna told him to head back toward Abu Musa. "You want me to what?" Rogers bristled over the circuit, McKenna could hear chortles of laughter from the Vincennes combat information center. Now angry, McKenna delivered a flat order: the Vincennes must come south - and the Montgomery too. He was furious at the attitude of the captain and officers of the hotshot billion-dollar cruiser. "Aegis arrogance," he muttered to himself. Rogers grudgingly obeyed the order - but he left his helo behind to watch the Iranian boats. It was to be a fatal mistake.
In the cockpit of Ocean Lord 25, pilot Mark Collier could not resist the temptation to follow the gunboats north, as they retreated toward their island lair. He later explained that he wanted to drop down and see how many men were aboard the launches, and how they were armed. He almost found out the hard way. As he banked around them, Collier saw what he later describes as "eight to 10 bursts of light" and "sparks...just a big spark" in the sky 100 yards from his helo. He though for a moment it was the sun glinting off of a boat, but then he saw puffs of smoke. "Did you see that?" Collier, called out to Petty Officer Scott Zilge. "Yeah," Zilge replied. "Let's get out of here. That was an airburst - antiaircraft fire." As Colier dropped the helo to the safety of 100 feet, the aircraft's commander, Lt. Roger Huff, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, radioed the Vincennes: "Trinity Sword. This is Ocean Lord 25. We're taking fire. Executing evasion."
In the combat information center, this was all Rogers needed. At last the gunboats had committed a hostile act. Under the navy's rules of engagement in the gulf, Rogers could order hot pursuit. "General Quarters," he snapped. "Full power." Once again, the Vincennes forged north at 30 knots.
Meanwhile, some 200 miles to the southeast, on station just inside the mouth of the Gulf of Oman, lay the aircraft carrier USS Forestall. In his flag plot, Rear Admiral Leighton (Snuffy) Smith, commander of Carrier Battle Group 6, heard the Vincennes's breathless news that its helo had been fired upon, and that the cruiser was pursuing the attackers. At 9:14, Smith ordered the launch of two F-14 fighters and two A-7 attack planes. By 9:28, they had blasted off from the carrier deck. The planes were not to jump onto the fight: that was a sure recipe for "blue on blue" as the navy terms U.S. warships shooting down U.S. aircraft. Rather the warplanes headed for Point Alpha, a rendezvous point 50 miles outside the Strait of Hormuz. Once there, they would be less than 80 miles - seven minutes flying time - from the Vincennes.
But Rogers was not thinking about air support at that moment. He was intent on the Iranian gunboats swirling ahead. The task as not easy. Aegis cruisers were not designed for small-craft battles. They were built to take on the Soviet Navy in the North Atlantic. The Aegis's ultra-high tech radar system is designed to track scores of incoming missiles and aircraft in a major sea battle. The Iranian launches were so small that as they bobbed on the swell, they flickered in and out of the Vincennes's surface search radar, showing up not as separate targets but as a single symbol on the radar screen. Impatiently, Rogers turned to his tactical action officer, Lt. Cmdr. Victor Guillory. "Can the bridge see anything?" he demand. The bridge reported that it could occasionally glimpse the wakes of a few boats as flashes through the haze.
At 9:39, still lacking a clear target, Rogers radioed fleet headquarters and announced his intention to open fire. In Bahrain, Admiral Lee's staff was uneasy. Captain Watkins quizzed Rogers on his position and the bearing of the gunboats. Finally, he asked "Are the contacts clearing the area?" The question could have been a show stopper. Judging from later testimony, few in the Vincennes CIC that day believed that the ship was under attack. In fact, the gunboats were just slowly milling about - evidently under the impression that they were safe in their own territorial waters. Through the haze, it is doubtful that the low-slung launches could have seen the Vincennes. Rogers, however, continued to argue for permission to shoot. On the bridge, the lookouts reported that though their giant "Big Eyes" - they could see the launches' wake more clearly now, turning randomly this way and that. A couple seemed to be heading in the direction of the Vincennes.
For Rogers, that was enough. He reported to Bahrain that he gunboats were gathering speed and showing hostile intent. Again, he announced his intention to open fire. Aboard his command ship, Less finally concurred. The time was 9:41. On the bridge, the chief quartermaster had just called out that the Vincennes had now crossed the 12- mile limit off the coast - into Iranians waters. the Vincennes was operating in violation of international law, but Rogers was not paying attention to juridical niceties. Commander Guillory ordered the Vincennes's guns to fire when ready. Two minutes later the ship's five-inch gun opened up on its first target, a launch 8,000 yards away.
Some 25 miles to the east, aboard the frigate USS Sides, Capt. David Carlson listened and watched Rogers's maneuvering with mounting incredulity. "Why doesn't he just push his rudder over and get his ass out of there?" muttered one of the frigate's officers. When Carlson heard Less assent to Rogers's request to open fire, Carlson turned to his number two, Lt. Commander Gary Erickson, and gave two thumbs down. Carlson thought there was going to be a massacre. He had no idea.
FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER
Some 55 miles to the northeast, at precisely 9:45:30, Iran Air Capt. Mohsen Rezaian announced to the tower at Bandar Abbas airport that his A300B2 Airbus was ready for takeoff. A minute later, he throttled up his two General Electric CF6 engines and lifted the airline into the haze. His course would take the plane and its human cargo southwest to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Though Rezaian could not know it, his flight path would also go almost directly over the USS Vincennes.
