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Now might not be the most appropriate time—with looped images playing on the television of Saddam Hussein’s statuesque fall from power—to consider the relationship of war to game. However, no war has ever been so enabled by the attributes, defined by the language, and played by (and against) the rules of the game than the war in Iraq. As the velocity of strategic movement was force-multiplied by the immediacy of the televisual moment; as the virtuality of high technology warfare was enhanced by the reality of low battlefield casualties; as the military and the media as well as weapon systems and sign-systems became mutually embedded; as the viewer became player: war and game melded in realtime on primetime.
Regardless of the moment, to speak of war as a game is always to invite attack, and in keeping with the spirit of the new U.S. national security strategy, I would like to begin with a pre-emptive strike of my own. Let me be blunt: war with Iraq is not simply a game—it is a stupid game. I believe that it will prove to be a waste of lives, resources and the world standing of the United States. Indeed, it seems like a waste of time and intelligence even to speak of this war as rational activity, as a Clausewitzian continuation of politics by other means.
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