Bush plays video games with recovering war veterans ("shoot the bad guys" in Baghdad)

[sabra]

Source: AFP

WACO, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush had a shoot-out with the "bad guys" in Iraq on Thursday, playing a computer game with war veterans that simulates a firefight in Baghdad, the White House said.

Bush tried his hand at the game with two soldiers during a visit to a rehabilitation center in Texas that treats veterans wounded in Iraq.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush helped "shoot the bad guys" in a Baghdad neighborhood, albeit virtually.

She said the president saw several "cutting edge virtual reality games" that allow recovering soldiers at the center in San Antonio to simulate riding in a car or boat.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071109/pl_afp/uspoliticsiraqbush_071109152522

[Vanje]

1. Who says Bush dosnt have combat experience?

He does NOW!

[merwin]

34. Thanks for the laugh!

[graywarrior]

2. I'll bet he thinks that's what he's actually doing in Iraq--playing a video game.

BTW, I despise him.

[Binka]

3. This Story Makes Me Sick.

Those soilders should have slapped him upside the head and told him to give up the game, grab a gun, and get his ass to Iraq. If the press had any guts this story would be written to shame him not glorify the fucker. I hate the media and Bush. FUCKWITTAGES!

[SteppingRazor]

5. I actually don't have a problem with the story.

It's pretty straightforward, not leaning to either side, and that's what I want out of the press.

[graywarrior]

8. The report is good.

It's HIM we can't deal with.

[MnFats]

10. exactly. this classless, grinning fool PLAYS GAMES while the REAL soldiers he put in harm's way

are fighting and dying everyday. you know he imagines that he's doing something good by PLAYING A VIDEO GAME with vets and has no inkling that they got in the MESS they're in BY HIS OWN stubborn stupidity.
SOMEBODY on his staff should have know this would be grossly inappropriate and gotten him out of there pronto.....how embarrassing...

[graywarrior]

12. Actually he's quite a miracle. The crazy uncle who escaped from the attic and became president.

[merwin]

35. I thought cheney was the crazy uncle...

[Marnieworld]

11. Actually it leaves out an important detail

That the games are not at the hospital for fun but are used for treatment of the horrible mental trauma these soldiers suffer when they return. Leaving out the whole point of the software and that the president took pleasure from what is therapy for them, diminishes their suffering, actually negates its existence. Like they are just playing X-Box while they recouperate instead of this is further evidence of what this war is costing real people. I wonder why they would leave that out? Seems almost strange that they wouldn't mention the name of this fun game to play I would think.

[daleo]

14. Killing people in a video game will help their mental war trauma?

That seems wrong to me, ethically and psychologically. I can't imagine my dad playing "shoot the German" after World War II. He was pretty traumatized about doing just that, so I can't imagine re-living the experience as being positive for anyone.

[leftchick]

13. the photos are nauseating

US President George W. Bush(C) meets double amputee Sgt Nicholas McCoy at the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, 08 November 2007. While at the center Bush joined in playing computer game that simulates a firefight in Baghdad, the White House said.(AFP/File/Jim Watson)

I think all of the war glorifiers need to view this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ

[everydayis911]

26. Gee you

Look comfortable, don't get up for me, I'll let you by this time. Even though I am the Commander Guy.
Yes Bush is his own video game and he has plenty of men to sacrifice for his war on terror. Dead people = Fuzzy Math.

[bluestateguy]

7. Pete Stark was right

This is all just for his amusement. He never should have capitulated and apologized.

[SteppingRazor]

4. If I was playing with him, I totally would've fragged his character

:P

[zabet]

6. Why does this sentence disturb me?

"She said the president saw several "cutting edge virtual reality games" that allow recovering soldiers at the center in San Antonio to simulate riding in a car or boat."
May be because many of these soldiers will never get to drive a
real boat or a real car again due to their injuries.

[JBoy]

27. Yes, that bothered me too

Do they have games that allow them to simulate walking, or seeing, or holding their child in their arms? Many of them will not be doing any of those things ever.

The complete lack of coverage of the aftermath of this war blows my mind.

[jberryhill]

29. Rehabilitative Simulation Software

No. The software is to help them retrain/relearn these activities with their injuries.

[Marnieworld]

9. I think I remember watching some report once that these games are for treatment of PTSD

Maybe it was 60 minutes or something like that. But fundamentally these games, in these settings for recovering Vets are not for amusement or for reliving their fond memories of Iraq but to simulate their experiences realistically in order to tap into what emotions were produced that has caused their subsequent trauma to provide therapy. They play them in therapeutic settings with trained therapists. It's actually a story of how technology and creativity is solving an age-old problem with war in a new and effective way but they spin the story to slaute the Commander. In other words he played a game but they re-lived their hell.

