They would perhaps be better off attacking political targets. The Russian government has not shown much concern for citizens' welfare, but if you get the government officials themselves scared for their welfare, then you'll provoke a response. Maybe not a good response, but certainly one more meaningful

Well, this settles it: it IS Modern Warfare 2's fault!

I'm usually all for blaming anything and everything on Activision, but it kinda makes me sad that Walid Phares appears to think there's some merit to it. He's a smarter guy than that. I hope they edited the fuck out of his comments.

Like anyone in the Caucasus Emirate would look to a Western-made product for inspiration, if they even had access to it...

Yeah its very similar and a double standard for sure.  Its ok though,  tradition and its rich history aside, Serbs are prolly better off without Kosovo. That area is pretty f'd up...just like Chechnya lol

No, it wasn't really aimed at you, I was just agreeing mainly with the last sentence, about what propaganda can do to the ill informed.

But before anybody assumes anything: No, I do NOT, in any way, support these kind of attacks.

I didn't realise Jack Thompson had influence over Russian media...

Why do games always get the blame? Easy target? Pisses me off for real every time.

I guess I should blame me for not explaining what I meant with it..

I meant it would probably lead to an country with an leader that is totally against the Western Values and like Iran would come up with statements as 'Fuck you USA/UK/France etc;;;'  their is a reason why Western Journalists only can drive around in military jeeps because their is an hate against the Western world and his values...and yes it would not end up being a clone of Iran but it would be far that off aswell..

Which is the price you pay.

Hopefully they'd have some sort of demcoratic government, but if not, their independent government is a step in the right direction....

and if the majority of their people hate the US, well so be it.   I'd rather have governmetns run by the people who hate us, then governments run by others who like us.

Hamas for example should be recognized as the government of Gaza.  Gaza should also be subject to the disadvantages of having a government of people like Gaza.

In a time of crisis, people will reach out to anything they don't understand, that is remotely similar, and try to make a connection with it.  People blaming the games don't really understand them at all.  What happened should be seen more as ironic than anything else.  From the MW2 perspective, No Russian is pretty inane as a plot point, and what follows.  Now, if the end result is that Russia invades the United States, then we can blame MW2 for influencing Russian foreign policy decisions.

I'm no fan of the Iranian theocracy, which does have a fairly poor human rights record and bans candidates from standing for election because they deem them not to be Islamic enough. But at least Iran has a semblance of democracy which can't be said about the rest of the states in the area (which our Western Governments shamefully support and prop up). I find the current protests in some parts of the Arab world very encouraging for grass roots democracy. Hopefully they can finally get rid of their dictators and we (as in the West) won't get involved to sabotage it like we have done in the past (case point Iran).