PlayStation Nation |OT| Playing Astro Bot on the Horizon Until Dawn

[coolbeans]

Ryuu96 said:

coolbeans said:

While the historical revisionism in Modern Warfare is gross, it's a big stretch to call the real Highway of Death an actual war crime.  Fundamentally, an armed invading army doesn't get the privilege of a bloodless tactical retreat.  Transplant the circumstances to the Russo-Ukraine War and see how you'd feel about a massive strike like that against Russia's army.

Fair enough, I should have done more research on it, I only just looked into it a few days ago and saw people labelling it as a war crime and I assumed the reason Call of Duty changed it to "Russians did it" was because it was deemed as a horrific act by the Americans and Call of Duty is very often "Fuck Yeah! America! We're the Heroes!" hence the change, Lol. That's my bad for not doing enough of my own research, I may look into it more later, either way, Call of Duty changing it to "Russians did it" is a bit...Lol.

Hey, I appreciate that too.  I'll admit: at the time of reviewing the reboot, I did have the Highway of Death mentally categorized as maybe a... "low-level war crime" or some other categorization.  As though they went too far in laying waste, but the intention wasn't morally wrong like Abu Ghraib, The My Lai Massacre, and so on.  From what I've gathered since then, I'd register it as a "War is Hell" tough call that was within the legal bounds of the time.  The top brass couldn't guarantee there were no potential civilians intermingled with Saddam's retreating forces, but they're also staring down at their enemy retreating with muntions & equipment that could potentially kill their soldiers down the line.

But what's wild about Modern Warfare is the narrative framing for its Highway of Death scene is much worse.  They couldn't even bother incorporating similar circumstances!  If I recall, they basically made it into a wholesale slaughter sequence.

Last edited by coolbeans - on 27 August 2024