At that moment Captain Rogers was sitting in his own cockpit - the darkened, windowless combat information center of the Vincennes, directing a sea battle by remote control. To the uninitiated, the CIC of an Aegis cruiser looks like a luxury video arcade. Rows of operators hunch over radio consoles, each monitoring one element of the battle. All the information from their screens is then integrated by the mighty Aegis computer into, literally, the "big picture" - thrown up as symbols on maps displayed on four giant 42-inch-by-42-inch screens at the head of the room where the captain and his two "battle mangers" sit. The $400 million Aegis system can track every aircraft within 300 miles. Its computers tag each contact with the symbol for "friendly," "hostile" or "unidentified" (chart, page 32). In war at sea, Aegis is expected to seek and identify all airborne threats to an entire carrier battle group, to display the speed and direction of each, and to rank them by the danger they present. Aegis is so powerful that it can not only track up to 200 incoming enemy aircraft or missiles, but also command missiles to shoot them down . In the full-scale war against the Soviet Union for which Aegis was designed, the captain and the crew would have had little choice but to switch the system to automatic - and duck.
In the cramped and ambiguous environment of the Persian gulf, however, Rogers chose to rely on his own judgment and the combat skills of his crew. Those skills had never been tested. Indeed, some experts question whether even the best-trained crew could handle, under stress, the torrent of data that Aegis would pour on them. A 1988 Government Accounting Office report accused the navy of rigging Aegis sea trials by tipping the crews off to the precise nature the "threats" they were to face. The navy could not afford to risk failure in the trails for fear that Congress would stop funding the Aegis program.
Some of the Vincennes's most senior officers were less than adept at computerized warfare. Under normal procedures, Captain Rogers rarely touched his console. He could have delegated the battle against the launches to Guillory, his tactical officer for surface warfare. But Rogers didn't entirely trust Guillory, a former personnel officer who was uncomfortable with computers (His fellow officers in personnel snickered because , one said, instead of plotting job changes by computer spreadsheet, he used his computer screen as a surface for "self-stick" notes.) In essence, the skipper pushed Guillory aside and ran the battle himself. Rogers set the range on the "big picture" display screen in front of him to 16 miles, to focus on the gunboats. He was oblivious to anything beyond.
At 9:47, the Vincennes's powerful Spy radar picked up a distant blip - a plane lifting off from the airport at Bander Abbas. The blip was in fact Iran Air's Flight 655 on its twice-a-week milk run to Dubai. But since Bander Abbas is a military as well as a civilian airport, any flights out over the gulf was automatically "tagged" by the navy ships as "assumed hostile." At his computer console in the Vincennes's CIC, Petty Office Andrew Anderson saw the blip for an incoming bogey go up on one side of the big blue screens. Anderson's job in "Air Alley," the row of operators who handled air warfare, was to identify any air traffic within range of the ship. He told the Aegis system to query the incoming plane: Identify, Friend or Foe? By standard practice, all planes carry a transponder that automatically answers the IFF query with Mode 1 or 2 (military), or Mode 3 (civilian). Anderson got a Mode 3. "Commair" (commercial airliner) he figured. He reached beside his console for the navy's listing of commercial flights over the gulf. But as he scanned the schedule, he missed Flight 655. Apparently, in the darkness of the CIC, its arc lights flickered every time the Vincennes's five-inch gun fired off another round at the hapless Iranian gunboats, he was confused by the gulf's four different time zones.
Anderson turned to the petty officer next to him in Air Alley, John Leach, and wondered aloud if the blip could be an Iranian warplane - an F-4 or F-14 perhaps? Their boss in Air Alley, Lt. Clay Zocher, overheard the two enlisted men talking, Zocher was already nervous. He had stood on this watch only twice before during General Quarters and he'd never mastered the computer routines for his console. He was worrying at the moment about an Iranian P-3 patrol plane that was making its way down the Iranian coastline. Could the P-3 be coordinating an attack on the Vincennes with the unidentified bogey? Zocher decided to pass the chatter in Air Alley up the chain of command to his boss, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Lustig, the Vincennes' tactical commander for air warfare.
Lustig ordered Zocher to flash the incoming plane a warning: "Unidentified aircraft...You are approaching a United States naval warship in international waters." It was the standard challenge, broadcast over the international distress frequencies routinely monitored by military and commercial aircraft. Briefly, Lustig considered another option. On the display screen in front of him Lustig could see that the Forestall's F-14s where circling just five minutes away. There was enough time - barely - to call them in to check out the bogey.
The Forestall, too, had seen the blip on its radar screens. In the air, the F-14 pilots were itching to close in; a bogey out of Iran, heading for an American warship, are a rare opportunity for combat-hungry aviators. Aboard the carrier, Admiral Smith held them off. His staff was telling him that the blip was most likely a commercial airliner. But Smith stuck to the navy rule that the captain on the spot makes the decisions. He decided to let Rogers fight his own battle.
Aboard the Vincennes, it was now 9:49. Rogers was totally consumed with his fire fight against the gunboats. He was shouting for the five-inch-gun crew to load faster, and ordered hard-right rudder to bring his stern gun to bear. The ship shuddered and heeled to starboard.
