Hoowah, soldier.
we are Oscar Mike to talk about COD
Intro, ready? GO! GO! GO!
Hello, Internet, welcome to Game Theory.
The show that's trying to prove you don't have to have
big guns to know a thing or two about first person shooters
First off, congratulations for clicking on this video.
I recognize my target demographic isn't exactly the cod type after all
(LAUGHS) Trust me, my episode on Halo, awesome, though it was,
did not launch me into the top tier of gaming celebrity
like I expected.
It's weird, though, isn't it, that such a huge number of people
play these FPS games, and yet many of us making and watching game videos just ignore them
or otherwise outright hate 'em.
The fast talking Aussie and especially Bob Chipman, The Game Overthinker, come to mind right away.
But they're not the only ones with a distaste for gunmetal grey.
Last December, the international council of the Red Cross held an informal meeting to discuss war games
like Call of Duty. Concerned that despite all the accuracy these games put into their weapons and alphabet soup
of army acronyms, they don't really pay attention to the rules of modern war.
In other words, characters are able to perform the equivalent of war crimes in these games, but don't
get punished for their actions. If you want an in depth review of the conference, I recommend watching
"Seeing Red" by Old Bobby Chips,
which presents a terrific discussion on the topic. In this video, though, we're tallying up the human rights
violations committed in the entire Modern Warfare Trilogy, to see whether the Red Cross is right to
condemn these games. To what extent are Price, Soap, Ghost and Makarov ignoring international policy.
And more importantly, do the games show them being realistically punished for their crimes.
I guarantee, the answer isn't what you expect.
So when the Red Cross talks about the rules of war what are they referring to ? Well, real world war is a lot like-
risk, with rules from how to declare war to how a country properly accepts its enemy's surrender.
These laws have three major goals, to limit any unnecessary destruction, to keep wars as short as-
possible and to protect people and property not directly involved in the war effort.
The Red Cross is particularly interested in the last point. To put it simply, they serve as the ethics board for-
international conflict, upholding rules set forth by the Geneva conventions, a series of four treaties drafted-
in 1949, in response to the atrocities committed in World War II by the Nazis. War Crimes then, are actions like
Gino-cide. Genocide. Serious breaches of these wartime regulations, instead of just listing these rules out,
lets learn from a few examples from the game, shall we?
First, in this mission of Modern Warfare 1, you automatically fail if you attack the village church
an accurate representation of the Geneva Conventions, since religious buildings, museums and historical-
landmarks are all protected. Thumbs up, Activision.
However, the rest of the civilian objects like the houses graveyard and water tower would also be-
protected because they're civilian property that is in no way aiding the war effort. Since blowing them up in the-
game, this would make the Red Cross sad. Also, a few missions later, destroying mosques as a helicopter-
gunman bears no penalty, making the game application of the Geneva conventions inconsistent at best and-
religiously intolerant at worst.
Next, lets play a game I like to call.
SPOT
THAT
WAR CRIME!
I'm going to play you a scene from Modern Warfare 3. See if you can spot all the war crimes committed
[Price] Gas masks on!
Look familiar?
[Warambe] No! No! Please!
[Price] Where's Makarov? Tell me and its yours.
[Warmbe] Our contact was a man named Volk. We never met Makarov!
[Soap] Where's this Volk? Time's running out, mate.
[Warambe] Paris! He oversaw the delivery in Paris!
[Price] Right, then. This is for the boys at Hereford.
[Warambe] Wait!
Ready for the answers? First, the Geneva Conventions state there is to be no torture of prisoners
However, in this moment, Price uses the threat of poison gas to get a confession out of the captured Warabe, so-
strike one. The use of gas also disregards another document, the Geneva protocol, which prohibits the use-
of chemical or biological weapons in warfare because they present overly painful, inhumane ways of death.
Yes, even though the poison gas is technically the enemy's, Price should have been the bigger man and-
not used it, so that's number two. The third and fourth breaches occur at the end of the interrogation. By-
killing him, Price breaks two major rules. First soldiers are never allowed to wound an unarmed, surrnedered-
man. Second, by killing him, Price takes justice into his own hands, preventing his victim from receiving a fair-
trial, and that is not okay. So that's four breaches of international humanitarian law in one scene lasting-
20 seconds. Can you imagine how many are in the series as a whole? Well get ready to find out because here-
comes modern warfare's greatest war crimes
So I think it's safe to say that in these games, the Geneva Conventions have been thrown right out the window.
Whether its Makarov destroying French phallic symbols or Price becoming a bringer of one man, vigilante-
justice, no one in this game walks away unscathed.
However, the Red Cross's Biggest concern was not so much with the characters actual committing of the-
crimes, so much as it was with having the characters get punished or reprimanded for breaching wartime-
protocol, getting tried for their war crimes. But here's the thing, by not showing any consequences for the-
American soldiers, the games DO actually portray the end result of their war crimes.
Take a look at history, it's called Victor's Justice, a trend where the winning side of an war gets to judge what-
was right or wrong in the actions of both its own troops and those of its enemy.
In other words, by winning the war, they get the ability to show themselves some favouritism.
For example, during the Vietnam War, 26 US Troops were tried for taking part in the My Lai Massacre, where-
400-500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children we found tortured, sexually-
assaulted, maimed and murdered. Think No Russian but worse.
Of the 26, 1 was convicted, originally being sentenced to life in prison.
2 days later, President Nixon reduced his sentence to 20 Years, it was then reduced to 10.
Eventually, he served House arrest, for a couple months.
More recently, you may recall the debates over waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation"-
tecniques that the US used post-9/11.
Despite multiple human rights organizations qualifying these methods as torture, no-one was ever tried for their-
actions.
But that's not just to say that it's just restricted to the US.
Wherever there are war crime cases, there is evidence of Victor's Justice.
Just look into the Yugoslav Wars, or the genocide in Rwanda as other recent examples.
There have been moves to combat Victors Justice however.
The International Criminal Court was founded in 2002 in The Hague, Netherlands as a means of impartially-
trying cases of Genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes.
Currently 128 nations have agreed to abide by the rulings of the court.
The United States is not one of them, which means they don't have to abide by decisions made by the court.
Critics of this decision say that its to ensure that America can continue making its own rules of war,-
which brings us back to Call of Duty and the Red Cross.
Since the US was on the winning side of Call of Duty's World War III, they would get to decide what constituted-
as war crimes.
This means that things like simple property destruction or occupying a church would easily go unnoticed.
The No Russian mission, would quickly be written off the record. At most, Price could get court martialed,-
appearing in a military court of his peers rather than an impartial international trial.
It's like they always say.
[Price] History is written by the victor
if the Red Cross really wants an accurate portrayal of the consequences of war crimes, there's an argument to be-
made that these games provide it.
I guess that means that yeah, Call of Duty may just have something to say about the state of war crime-
prosecution today.
But hey, that's just a theory. A game Theory! Thanks for watching.