 BreakForNews.com,
3rd Dec, 2004 11:00ET
by Fintan Dunne, Editor
Research KathyMcMahon EXCLUSIVE
If you thought the new video game inviting
players to try their virtual skills at
assassinating JFK was tasteless, hold on to
your hat. A just-released mission in the
Kuma wargame series is themed “Fallujah:
Operation al-Fajr." It re-creates the
recent assault on Fallujah, which may have
left thousands of civilians dead.
Players join U.S. Marines and Army
soldiers in their attack on the Jolan
district in Fallujah. For the making of
“Fallujah: Operation al-Fajr,” Kuma
Reality Games used detailed satellite
imagery of Jolan.
Publicity material for yesterday's new game
says players "dodge sniper fire and
protect civilians," while fighting to
secure the Jolan district.
"Protect civilians"?
UNREAL REALISM
Perhaps the action isn't really that
"realistic" after all. Civilians
in Fallujah outnumbered rebels by perhaps
thirty to one. They bore the brunt of a
relentless US bombardment of Jolan. News
media reports say this included 2,000-pound
bombs, helicopter gunships and artillery.
Independent journalists and Arab media say
napalm-like weapons and poison gas were also
deployed. Reporter, Dahr Jamail told
BreakForNews.com that witnesses saw people
poisoned, fall to the ground and die. Other
reports describe firebombs spewing lethal
contents which adhered to skin and burned
unquenchably.
Only later did the soldiers --the real
ones-- come to root out any
"resistance" left alive. This
involved the use of cluster bombs and
grenades tossed into homes, with devastating
results in at least one case. Cowering
inside was a family - not virtual
terrorists. A young boy was hospitalized
with grenade fragment injuries.
Don't expect that kind of realism from
the latest Kuma offering. “Fallujah:
Operation al-Fajr,” is the sanitized
electronic world of good guys and bad guys.
Just like Bush's war. And you can guess who
the good guys are.
The Kuma /War series is lovingly following
the action around Iraq, and modeling game
chapters on set-piece recreations of real
military operations. Players have battled
the Medi army in the south and hunted down
Uday and Qusay Hussein. We are now up to
Mission #28.
In the coming weeks, game subscribers will
get missions that re-create current combat
in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq.
SEAMLESS INTEGRATION
Many missions are being developed in
cooperation with the US military.
“Fallujah: Operation al-Fajr” even
contains a discussion with Major General
Thomas L. Wilkerson, USMC (ret) on the
strategy behind the fight for control of
Fallujah. The last mission before Fallujah,
was "Ramadi Convoy Exercise,"
based on the same training mission KumaWar
modeled for CASCOM - the US Army Combined
Arms Support Command.
Kuma Reality Games has just opened voting
for its "Stories from the Front"
contest. The contest asked soldiers to
contribute stories from their actual
experiences in the battlefield. The winner's
story will become an upcoming mission. The
winner will be featured with three friends
as characters in the re-creation of the
winning story
The eligible entries have been slimmed to
finalists like: Beneath the Saddam Mosque,
the story of a rescue team searching for a
kidnapped woman in the tunnels beneath a
mujahedeen-controled mosque; Baghdad Cowboy
details an ambush on enemies to rescue a
troubled Fallujah convoy; and Saddam City
Shocker centers around a squad that fights
its way across a bridge into Saddam City.
This is the seamless integration of military
gaming and real military action. The two
have become one. Virtually. A seamless
virtual reality whose barbarity and
insensitivity is puzzling to the
"reality-based" community.
In Fallujah, during the bombing families
could hear the screams from those whose
homes had been hit, but they had to keep
their heads down and pray.
Kuma should have taped those screams.
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