Military theorists write about "friction", the inevitability of error, accident and miscalculation in the stress of combat. The architects of modern warfare have tried to use the technology to minimize battlefield blindness. But the electronic babble in a combat information center can be just as confusing. Officers and men communicate by headphones over several channels, with left and right ears usually listening to different circuits. Rogers and his key officers in the CIC were all on the same circuit - but so was half of the ship. Ingenious crewmen had discovered they could tap into the "command net" to hear the action over their Sony Walkmans. But in so doing, they drained power and the volume faded. Whenever it got too low, Lustig had to yell "Switch" so everyone could turn to an alternate command circuit. Then the hackers would switch to that channel, too.
Over this erratic "net," a few seconds after 9:50, someone called out that the incoming plane was a "possible Astro" - the code word for an F-14. No one was ever able to find out who. In Air Alley, the operators thought the word came from the technicians in the ship's electronic-warfare suite. The technicians thought the warning came from Air Alley. Galvanized by this warning, Petty Officer Anderson again beamed out an IFF query. Ominously, the response he know got back was different. Upon his console flashed Mode 2: military aircraft. Only much later did the investigators figure out that Anderson had forgotten to reset the range on his IFF device. The Mode 2 did not come from the Airbus, climbing peacefully above the gulf, but from an Iranian military plane, probably a military transport, still on the runway back in Bander Abbas.
"Possible Astro!" Anderson sang out, at a moment of near chaos in the CIC. It was 9:51. Having swung full circle, Rogers was now bringing his reloaded forward gun to bear on the Iranian launches. The gun fired off 11 rounds - and jammed. The skipper again ordered the rudder hard over. The stern swung around, and in the CIC, papers and books toppled of consoles as the ship heeled over. At his station to Rogers's left, Lustig looked at his screen. The incoming plane was 32 miles away. What do we do? he asked Rogers.
His commanding officer was not too overwhelmed by the Iranian speedboats to forget the woeful example of Capt. Glenn Brindel, the skipper of the USS Stark. A year earlier, Brindel had been in the head when his ship was struck and almost sunk by a pair of anti-ship missiles fired by the pilot of a lone Iraqi Mirage F-1. Rogers decided that the Vincennes fire control radar would "paint" any possible hostile plane that got within 30 miles. At 20 miles, the Vincennes would shoot it down.
Rogers was not absolutely sure that his ship did face an enemy warplane . The plane seemed too high - some 7,000 feet - for an attack approach. At his rear, another officer, Lt. William Mountford, warned "possible commair." Three more times, the warnings went out: "Iranian fighter...you are steering into danger and are subject to United States naval defensive measures."
Then something happened that psychologists call "scenario fulfillment" - you see what you expect. Petty Officers Anderson and Leach both began singing out that the aircraft, now definitively tagged on the big screen as an F-14, was descending and picking up speed. The tapes of the CIC's data later showed no such thing. Anderson's screen showed that the plane was travelling 380 knots at 12,000 feet and climbing. Yet Anderson was shouting out that the speed was 455 knots, the altitude 7,800 feet and descending.
Rogers had to make a decision. An F-14 could do little damage to the Vincennes. The version that Washington sold to its ally the Shah of Iran in the early 1970's was purely a fighter plane, not configured to strike surface targets. Still, if Rogers meant to attack it with a missile, he had to fire before the aircraft closed much within 10 miles. At 9:54:05, with the plane 11 miles away, Rogers reached up and switched the firing key to "free" the ship's SM-2 antiaircraft missiles. In Air Alley, Zocher had been given the green light to fire. The young lieutenant was so undone, however, that he pressed the wrong keys on his console 23 times. A veteran petty officer had to lean over and hit the right ones. In the CIC, the lights dimmed momentarily, like a prison's during an electrocution.
Some 10 miles away, Captain Rezaian of Iran Air was calmly reporting to Bander Abbas that he had reached his first check-point crossing the gulf. He heard none of the Vincennes warnings. His four radio bandwidths were taken up with air-control chatter. "Have a nice day," the tower radioed. "Thank you, good day," replied the pilot. Thirty seconds later, the first missile blew the left wing off his aircraft.
On the Vincennes's bridge, cameraman Rudy Pahayo was still filming. His audio captured a babble of voices: "Oh, dead!" "Coming down!" "We had him dead on!" One voice commanded: "Hold the noise down, knock it off!" Another shouted, "Direct hit!" then a lookout came in from the wing of the bridge. The target couldn't have been an F-14, he said. The wreckage falling from the sky, he murmured to the Vincennes's executive officer, Cmdr. Richard Foster, is bigger than that.
A few miles away, on the bridge of the Montgomery, crewmen gaped as a large wing of a commercial airliner, with an engine pod still attached, plummeted into the sea. Aboard the USS Sides, 19 miles away, Captain Carlson was told that his top radar man reckoned the plane had been a commercial airliner. Carlson almost vomited, he said later.
On the Vincennes, there was an eerie silence. The five-inch guns ceased their pounding. None of the Revolutionary Guard boats had come within 5,000 yards of the cruiser. No one was sure how many had been hit; perhaps one, perhaps more. Rogers gave the order to head south, out of Iranian waters.
ANATOMY OF A COVER-UP
In Washington, almost 11 hours later, at 1:30 pm EST, Adm. William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stepped to the podium in the Pentagon press room. Formal in his summer whites, the admiral told reporters there had been a terrible accident. Stressing that the information was incomplete, relying on what he had been told by Captain Rogers, Crowe said that the Iranian airliner was flying outside the commercial air corridor and had failed to respond to repeated warnings. The plane had been descending and picking up speed when it closed in on the Vincennes. Rogers had only been protecting his ship. A large map showed the position of the Vincennes at the time of the shoot-down. It was well within international waters.
