Fortress America: When Gaming and Politics Collide

Remus Lupin · Dec 25, 2011

But I don't want to get too side-tracked. I don't feel that many people (potential customers) saying it's offensive and the makers changing the fictional background is the same as censorship. It's just common sense... if you offend and insult your customers, they won't buy your product.

By the way, I'm in agreement with you on this point, if not much in terms of the background politics.

Remus Lupin · Dec 25, 2011

S'mon said:
Yeah, but the trouble is that these kind of justifications can be applied to almost any* nation, hence the fear of US aggression. To be fair, plenty of anti-US people would paint the US as an aggressor whatever she did; the trouble with Iraq was that they suddenly had actual evidence to support their position.

*The one unusual/egregious thing Saddam actually did do, plot to assassinate HW Bush in the early '90s, was not cited as a reason for the invasion.

It is striking that almost everything Samurai lists as a justification for war has long been shown to be untrue, and to have been known to be so at the time.

Samurai · Dec 25, 2011

Remus Lupin said:
It is striking that almost everything Samurai lists as a justification for war has long been shown to be untrue, and to have been known to be so at the time.

You are factually wrong. Everything I listed has been proven true. He did flaunt at least 16 UN resolutions. He did kick out UN inspectors and refuse them access for years. Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq. (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com) He routinely shot at our planes over the No-fly zone. And he frequently supported terrorists, giving money, arms, and training to groups, harboring terrorists, and paying the families of suicide bombers.

Every one of those is factual history, look it up.

Flatus Maximus · Dec 25, 2011

Samurai said:
Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq. (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com)

Did you read the article you quoted? It doesn't seem like it, so let me draw your attention to the following quote: "Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."

In other words, we knew about this stuff looong before we invaded.

Alzrius · Dec 25, 2011

Samurai said:
Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq. (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com)

It's worth noting that the issue of them trying to buy yellowcake from Niger wasn't proven - rather, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to investigate the claim after the Italian government shared papers purporting that to be true with the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Wilson didn't find any evidence of such a transfer, and wrote an op-ed piece saying so publicly (though a Senate Intelligence committee later challenged Wilson's claims). Scooter Libby subsequently leaked the information that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent to the news media, ostensibly to "punish" Wilson for publicly disagreeing with the Bush White House.

Likewise, the yellowcake that was already found in Iraq had been there since before 1991, and was the result of some old, defunct attempts to generate nuclear power for domestic (Iraqi) consumption.

All of the above, and more, can be found on the page dedicated to this topic over on Snopes.

Samurai · Dec 25, 2011

Flatus Maximus said:
Did you read the article you quoted? It doesn't seem like it, so let me draw your attention to the following quote: "Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."

In other words, we knew about this stuff looong before we invaded.

So? I said we found and removed yellow cake uranium, which is true, why does it matter when he got it? And the officials in Niger said he'd recently tried to buy more, though Wilson tried to downplay their statements in his report.

Samurai · Dec 25, 2011

Alzrius said:
It's worth noting that the issue of them trying to buy yellowcake from Niger wasn't proven - rather, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to investigate the claim after the Italian government shared papers purporting that to be true with the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Wilson didn't find any evidence of such a transfer, and wrote an op-ed piece saying so publicly (though a Senate Intelligence committee later challenged Wilson's claims). Scooter Libby subsequently leaked the information that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent to the news media, ostensibly to "punish" Wilson for publicly disagreeing with the Bush White House.

Likewise, the yellowcake that was already found in Iraq had been there since before 1991, and was the result of some old, defunct attempts to generate nuclear power for domestic (Iraqi) consumption.

All of the above, and more, can be found on the page dedicated to this topic over on Snopes.

Scooter Libby did not leak Plame's identity, Richard Armitage did. And he admitted that fact to the Special Prosecutor. Libby got mixed up on a timeline of events, and thus was hit with charges, but he was not the leaker, and Fitzgerald knew he wasn't from the the beginning.

Remus Lupin · Dec 25, 2011

Samurai said:
So? I said we found and removed yellow cake uranium, which is true, why does it matter when he got it? And the officials in Niger said he'd recently tried to buy more, though Wilson tried to downplay their statements in his report.

Oh, come now! You can't possibly believe your own rhetoric at this point. The yellowcake pretext for war was rooted specifically in the claim that he was trying to obtain new yellowcake from Niger. That was the specific claim that Powell made in his UN speech.

As for your other claims, it's that Saddam expelled inspectors from Iraq in the 1990s, after they had been caught spying for the US:

"Back in 1999, major papers ran front-page investigative stories revealing that the CIA had covertly used U.N. weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq for the U.S.'s own intelligence purposes. "United States officials said today that American spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors," the New York Times reported (1/7/99).

According to the

Washington Post (3/2/99),

the U.S. "infiltrated agents and espionage equipment for three years into United Nations arms control teams in Iraq to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the knowledge of the U.N. agency."

