I think since the game is very Western-centric it is important to draw in contemporary politics, especially in a post-911 context. While it is understandable that the U.S. reacted as extremely as it did to the tragedy, many of the authoritarian and borderline fascist decisions the Bush administration made were not justified.
Great examples are the wiretapping scandal which outraged Americans, the unnecessarily secretive handling of even basic level information by the Bush White House (they installed their own email server to be separate from the rest of the White House system to avoid having to share their information), as well as the torturing of detainees by PMC personnel in some of the prisons. Some of these detainees are now suing these people because they cannot sue the military. The inability of these detainees to have legal representation up until this point ties into another important theme in all of the MGS games.
The general public's role in pretty much every MGS game is nonexistent, they are completely passive and oblivious to such profound events occurring on their own soil sometimes which could shatter their lives instantaneously, such as Shadow Moses (which became and internet hero story between MGS and MGS2), the interpretation of the Cold War politics in MGS3 in which the public is dangerously close to nuclear holocaust, and the apparent uninvolvement of the public in making the decision to wage so many battles and rely on the PMC's so heavily in MGS4.
People like Zero think it is their duty to bear everyone else's burden by not sharing information with them as to protect them from it, but that extreme level of power corrupts their initially noble intentions because it eventually spirals out of control. Then it becomes a self-sustaining system which no one can turn off (this becomes a literal metaphor with the SOP system in MGS4) largely because they are not even aware how deeply it runs.
The American public's sharp rebukes of the Bush Administration in its 2nd term (which has reached approval levels as low as Nixon did in the height of his scandals) is a perfect example of how frustrated the public becomes when it feels the government has become unresponsive and completely aloof to their own problems as well as making extremely important decisions without even consulting their interests. The Bush Administration has focused on sustaining its image and appealing to its political base rather than enacting policy decisions that will leave a positive legacy.
Even when a chance comes along to show their worth, such as the Hurricane Katrina incident, they delayed sending help to New Orleans for over a week. They even claimed that it was the government in New Orleans fault for not declaring a state of emergency (which either the mayor or governor did 3 days before the hurricane hit land) and then tried to make the mayor sign over her state to the federal government (she was a White Democrat female) in order to receive federal help, which she refused to do. Such crass handling of the situation could not be hid from the public or the media.
In every MGS game there seems to be a tangible distance between the people who these decisions will affect and those who are making these decisions.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