At the United Nations, the Iranians compared the tragedy to the Soviet shoot-down of Korea Air Lines 007 in 1983. The White House decided that Vice President George Bush should defend the United States before the U.N. Security Council. The job of preparing the case fell to Richard Williamson, the assistant secretary of state for international organizations. He found it exceedingly difficult to get answers out of Crowe's staff, who were handling the affair at the Pentagon. Suspicious, he warned the vice president's chief of staff, Craig Fuller, to be very careful about committing Bush to any facts. Fuller's reaction was that he never trusted the Pentagon anyway. Bush's speech focused on the need to end the Iran-Iraq War. But what facts it did include were wrong. The vice-president claimed that the Vincennes had rushed to defend a merchantman under attack by Iran.
By July 14, the day of Bush's speech, the Pentagon knew the truth but failed to share it with the vice president. The tapes of the Vincennes Aegis system, with its combat and navigational data reached the United States on July 5 and what they showed was reported to the Pentagon on July 10. The Vincennes had been in Iranian territorial waters. The Iranian airliner was well within the commercial air corridor and had been ascending, not descending. There was no beleaguered merchant vessel.
The cover-up was compounded by the official report on the incident. On July 3, Crowe chose Rear Adm. William Fogarty , a senior officer on the staff of Central Command, which controls military operations in the Middle East, to investigate. Crowe sent his own legal advisor, Capt. Richard DeBobes, to sit at Fogarty's side at Centcom headquarters in Tampa as he prepared his report.
The investigation was notable for the questions it failed to ask. The commanders on the carrier Forestall were never interviewed; nor was Captain McKenna, the surface warfare commander in Bahrain whose orders Rogers ignored. McKenna's staff mailed a tape of his tense exchange with Rogers before the sea battle, but never received a response. The report released to the public did not include any chart of navigational data to show the Vincennes' position at the time of the shoot-down.
The map displayed by Fogarty when he briefed Congress in September placed the Vincennes and its helicopters well clear of Iranian waters and erroneously reported the position of the Montgomery. Fogarty produced stills from the Aegis-generated map of events displayed in the Vincennes's CIC. According to three sources on board the Vincennes that day, the real map had shown Hengam Island, Iranian territory less than nine miles from the Vincennes at the time of the shootdown. On the frames shown by Fogarty, the island was simply deleted - miraculously placing the Vincennes safely in international waters once more. Asked about the Forestall's aircraft by inquiring lawmakers, Fogarty put them 180 miles, then 250 miles away, even though those same Aegis stills show them clearly tagged only 75 miles from the Vincennes.
Most mysteriously, Fogarty told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Vincennes had been racing to rescue a Liberian tanker, the Stoval, that morning. There is no such tanker reported in any ship registry. According to two sources, including a naval officer involved in the investigation, the Stoval was a decoy, a phantom conjured up by fake radio messages to lure out the Iranian gunboats. According to these sources, the Iranian aggression that Vice President Bush had so vigorously decried at the United Nations had in fact been in the trial run for an American sting operation.
The navy might have gotten away with all of these deceptions had it not been for the slow grinding of international law. A lawsuit by the Iranian government has now forced Washington to admit, grudgingly, that the Vincennes was actually in Iranian waters - although Justice Department pleadings still claim the cruiser was forced there in self- defense. The admission is contained in fine print in legal briefs; it has never received public attention until Crowe, confronted with the evidence, conceded the truth last week on "Nightline." Crowe denies any cover-up; if mistakes were made, he told NEWSWEEK, they were "below my pay grade." Rogers continues to insist that his ship was in international waters.
In the end, of course, Will Rogers will not get an admiral's two-inch gold stripe. He instructed navy captains in San Diego for two years before retiring honorably in August 1991. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, even won the navy's Commendation Medal for "heroic achievement," his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire," enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure." Given the target he was firing at, the commendation seems rather surreal. But so was the atmosphere in the Vincennes CIC that July morning, and the attempt, in months and years that followed, to cover up what happened there.
--John Barry is NEWSWEEK's national security correspondent. Roger Charles is a retired Marine colonel and military intelligence officer who is now a freelance writer in Washington. Also reporting were Daniel Pederson in London, Christopher Dickey in Paris, Theresa Waldrop in Bonn, Donna Foote in Los Angeles, Tony Clifton in New York and Peter Annin in Houston.
I think its all talk, just hype. Westwood said it also and nothing ever came of the Linux port being develop. Linux is the OS of the true gaming FPS clients. We are demanding that Linux Servers be released w/every game.
Someone set them up the bomb - it was the French.
Now, a Linux Unreal II should be worth waiting for.
-m
Who is right? Well, both are. If everyone from both sides agrees that murder is being performed, then murder must be being performed. Cogito ergo sum.
"Cogito Ergo Sum" means "I think, therefore I am". Perhaps you were searching for "Quad Erat Demonstrandum?" (Oh the irony when I've got Q.E.D. wrong myself. heh. but at least i'm closer than bob here).
Or maybe, you mean "I think so, so it must be true." A common idea. Cogito, ergo es?
you know, you can't ride the concept of the horse.
Also, I think that a seven million dollar ad campaign that provides an entertaining outlet, instead of the stupid and boring "Army of One" ads i see during most tv shows I watch is money well spent.
