Can we have an award for "most blatant profit-oriented trivialization of a tragedy"? How about the "Screw You, World, We Really Don't Care" Award for the most outrageous demonstration of American callousness?
Also known as the perfect holiday gift for the chickenhawk or armchair warrior in your life... Newsweek via Huffington Post...
"You will take out airports, night bomb cities, hunt down Saddam Hussein, and take over Baghdad," say the instructions. The goal is to conquer Baghdad without running out of soldiers while drawing cards like "Car bomber... You lose 200 troops" or "Air drop... You gain 300 troops."
The inventors of the game want to support the troops. "I was hoping that maybe this would show Americans what [soldiers] are really going through over there," says one of its inventors. Because, you know, nothing illustrates the blood-drenched, demoralizing, brutalizing, PTSD-inducing hell of living the Iraq war like sitting around an air-conditioned living room with beer and pretzels and turning over a card that shows "a female soldier holding a naked detainee on a leash and reads, 'Disgrace: Some soldiers are found guilty of unlawful treatment and inhumane acts of violence toward Iraqi prisoners. You lose 100 troops!'" and going "Oh shucky darn."
Believe it or not, these folks are targetting the game to military families. Personally I think they should hit the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. There's their market! Those folks would wet themselves over this.
All in support of mandatory inclusion of an Operation Yellow Elephant brochure inside each copy of the game, say "Hoo-yah."
"Battle to Baghdad: The Fight for Freedom," as the game is titled, is eerily accurate in one way, as Newsweek's Matthew Preusch writes:
The game's missing just one thing: an exit strategy.