World War

(Globe&Mail) – Obama’s new nuclear strategy maintains first-strike option

While pledging to ‘reduce the role of nuclear weapons,’ plan also includes loopholes to keep Iran and North Korea on any potential target list Read More Here

(WashingtonPost) – Bomb blasts kill at least 35, wound scores in Shiite areas of Baghdad

A series of at least seven bombings ripped through mostly poor Shiite Muslim neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital Tuesday, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 140, security officials said. Read More Here

(ArabNews) – Iran’s Calls For N-free Mideast Should Be Backed

From April 17-18, Iran intends to host a nuclear disarmament summit just four days after Washington concludes a nuclear security summit to which Tehran was not invited. Under the banner “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one”, Iran calls for a nuclear-free Middle East and an end to nuclear proliferation globally. Read More Here

(RickRozoff) – War In Afghanistan Evokes Second World War Parallels

With the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization planning the largest military campaign of the Afghan war this summer in the south, Kandahar province, a complementary offensive in the north, Kunduz province, and increased troop strength of 150,000 in preparation for the assaults, a war that will enter its tenth calendar year this October 7 is reaching the apex of its intensity. Read More Here

(SteveWatson) – Video: CNN Touts Civilian Service Corps As Way Of Shedding Student Debt

CNN has some advice for any former students now saddled with excess debt – carry out a decade of social work or join the ranks of the government’s civilian service corps. Read More Here

(Salon) – Iraq slaughter not an aberration – Glenn Greenwald – Read More Here

(PaulWatson) – Journalist Groups Demand Investigation of Baghdad Massacre

Three prominent journalist organizations have called for a new investigation into the shocking footage released by Wikileaks that shows U.S. Apache helicopters massacring Reuters journalists and people who attempted to rescue them while laughing about it during an assault on a Baghdad square in 2007. Read More Here

(OnlineJournal) – Killing Baghdad civilians and Reuters journos from the air!

It boggles the mind to watch the short YouTube videos of Wikileaks’ leaked video. To hear the clipped voices of the American helicopter pilots honing in on a group of civilians, including a Reuters photographer and his driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad, then killing them, mistaking the photographer’s camera for an AK-47. Read More Here

(RawStory) – White House won’t deny report saying it approved killing of American without trial

The White House won’t deny reports claiming that it authorized the killing of an American citizen who is purportedly involved in planning al Qaeda attacks and is said to be hiding out in Yemen. Read More Here

Video: Violence in Video Games and the Baghdad Massacre

“Violence in Video Games” was produced to demonstrate the close similarities between real-world violence and simulated violence included in video games. The video juxtapositions scenes captured in the real-world and those that exist in the fantasy game world depicted in the Call of Duty series. Shooting dogs, beating children and murdering innocent civilians are dwarfed by the amount of unmitigated evil game developers are having their heroes portray.

Call of Duty is currently the most popular first-person shooter video game series on the market. The game overshadows in popularity and sales Grand Theft Auto and Halo.

Current versions of the game include torture of captured enemy combatants, burning prisoners alive with Molotov cocktails, shooting soldiers who surrender, and the terrorist slaughter of civilians in a Russian airport.

For the less gung-ho (and psychopathic), the latest version of Call of Duty allows players to opt-out of the scene depicting the murder of innocent civilians.

Video games play an important role in training U.S. soldiers as they prepare for combat. In 2008, the Army invested $50 million for the development of video games and a gaming system designed to train soldiers for combat. “With the new platform and games, Army programmers hope to offer more life-like reproductions of battlefield scenarios, offering editable terrains, a greater capacity for multi-player action and larger battlefields,” writes Switched, an AOL electronics website.

The current version of Call of Duty was not available in 2007 when soldiers massacred a Reuters cameraman and other civilians in Baghdad. However, considering the way the soldiers acted, you wouldn’t know it.