Spend 7 mill, and then release, keeping some staff online for updates and whatnot, or spend 10 million on stupid ads in every medium available for eternity. Which sounds like the better way to spend your money?
--
I have to go play Neil Diamond music backwards now.
Don't you just hate it when all of the do-gooders see something on TV news and accept it as fact.
Some examples:
"FPS cause violence"
"evil corporations"
"radical right wing" -- no mention ever of a "radical left wing"
"backwards masking"
"global warming" - an unproven theory, not a fact
"road rage"
"air rage"
"how do we 'pay' for tax cuts" - spend less
"butterfly ballots"
"unbiased gallup poll" - wording of questions does affect the poll outcome
"news-poll" - an opinion poll presented as a 'valid' news story
"social secuity"
"obscene profits" - who has the right/ability to determine when a profit is too big/too small. Didn't the Catholic church try to force its price fixing scheme on society during the middle ages?
Need any more?
If they use it for training of solders and release it for everyone, how can that be considered an improper use of taxpayer's funds?
Consider the online and accessible army acroynm dictinaries?
Those were created with taxpayer funds also but are used by the military.
A direct result of the Taliban using the civilians as human sheilds. Starvation? The US intervention actually headed off famine, and did not cause it.
Yeah. That wasn't a wedding the US blew up, it was a bunch of taliban soldiers dressing up civilians to look like a wedding and holding them in front of them. That's it. And the Canadian soldiers bombed.. they were also being used as human shields, right?
"Do a little search on "Sharon war crimes" in google."
Yes. There are plenty of sites run by antisemitic kooks making up all kinds of things.
If you can't see that Sharon is not a great leader and should be brought up on war crime charges, you have to learn to see through the bullshit they feed you on TV. It should make you wonder why most of the world thinks the opposite of the United States on this one. Mind you Arafat is no saint either, and the quicker we get both of these criminals out of power, the sooner there is an actual chance for peace in that area. Also once Israel fully complies with UN resolution 242 , it will go a long ways to the peace process. Right now they have complied about 91%... IE: They turned over control of a egyptian desert back tyo egypt. The land that is actually worth anything they still hold. Israel says We complied.. Close enough, but in fact they've basically done nothing except leave a desert.
US actions in the middle-east have been 100% anti-imperialist. You have it backwards.
imperialism Pronunciation Key (m-pîr--lzm)
n.
1. The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.
Knocking out the current government (one they helped get there in the first place) to replace it with what will be a puppet government for the US sounds pretty imperialistic to me. And then stating they are going to remove Saddam and friends from power, to do the same thing? I think
he has it dead on.
"What about all of the Kurds and Iranians who were
killed by the USA using Iraq as a proxy?"
It didn't happen. Check again.
and
"I won't even get into the numerous murderous acts committed by the USA using Israel as a proxy against Palestine"
Don't go into it, as what you claim does not exist.
Ignorance is bliss isn't it? US has been using other countries to fight wars that they would lose to much face fighting for a long time now. This isn't exclusive to the US either. China does the same, and all superpowers have been doing it over time.
No, the Muslim extremists attack the US because we stand for freedom, and defend Jewish people from the attempts by Muslim extemists to exterminate them.
No, they attack the US for a few reasons. Use, exploitation and abuse of other contries to achive their higher standing of living (This also is not UScentric nor is it anything new. Exploitation is something every superpower makes use of, all through history). Their use of military power for lower cost imports, usually oil. Add in some jealousy, some other bad US foreign policy, a pissing match or two, and some crazy mother fucker pissed off because the US stepped on his homeland, and you've got a whole lotta hate being generated at you.
But in all fairness, if you're American you don't get to see much of both sides in the media. As an aside, you do sound like a prime candidate for head guinnie pig in some mind control experiments.
For a good time call www.sawkie.com
Actually the claim of oldest form of government is pretty debateable. The Isle of Man, for instance claims a continuous parliament of over 1000 years, Certainally there are others who could make a similar claim, for instance the English westminster system has been pretty solid since 1678. Still, it's pretty academic, since government is fundamentally a changing process.
As for the rest, the opinion of the rest of the world seems pretty much to be that if the US wants to take sides and beat the crap out of one side in some piss-poor third world conflict then nobody is going to stop them, but it still doesn't make the action moral. Politically convenient and domestically popular, for sure, but morality's a tricky thing when you're slaughtering natives by the mass-grave load.
Jesus Christ, timothy... You don't even proofread the headline anymore?!
Linux Games WIth Guns
Yeah, that looks really professional.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
"getting into wars"?!!??
Israel was attacked. Israel actions are nothing more then self-defence.
"Occupying land of significance" ??!!?
Look at the map. Israel is pretty small country encircled by countries that not accept existance of Israel as a country and support terrorist organization whose goal is elimination of Israel as a country and extermination of jews as ethnic group.
No country can exist in 100% ready for war state. If attacked Israel will need to mobilize most of it's army. The buffer space is required to hold enemy troops in case of surprise attack (all previous wars started as surprise unprovoked attacks). Without it Israel will be overrun by overwhelming enemy force. Countries around Israel have huge armies.
Golan Heights is excellent place to set up defence against aggressor, but it could be pretty valuable for enemy of Israel. For example: put SAM there and you can down civilian and military planes that take off in Israel.
Many palestinians live in Isreal and have nothing to do with terrorism. Unfortunately there are plenty of people that will do anything to keep their power and money. As long as palestinians believe that by killing other people they can improve their life those people in power will exploit them.
