Shoot Em Up

So there's this new video game out, released by Hezbolah, in which you get points for shooting down Israeli helicopters and killing Israeli soldiers. The game was released to celebrate the anniversary of the Israeli Hezbolah war last year. It was all over the news networks today and the reaction was one of shock and outrage. They wanted to know if the Israeli government had an statement to make, and what the Lebanese government had to say about it. I think it's ridiculous.

The thing I think is ridiculous about it is that when Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a movie in which a bunch of Arab terrorists hijack a soviet warhead and plant it in downtown Miami and he goes around killing lots and lots of them they are not outraged. That's just drama (a drama which George Bush Sr. once recommended for its positive family values--even though Schwarzenegger spends 15 years lying to his wife, turns her into a prostitute, and has the romantic climax of the film in front of a mushroom cloud)(for the record, I loved True Lies). I've heard the people complain about the violence in video games, but this isn't the complaint about the new Hezbolah game. The complaint is that it teaches kids to kill Israelis. Well, we've been teaching our kids for years to kill Iraqis, Viet Namese, Russians, Iranians, Mexicans, and zombie vampire Nazis, and while I don't expect to hear complaints about the sensitivities of zombie vampire Nazis, the other folks might have a beef. We teach our children to kill Arabs in video games and nobody bats an eye. Hezbolah teaches Palestinian children to kill Israelis in a video game and it's a scandal worthy of international news coverage. Pardon me while I wretch. Shut up and cover some real news for Christ's sake!