This is so emblematic of so much of the problem with this war. His cluelessness, his narcissism, his glee in all of it, his insensitivity and most of all the way the press covers it. The president plays while they suffer and he is a good guy while doing it? It reminds me of when he told a Gold Star mother not to sell a medal on Ebay. He is just so oblivious to suffering, he is such an obvious sociopath but yet no one, the soldiers etc, in that context can call him on it.

I hate these stories to the point of nausea. :cry:

[TlalocW]

15. I bet Bush's video character

Walked off a ledge or into the street of incoming traffic or fragged himself in some stupid manner befitting the moronic shitbag at the controls.

TlalocW

[FREEWILL56]

16. Bush needs other games like 'Where in the World is Osama' or

'Find the WMDs' or another like 'Do I Have the Right'. No doubt he'll have somebody type up a book for him called 'It's So Easy a Chimp Can Do It'. While we're at it the chimp's favorite tv show now is 'Caveman'. He likes to imagine, that if evolution exists, what the future would be like so this is his scifi.
edit to add joke:
Bush is so dumb.........How dumb is he?
Bush is so dumb he thinks scrabble is a miniature dominoes.

[SyntaxError]

17. Kind of off subject, but has anyone seen any of those "simulations"?

There is system called VBS2, which is also marketed as a commercial game under Armed Assault. It's disgusting to think that people actually play those types of games for fun. I don't know why Americans think it's fun to blow up simulated people, and shot them down. We're not talking about fake looking weapons blowing up monsters, we're talking about life like weapons being used to shoot simulated people that almost look real... If I was into crazy theories, I might think that such games are part of plot to militarize America's children and prepare them for perpetual war.

[CRF450]

32. Delete

[CRF450]

33. BS type of thinking.

I play first person shooter games all the time along with many friends. No harm in it what so ever.

Edit: What is wrong here?? I cant respond under other posters!

[scarface2004]

18. i love the smell of the splattered blood of irakee...

infants and girls!!!!!! bush screamed while virtually wasting everything that moved!!!

[Marnieworld]

19. The "Video Game" that Bush played with Vets

Source: NPR

A new, high-tech system designed to treat military veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — or PTSD — may be familiar to fans of a squad-based combat video game.

Using components from the popular game Full Spectrum Warrior, psychologist Skip Rizzo and his colleagues have fashioned a "virtual" world that simulates the sources of combat stress.

The project is a joint venture between the Institute for Creative Technologies — a cutting-edge research lab at the University of Southern California — and the Office of Naval Research. The object is to help veterans come to terms with what they've experienced in places like Iraq and Afghanistan by immersing vets in the sights and sounds of those theaters of battle.



Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4806921

---

I posted this as an add-on to another thread based on this very incomplete article on Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071109/pl_afp/uspoliticsiraqbush_071109152522

that neglects to mention exactly the purpose of a "video game" at a Veterans hospital. The White HOuse and this piece just made it seem like regular guy Bush was just yucking it up with some soldiers and that war is fun etc. Considering he was enjoying their therapy for the trauma that his actions have caused is just sickeningly tasteless to me and I wanted to call attention to this.

Peace.
M

[graywarrior]

20. Bush needs to be Matrixed.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

21. In Real Life...

There is no 30 second respawn. You stay dead.

[daleo]

22. It sounds like they are just trying to habituate them to senseless violence

"The soldier being treated wears VR goggles and headphones. Using a tablet-based interface, a therapist can activate or remove the sounds of gunshots or the sight of smoke, depending on a patient's reaction. The idea is to re-introduce the patients to the experiences that triggered the trauma, gradually, until the memory no longer incapacitates them.

Eventually, Rizzo believes the therapy will include other stimuli, such as vibrations to simulate the impact of bombs or rumbling of tanks, and even the smells of war — the body odor, garbage and spices of urban combat, for example."

I find the notion of this as therapy as troubling. Its like having a victim of a disaster "re-live" the experience until they don't feel it anymore.

"OK kids, let's try the Columbine massacre one more time".

[Bonobo]

23. Flatten out the reality they experienced and merge it with the sanitized fake violence!

[Drunken Irishman]

24. Sounds more like the stuff they do for those afraid to fly...

Or have other issues. Basically, throw them into that type of situation and have them beat it. My father suffers from PTSD and I would love to find something that could help curb it. I'm not sure if this works, but I'm glad they're trying something. PTSD is a scary thing to deal with and with my father, there have been times where we've called the police because of his violent outbursts.

[ContraBass Black]

25. More to bring the issues out into the open and make them directly observable

By medical staff, so that they have more information as they develop treatment.

[BrklynLib at work]

28. What a repulsive twit occupies the White House..

[MidwestTransplant]

30. Wow good for him. I bet he didn't even wear kevlar. Our CIC is so brave. Doing battle

probably brought him back to his heroic tour in SE Asia.

[Supersedeas]

31. does anyone expect more from AWOL, the coward of crawford