The easiest way to control people is to show them some enemies to fight with. You can get away with anything while you keep them busy. (This applies to war on terrorism as well)
Is this anything like "The Last Starfighter"? The Army is monitoring everyone's scores, so if you kill enough terrorists, 20 minutes later a recruiter is knocking at your front door.
Amusing side note:
When in high school, we had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). I did pretty well, and soon recruiters were calling me from every branch of the armed forces. One day, my girlfriend was over and we were sitting on my bed when the phone rang. I picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hi! Have you ever considered joining the National Guard?"
At this point, my GF reaches over and tickles me on the side. I start laughing and immediately an idea pops into my head.
"Brian, STOP it!!" *girlish giggle*
"Who is that, your brother?"
"No... he's my... umm... friend."
I did not receive a SINGLE call from the military after that. This means that somewhere there is a database accessible to all branches of the armed services which has my name and a little checkbox marked "gay".
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
To provide the REAL Army experience, the current Mission Packs are being developed:
1) KP Duty
Clean the pots and pans using scalding hot water under the supervision of a cook with an attitude.
2) Shine the floor
Wax and buff the floor as quickly as possible.
3) Staff Duty
Attempt to stay awake for 24 hours for no apparent reason whatsoever. Can be combined with Mission Pack #2 for a truly exciting experience.
4) The Wash Rack
Clean the mud and dirt from the Commander's Humvee after his driver had all the fun of getting it that way in the first place.
And the most exciting mission of all:
5) Hide from the CSM
Stay hidden from the Sergeant Major before he tasks you to do one of the four other mission packs.
For the majority of people (at least the lower enlisted) in the Army, this is a much more accurate reflection of how time is spent while in the Army. After spending four years in and getting paid next to nothing, take it from me that the real Army is more like a wacky combination of Sgt. Bilko and Clerks than it is like Black Hawk Down.
If propoganda doesn't work
I never said propoganda didn't work. I said hidden messages didn't work.
why would the millitary invest so much money in developing a game if they didn't anticipate a return?
Why do you treat that as evil, though? Yes, they expect a return. That doesn't mean that they're using nefarious mind control tricks; from what I've played, it looks like a large part is trying to calm people's fears about boot camp. You can choose how or whether it effects you.
How do they do that? It means that all the scenarios have to be symmetrical. But most modern warfare is asymmetrical, with the two sides having quite different goals, tactics, doctrine, etc. The Army's own real training (Ft. Irwin / NTC) stresses this.
Any advertising costs money. If we are going to approve of the military using our tax money to do recruitment advertising, this is as good a way as any - in fact, it's probably much better and cheaper than television spots.
I'd like to see a breakdown of their advetising budget... perhaps it's time to pull-out the FOIA form letter and make a request. Has anyone out there done so recently?
Come to think of it, as an added bonus, it actually does impart some good teamworking skills on players, which is more than I can say for a TV ad.
Actaully, if the /. moderators hadn't modded me as flaimbait you might know that Linux is being used in the development of wargame training software. I bet this is one of the testbeds in the R&D of these systems. If so, they are expecting a return.
NR
You obviously either do not know what it is you speak of, or have been misinformed somewhere along the line. The fact of the matter is that Israel has the best-equipped and most powerful (if not largest) army in the whole area. They started it by stealing from the British when they were the mandatory power over Palestine (all of it, before it was Palestine and Israel). Furthermore, Israel used these forces to invade the surrounding areas. This never really bothered the British because their whole involvement in the first place was to set up a friendly government to invade Egypt and basically give them control of the Suez Canal.
Maybe you should do a little research. Here is not a bad place to start:
The Origins And Evolution Of The Palestine Problem 1917-1988
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Maybe I am just being paranoid, but has any body consider that this game may contain spyware enabling the CIA to increase their spying powers?
Ever heard of plausible deniability? Ever heard of hiding a needle in a haystack? People snoop around in game binaries (for reverse engineering, for one) all the time, and anything that comes up will be immediately connected to the US government. Stick it in Windows, and you have it on a billion desktops, and it's very hard to definitively paste it on anyone.
It isn't the US that is demanding an all or nothing Palestine, that's Hamas.
;)
Indeed, Hamas, NOT the palestinian government. You're pointing to what the palestinian opposition is saying and using that as an excuse for rejecting the palestinian government. And besides, if you want to talk about people who refuse to compromise, why don't you talk about Bush, who says that he won't even talk to either Cuba or the Palestinian people, until their current leaders are gone, even if they happen to be re-elected under free elections? And why not also mention the Israeli minister of foreign affairs, who recently said on BBC World that there was no compromise possible with the palestinian people? Either it was the Israeli view, or it was nothing.
It isn't the US that kills Afghani citizens who dare to step out of line like some sort of Orwellian nightmare.
Well, they do kill afghani citizens who hold wedding parties, but that's something else
But if you want to talk about Orwellian nightmare, why not talk about Big Brother? Why not talk about how the US government has exploited the whole september 11th situation to spy even more on its own citizens, and pass radical new wiretapping laws, so that they can tap anything without requiring court supervision?
It isn't the US who has perpetuated years of armed conflict in Afghanistan, turning what was once a beautiful pastoral land into dust and rubble. The US wasn't alone in its attempt to stamp out its ideological rival, Russia was hard at work to undermine capitalism around the globe.
