Russian Media Tries to Pin Airport Attack on "Modern Warfare 2"

It seems that at least one part of American politics has reached Russia: When violence strikes, blame violent video games. Jack Thompson would be proud.

The suicide bomber who blew up the Domdedovo airport in Moscow on Monday was by all means a terrible attack on a country with a violent loss of life. It was cowardly and definitely sends a message that countries are at war and we all need to remain vigilant.

But the government-financed satellite channel Russia Today managed to mix the scenes of the attack with the hit video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" and aimed to make both related. And they kept making it a point to mention that it was an American video game played by Americans and part of the American mindset. True, a level in the single player campaign of that game-titled "No Russian" and has a variety of meanings-has the player mount a terrorist attack on a Russian airport and was the source of much misdirected controversy. But to state that terrorists used the game to train for their attack? There is definitely a derailment in the logic train.

At the very least, Russia Today should do its homework. They claim the video game mirrored as a virtual training field to rehearse for the real attack. But after playing the level-I will play any feature of a game no matter how controversial-it is a very broken mirror. The real attack was a suicide bombing. A game level based on suicide bombing would be pretty short if one thought about it. "CoD" video game is a flurry of bullets and gunfire as your game counterpart disguises himself as a Russian terrorist who is disguised as American military among the terrorists he is trying to gain the trust of as they stage this attack to spark a Russian/American war. If anything, the Russians trying to pin the attack on American video games is more likely to spark such a war if it were actually believed. At the latest update, the blame game seems to be progressing better in noticing that security was not tight enough to notice the bomber at the airport.

Nevertheless, the whole "Blame video games sentiment" has been a roller coaster ride of credibility and outright scapegoating. And at this rate, it will always remain a perfect hot button topic politicians can use to stir the pot.