Undercover U.S. agents "carried out an ambitious spying operation designed to penetrate Iraq's intelligence apparatus and track the movement of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to U.S. and U.N. sources,"

wrote the Boston Globe (1/6/99) FAIR ACTION ALERT: Spying in Iraq: From Fact to Allegation

In the runup to the war, Saddam allowed inspectors to return, and those inspectors begged the US for more time to complete its work before the invasion in 2003. The only left (voluntarily), when it became clear the invasion was taking place irrespective.

"United Nations weapons inspectors have been advised by the US to leave Iraq, a sign that a US-led attack is imminent.

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday: "Late last night I was advised by the US government to pull out our inspectors from Baghdad."

ElBaradei is leading the nuclear weapons inspections in Iraq. He says similar advice has been given to UNMOVIC, the inspection body responsible for all other weapons and lead by Hans Blix." UN weapons inspectors told to leave Iraq - 17 March 2003 - New Scientist

I can go into more detail on your other points later, but I'll just say at this point that my original point stands. You got every point wrong.

The order to withdraw has not yet been issued to the scientists carrying out the inspections and Blix is scheduled to give a report to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that would call for them to be given more time.

prosfilaes · Dec 26, 2011

Alzrius said:
It's spurious to now ask for specific examples of people spouting this belief

If you can't post examples of what you're arguing against, if you can't explain your position in that way, I don't see how you can accuse me of misunderstanding.

You said:

This is, again, fundamentally wrong. A more accurate analogy would be to say that a candidate who doesn't agree with you on everything needs to be killed for it.

No. No one is discussing whether we should kill FFG or anyone associated with this game. Heck, no one is proposing annihilation of the blurb. The question is, should this blurb be the one blurb on the FFG game, which is fairly parallel to, should this person be the one person holding the title of President of the United States.

Intolerance is bad; taking a stand against intolerance is not bad even if you call it intolerant to intolerance.

Intolerance to intolerance can be tyrannical. How many churches preach that their way is the only way? How many businesses ruthlessly crush their competitors? On the flip side, how many politicians would love to silence any intolerance towards their position?

I'm not saying people can't be offended by things - they can. I'm saying people have no right to expect the things that they're offended by to change for the sake of assuaging their sense of outrage.

How should they communicate that? I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here.

If people never went to a business and complained about something, the world would be a worse place. The rude employees would never get disciplined or fired, and the places serving bad food would continue serving bad food. Unless, of course, they go out of business, which is a pretty drastic solution to a problem that could have been solved by talking to a manager.

Alzrius · Dec 26, 2011

prosfilaes said:
If you can't post examples of what you're arguing against, if you can't explain your position in that way, I don't see how you can accuse me of misunderstanding.

I don't need to post examples because I've already told you precisely what it is I'm arguing against: intolerance. I don't have any statements from the people who didn't like FFG's original flavor text, but that's not really the point. The point is that people don't have the right to not be offended by something, and so have no basis upon which to demand that that which upsets them be changed.

No. No one is discussing whether we should kill FFG or anyone associated with this game.

Hence why I said it was an analogy. It's not literal.

Heck, no one is proposing annihilation of the blurb. The question is, should this blurb be the one blurb on the FFG game, which is fairly parallel to, should this person be the one person holding the title of President of the United States.

That's not the question. The question is, do people have the right to expect something to be changed just because they don't like it? That's analogous to someone expecting that just because they don't like someone for President, that person should be killed.

Intolerance to intolerance can be tyrannical.

If you're saying that anything can be taken too far, or otherwise made into something harmful, then I'll agree to that. But the flip side is to stand around and do nothing while people are intolerant in the first place.

How many churches preach that their way is the only way? How many businesses ruthlessly crush their competitors? On the flip side, how many politicians would love to silence any intolerance towards their position?

The first two are examples of intolerance, rather than intolerance towards instances of intolerance. The last example isn't relevant to the discussion we're having - it's not in the "wanting" that the intolerance is found; it's when that politician thinks they have a right to actually silence that person that things go too far.

How should they communicate that? I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here.

The distinction is between communicating their offense, or stating why they feel that way. When people are making "I" statements, they're simply saying what they feel, which tends to be fine. It's when they start making "you" statements, saying what the other person "should" do, or "must" do, or "needs to" do, etc. that the problem comes.

Your offense is yours. You can talk about it, but you can't make it someone else's problem.

If people never went to a business and complained about something, the world would be a worse place. The rude employees would never get disciplined or fired, and the places serving bad food would continue serving bad food. Unless, of course, they go out of business, which is a pretty drastic solution to a problem that could have been solved by talking to a manager.

Again, this isn't what I'm saying. People should talk to managers and express themselves and say exactly how they were disappointed and why - but they don't get to decide what action (if any) gets taken, even if they demand that someone be disciplined or fired. It's not their decision to make.