Do you know why it took the mighty Russians years of fighting a band of poorly organised and outnumbered guerilla fighters, only to have to give up in the end? Because the US trained them, armed them, and funded them. This is well known. I invite you to look it up online. Under the motto "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" the US made sure that Russia spent years fighting a gruesome war in Afghanistan. And the only reason the people of Afghanistan went through so much pain and suffering was because the US funded the fight of the warlords. Just like the only reason that the US lost so many of it's young men in Vietnam was because Russia funded, armed and trained North-Vietnam. If the US had stayed out of the Afghani mess to begin with then Russia would have conquered it with relative ease, the Taleban would never have come into power, Osama would never had any real power in the country, and there would have been one less reason for Osama to organise september 11th. You reap what you sow.
Besides, capitalism or communism, it all doesn't really matter. They both feed their people. Russia's average quality of life deteriorated after it's move to capitalism. This doesn't indicate any inferiority of capitalism, just that communism didn't actually do that bad from a quality of life point of view. Most Russians would agree.
I find it incredible that you think that all terrorists are dumb and manipulated into terrorism by their leaders. Do you really think that people could plan and execute an attack so highly complex like september 11th if they were just blindly following the commands of their religious leaders? The pilots of the planes weren't dumb, uneducated people. They were smart. They had enjoyed a high education. They knew what they were doing. And they all enjoyed a thorough hate for the US, BECAUSE of the US's actions worldwide. Open your eyes man.
Most of the download links required one to install an unknown .exe 'download agent'...can anyone say 'Magic Lantern'? What kind of stupid gullible asshole would use that thing?
The nvidia site ( http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=army_download has direct links to the files.
I'm gonna be sure to check all my outgoing traffic when I fire this puppy up.....
The United States is becoming like the ancient Rome: for the romans there was a democracy, with a Senate and stuff. But outside Rome the generals ruled as dictators, with no respect for the local people. This sort of things went well for roman citizens until Ceasar, a general, closed the senate and became a dictator in the city, proclaiming himself as the first emperor.
In my opinion, if American society gives up fighting against military intervention in other countries (like the anti-war movement in the sixties), American democracy could collapse. Ex-president Carter put CIA under control and I admire him for that, but George W Bush seems to have chosen the wrong path. I hate Saddam Hussein with all my force, but I don't think it is right for a president of another country to say "Saddam must go". In Palestine things are even worse: Arafat was elected as chairman, but George Bush thinks palestinans don't know to vote and says that Arafat could not be a president of a palestinian state.
"Russia's average quality of life deteriorated after it's move to capitalism."
It actually went up. Of course, we should count "freedoms" in the quality of life. But the biggest difference is that the Soviet communist government executed by different methods an average of 5 million people per decade. This went way down to a small fraction of this when the democrats took over.
There's no solid evidence of any effective hidden messages. If you can survive the propoganda of school and TV and movies and radio and billboards, I'm sure you can survive the propaganda of America's Army.
Ok, someone had to say it: "It is a three-pronged attack: subliminal, liminal, and superliminal."
"Superliminal?""
"HEY YOU, JOIN THE NAVY!"
"The United States is becoming like the ancient Rome: for the romans there was a democracy, with a Senate and stuff. But outside Rome the generals ruled as dictators, with no respect for the local people"
Do you have any examples of this?
"The CIA has a worse record, helping corrupt regimes to their own benefit, at the excuse of fighting "international communism".
It actually has a pretty good record defending the self-rule of countries against Soviet invaders. Some of the regimes of the countries defended were corrupt, but it was not the CIA's business to meddle in internal affairs.
"But do you know why Osama Bin Laden particularly despises the US? It has more to do with American interests in Saudi Arabia. (Don't get me wrong, Osama Bin Laden is responsible for some truly heinous acts)"
This is already well known. The Americans do not have the religion Osama thinks they have (and would like to force them to have). In his really extremists religious view, people without Osama's favored religion should not be allowed to set foot in Saudi Arabia.
Under the agreements Saudi Arabia made with the U.S. after Saddam Hussein threatened to take over Saudi Arabia, the Saudis allowed large numbers of these people of wrong religion into the peninsula. This makes him rather mad.
Add onto this the fact that Bin-Laden is devoted to the extermination of Jewish people as a whole. The United States has made a major role in helping the Israelis defend themselves from attack... so Bin-Laden also hates the U.S. for thwarting his final solution.
The missions are set up so that you're either attacking or defending a base, and your team is always the Americans, and the other team always looks like terrorists. This creates an interesting unstated message to the game: American troops are exactly the same and have the same objectives as terrorists. I understand why the army doesn't want to encourage people roll-playing the axis of evil, but I'm not sure if this is the subtext they want to create either.
Um, yes that's the message in the game, but that's also life in the military. What do you think happens in war? Both sides are fighting to win, and there's one of two things that could happen. Either you're attacking or defending. We're in Afghanistan and granted few of the opposing forces are attacking us so we are on the total offense. Think about what would happen if they got a large force and started coming after our bases. Wouldn't we have to defend? Yes. In war there are not definite lines drawn on who does what. Both sides are going to be doing the same thing: eliminate the other side (or make them take enough casualties that they give up) and keep your side from being eliminated. That's war. What would you have us do? Not invade? Or not defend our bases when we are attacked? That kind of defeats the purpose of war now doesn't it?
