Pervasive “Entertaining” Violence…Training our Future Warriors?

This is something I have been passionate about for a long time. People are so deluded and deceived into thinking that violent video games are harmless. From Halo to Grand Theft Auto, these types of games are desensitizing our children to violence like never before. “It is just a game” is a lie, folks!

So not only do these games desensitize … but it is intentional because these same games are used by the military to train their soldiers!

Check this out:

DoD Approves Sale of US Military Training on Open Market

John B. Thompson, Attorney
1172 South Dixie Highway, Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146-2750
Phone: 305-666-4366
[email protected]

September 27, 2004

The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary, Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000 Via Fax to 703-695-4299

Re: DOD�s Illegal Release of Classified Information to Terrorists

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

Your Department of Defense funds an operation at the University of Southern California called the �Institute for Creative Technologies.� ICT pays tax dollars to the video game industry to create virtual reality simulators a) to train our young soldiers to kill and b) to suppress their inhibition to kill. But the scandal in all this is found below.

Your Defense Department�s ICT then gives the green light to the violent video game industry to market and sell these M-rated (mature) killing simulators to American children as video games. The latest military trainer released commercially in this way is Full Spectrum Warrior. Pandemic Studios made the simulator for you and is marketing this as an M-rated game to children through teen entertainment products, such was wrestling on television, and promoting it as the simulator that trains our Army to kill.

As if the above were not bad enough, I have just discovered that anyone buying Full Spectrum Warrior (at Target or Wal-Mart, etc.) can use the following code – [REDACTED] � to unlock the official Army training version that is embedded in the commercial game!

What�s next? Are you going to put the code to the �nuclear football� on the Internet?

Your DoD, then, is putting into the public stream of commerce, classified information that urban gangs as well as al-Qaeda and anyone else who intends us harm can purchase to train their operatives with what should be our secret squadron tactics in urban warfare. To play the game is to be stunned by the deep level of classified military training that your DOD has made available worldwide.

If you think this will have no consequence, then think again. I�m presently working, at his request, with a California prosecutor who is going to prove at upcoming murder trials that two gang leaders were using a violent video game as a virtual reality simulator to train their underlings in the strategies of carjackings and killings. The homicide detective says one perpetrator in custody said: �We played the game by day and lived the game by night.� The fact that virtual reality simulators can train people to kill is precisely why DoD has created them.

I�m the guy who went on NBC�s Today show, Mr. Secretary, and predicted that the D.C. Beltway Sniper triggerman, two weeks before he was even identified, would be a teenaged boy trained on a video game to kill. NBC reported two months later, after Malvo and Muhammad were caught, that I was absolutely correct, that Malvo had been forced by Muhammad to train on a commercial commando video game�Microsoft�s Halo�used by the Army to train its snipers!

Two months ago The Washington Times published my guest op-ed about the role of a military commando game in training two middle schoolers to take over their schools, Columbine-style. If you want a copy of that, ask your friend, opinion editor Tony Blankley at The Washington Times,, for a copy.

Mr. Secretary, shortly after September 11, 2001, Microsoft pulled off the market its Flight Simulator video game because it was believed that the 20 hijackers may have used that video game to practice flying commercial jets into the Twin Towers, which you could do in the game. Is Bill Gates that much smarter than you?

I�ve written you about all this, and you have ignored every letter. I�m not waiting anymore for an answer, not now that Full Spectrum Warrior is out there to prove President Eisenhower�s warnings that the military can be counted upon to do some pretty stupid and dangerous things. Full Spectrum Warrior is as stupid as it gets, and you are reported in the media as being elated with what is going on at ICT. Are you nuts?

I�m a Republican, Mr. Secretary, so I can ask you with no partisan animus: Should you not be catching terrorists rather than training them?

You�re either going to stop this disgorging of classified information into the public domain, or I�m going to stop this myself. You have 24 hours.

Sincerely,

John B. Thompson

Copies: Key Members of Congress, including Senator Kerry
Media
Significant others

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September 28, 2004

The Honorable John Warner
Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee
225 Russell Building
Washington, D.C. 20510 Via Fax to 202-224-6295

Re: Defense Department�s Contractors Are Selling Our Classified Military Information to the Public

Dear Senator Warner:

As you may know, the Department of Defense has established the Institute for Creative Technologies on the campus of the University of Southern California. ICT uses tax dollars to pay video game industry software companies to create virtual reality training simulators to impart to our troops intricate, classified tactical skills.

What you may not know is that the DoD is allowing the video game industry to take that same virtual reality simulator that we have paid for and sell it as a violent video game to the general public!

The latest installment of this sale of our classified information on the open market by a government contractor is found in the game Full Spectrum Warrior. The military�s nearly identical version is called Full Spectrum Command. Incredibly, imbedded right in the commercial game, which itself can be used as a highly technical military simulator, is the actual military training module, with all the DOD�s bells and whistles, which can be unlocked with this code: [REDACTED]. This code is all over the Internet. We might as well put the code to the nuclear football on the Internet.

By the way, the video game company that designed the simulator and is now making money after making off with the DoD subsidy is Pandemic Studios. The company name says it all, doesn�t it?

When I informed Senator Inhofe�s office of all of this yesterday, Mr. John Bonsell, who is the Senator�s point man on ICT, was stunned. He said the Senator, who serves on your Senate Armed Services Committee, did not know any of this and would never approve of the public�s getting its hands on the simulator. If Senator Inhofe, who is widely reported to be the staunchest supporter of ICT in the Congress does not know any of this, then there has been a bit of breakdown in Congressional oversight, no? Mr. Bonsell said he was calling the White House immediately to ask if they knew. They knew. I should know. I told them months and months ago. In addition, my guest op-ed on this was published in the Washington Times on July 2 in the nation�s capital. You can ask Tony Blankley for a copy.

I am sure I do not need to spell out to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee what a breach of national security this constitutes in the midst of a war on terror, but I shall do so for the sake of others reading this letter:

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has ignored two years of letters from me on this, has knowingly allowed our, not his, Defense Department to disgorge into the public domain classified virtual reality military trainers which are likely training terrorists precisely how our troops operate in the field. Conversely, these simulators are training their operatives how to operate tactically as well as ours, not just over in Fallujah but plausibly over here. What happened in the Chechnyan school can happen here as well, at the hands of sleeper cell operatives trained in urban warfare on our own classified virtual reality simulators.

Microsoft, in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, pulled off the market its video game Flight Simulator, because it allowed the player/trainer to fly jumbo commercial jets into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. How can it be that something Bill Gates understood immediately has escaped the collective judgment of our executive and legislative branches of government?

Senator Warner, the Defense Department must be told immediately by Congressional overseers to stop this nonsense. It is putting civilians and our troops at grave risk. Either DOD will stop this sale of our classified information to our enemies, or I shall take the legal measures to make it stop.

I can testify under oath to all of the above, and more.

Respectfully,

Jack Thompson

Copies:
All Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee
All Members of the House Armed Service Committee
Media