Here's the reality of any war on Earth, the people who really end up suffering are the innocent civilians who just want to go about their daily lives:
The reality of war is that there is no Good and Evil. Americans look back to WWII with nostalgia because we've successfully convinced ourselves that it was a war between Us (Good) vs Them (Evil). Never again in the subsequent 60 years has there been such a war. America keeps getting itself into conflicts but fail in attempts to portray themselves as the Good guys. Why? Because of globalization and the availability of information, the humanity of our opponents is clearer than ever. Moreover, the reality of American global interests is ever clearer.
Rather than consider the fact that we're involved in two misguided war efforts, where we force American ideologies on other ethnic groups, we can instead turn to video games where our opponents look like this:
The enemy is evil! He wants to eat our brains! It's a whole lot easier to figure out who's evil in this game!
Video games are a great way to avoid thinking about difficult issues, ie, the reality of our world. Same thing goes for sports:
We root for OUR team. The other team is evil! It's that simple. We can turn our thinking brains off with this kind of competition.
In a real war, turning your brain off will get you killed. Turning your brain off will cause you to make stupid decisions. Stupid decisions like torturing prisoners:
Or maybe killing civilians:
Reality is a whole lot messier than a video game or a sporting match.
Maybe part of my desire for video games is that I want to avoid considering extremely complex and difficult issues.
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