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
They fear basic human rights because it is the specter of equality of the sexes that threatens to unleash the pent up anguish of the long subordinated and denigrated women.
Check. Glass ceiling, old boy's network. True, it's not the same scale, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
They see in America and Israel obvious scapegoats to heap all of their society's ills upon.
Check. Plenty of scapegoats. It's the commies. It's the terrorists. Whatever.
They fear education because it threatens to undermine their monopoly on wisdom and knowledge.
Check. How do you explain a 75% aproval rating for the current President? Ignorance and chest beating is how I choose to explain it. It fits with my agenda.
The West glorifies everything that scares them the most.
s/West/terrorist nations/ Check. This seems to fit in well with the whole scapegoat thing. Give a dis-similar group a common enemy, and watch the complaints of normal life (insufficient health care, traffic congestion, poor educational system, etc.) just fade away.
They keep their subjects as dumb and seething as possible in order to legitimize their power. By giving their subjects a target, they have sown the seeds for terrorism.
Not all of us are dumb and/or seething. Enough are that it doesn't seem to matter.
Yeah. It's flamebait. Maybe even tinfoil hat propoganda. It's not intentional, just seemingly unavoidable. Moderate as you see fit.
"Check. How do you explain a 75% aproval rating for the current President? Ignorance and chest beating is how I choose to explain it."
How about the real reason: he is doing a better job than the last two did.
I guess you are one of the "ignorant chest beaters".
I sounds as if you couldn't hack it and would rather see some one else out there rather than yourself. Almost even worse than one who never tried.
I wonder how many people are headed for the military these days? Pay looks pretty good for officers. Degrees are worth something there.
If linux had more games with guns and a decent spreadsheet, Microsoft's monopoly would be a moot point.
>
I checked the site this morning and the word "server" has been now been removed again. It just says linux port.
:).
I guess they can't make up their minds what they are doing
Ok I think you're being a tad too subjective. I assume you're part of today's arguably dominant "civilization" -- that is, western civilization. Your criteria for "suckiness" can only be based on the fact that other societies disagree with the way things work in the West and are struggling to promote their own ideals both within areas of their influence and abroad.
That said, terrorist activities are obviously not the correct ways to promote ideals. My original point, however, is the fact that the US and other leading western countries in many ways created the conditions that forced other societies to resort to extreme measures such as terrorism. As someone who is a part of Western society I don't find anything wrong with others promoting an alternate way of life. True Islamic ideals are really quite compatible with the values that we all (should) aspire to. There is nothing inherently violent about Islam or about Islamic societies.
I read somewhere that early Islamic believers fully believed in the core of Christian and Judaist concepts but also believed that those who carried the flag and "implemented" these religions destroyed the original meaning. After a thousand years of Islam's existence I might even say that certain groups like the violent terrorist affiliated groups likely destroyed the original intentions of Islam.
I doubt anyone's reading this anymore...
You're pointing to what the palestinian opposition is saying and using that as an excuse for rejecting the palestinian government.
Not exactly. I think a Palestinian state would be grand, giving Israel peace (and true legitimacy to defend itself if attacked) and Palestinians true self-determination. However because of fringe groups like Hamas who have it as their stated goal the destruction of Israel in its entirety and the Palestinian Authority's impotence or unwillingness to check Hamas' power, the peace process can never get more than 2 feet off the ground.
Both Sharon and Arafat are the problem with Arafat being clearly the more ineffectual (or despicable). Arafat has made no concessions towards peace while Barak was willing to hand over vast amounts of land to the Palestinians. His stubbornness has brought Sharon into power and Sharon is bringing his hate of the Palestinians into the discussion channel, thus nothing but pain ensues.
The official US position is in favor of a Palestinian homeland. The position also holds that Arafat is the wrong man to lead the Palestinians. Arafat has shown time after time that he cannot control the fringe groups within his jurisdiction. A moderate leader with the Palestinian people's interests at heart is what is needed, not a bombastic despot who is only concerned of his own hide.
Under the motto "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" the US made sure that Russia spent years fighting a gruesome war in Afghanistan.
Yes, that's right. What would you have done in the face of an imperialist Russia who was on an invasion spree? Let them take over as many countries as they liked until they spent themselves? Would you have given Hitler (hi Godwin!) the Rhineland as well?
the US had stayed out of the Afghani mess to begin with then Russia would have conquered it with relative ease, the Taleban would never have come into power, Osama would never had any real power in the country, and there would have been one less reason for Osama to organise september 11th.
Sure, in retrospect. But do you know where Russia would have stopped? Pakistan? India? Japan (they'd love to invade Japan)? If you are talking about what-ifs then if Russia were allowed free run over any country they liked, today we would be looking at a consolidated Eastern hemisphere under the repression of a Communist government.
Since this game doesn't have women in it, this game is nothing but Army Men's chauvinistic attempt to excercise their sexist attitude of keeping women from exercising government approved rights to serve their country.
..Dihydrogen Monoxide..? Lets see.. two hydrogen plus one oxygen.. you mean water?
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Yup; I was noting that a correlation does not always imply a causality.
On another note, where'd you get your screen-name?
Ah, I get it now. I was trying to figure out the relevance. :)
:P. But Zapf is taken most places, so I made it Zapfie.
It's a pretty lame story... when I first got online 7 years ago, I was like.. hm.. I cant think of a screen name.. so I scrolled down the fonts list for inspiration
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Ah; the reason I found it funny, is that Zapf is my last name. :-)