Thread by @tha_rami

OK, we're going to go through this and explain why it sucks. polygon.com/2021/2/15/2227…

War *is* political machinations. That's the entire thing about war. It's politics that leads to people killing each other. The entire point is political gain or the diminishment of the other party's political power.

In the case of Iraq, it was neither: the US made up a reason.

Engender sympathy for US troops? Excuse the fuck me? When you look up the casualty statistics for the Iraq war you'll find US deaths, but you could barely *find* Iraqi victims, civilian or resistance or insurgent or terrorist. They're all defined "terrorist" or "collateral".

How about the experiences of that individual that was just living there & they & their kids and husband tried to flee but men of military age were refused escape from the besieged city by the US before the US went door to door & killed anyone that was looked at them wrong.

This is literally the least interesting part of the entire conflict: between kill and be killed, people tend to opt to kill. We can play that in DOOM. We can play that in Quake. If you leave out the context of knowing the war is wrong, you might as well not make this.

Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I…

what the fucking fuck are you talking about

what political statement is there in "making up false pretenses to bomb the fuck out of a country killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people over a decade is bad"

how the fuck can you fail even the most basic humanity test

how the fuck was this just the opening paragraphs

With all due respect to @Charlie_L_Hall's phenomenal reporting, the Iraq war and its devastating effects are not in the rearview mirror by a long shot. The notion that wars are over as soon as they're no longer in the news in the US is how the US ends up in this mess over & over.

A reminder that the last 'newsbeat' from the Iraq war was the Iraqi government dismissing all US troops from the country, and Trump refusing and threatening sanctions. Since then, 900+ civilians were killed in war-related violence. theguardian.com/world/2020/jan…

The worst thing about Fallujah is that the civilians had two murderous groups with no respect for human life on their hands: the growing threat of extremist factions in a destabilized Middle East, and the US government and its troops that invaded under false pretense.

In 2004, 4 US mercenaries were murdered in Iraq. In response, the US besieged Fallujah twice, murdered thousands, used chemical weapons, and executed unarmed citizens.

In 2007, that mercenary group killed 14 civilians among which 2 children. The US government pardoned them.

For details on that one. theguardian.com/world/2020/dec…

Note the difference in clarity on deaths of US military personal & the carefulness around civilian deaths. The US never counted the Iraqis as human enough to be worthy of counting. It took external organisations to count, as well as they could.

Every figure is "at least".

Each of these questions has been answered: there were no WMDs. The "coalition of the willing" was duped or complicit. The administration did lie to the US people.

Tamte isn't interested in those question because the answers aren't "USA USA" propaganda material.

Tamte can go fuck himself and I think there are probably a ton of people on the team for this game that would make something better if it wasn't his pathetic war-crime-apologetic ass running this project.

Anyway, let's continue.

THIS WAR WAS LITERALLY AN ATROCITY

YOU CANNOT DEPICT THIS WAR AS ANYTHING ELSE

IT WAS A WAR CRIME

IT WAS FOUGHT THROUGH WAR CRIMES

YOU CANNOT MAKE A SINCERE DOCUMENT ABOUT FALLUJAH WITHOUT WAR CRIMES

Spec Ops: The Line will be a better portrayal of Fallujah than Six Days of Fallujah.

Just to mention two war crimes that are documented specifically in Fallujah:

- The use of chemical/incendiary as weapon against unknown targets
- Violence against Iraqi civilians & children. The US claims to have issued warnings, but refused escape to any men of military age

Anyway it's not as nice a USA USA game if you have to refuse safe passage to a father and his two daughters because the daughters refuse to leave their father after their mother was already killed in war.

But that was the work US military personnel was actually doing there.

The face of a man who literally can't tell whether faking a reason for war to then murder thousands while using incendiary weapons on civilians and filling the ground with so much uranium that cancer rates are still abnormally high in Fallujah is actually good or bad you know

The good guys for Six Days of Fallujah, folks, actual fucking war criminals.

Medal of Honor had to patch out one multiplayer faction being called The Taliban because "you shouldn't play terrorists in a video game"? Here's a singleplayer campaign about playing our terrorists.

We don't need you to litigate what constitutes a war crime, you disingenuous snake - there's conventions for that and while the US dodges international justice courts by threat of invasion, history has documented what war crimes were committed by the US in Iraq, and in Fallujah.

We need you to stop saying you're going to portray the real Fallujah if you're just making propaganda that won't even touch documented war crimes. We need you to admit that downplaying water-resistant fire sticking to a civilian's skin is no obstacle to money for you.

You want to know how you can tell Six Days in Fallujah, at least under this guy, is bullshit? This line here. "The human stories we can all identify with". Let's unpack that.

From another article at @GameRant a few days ago comes this quote here: Highwire wants authenticity & heavy realism. They want to put you in the shoes of soldiers in a war, an experience most people do not have.

There are no "human stories we can all identify" with in war.

The entire suggested promise of Six Days in Fallujah is that the game will give us an experience, an emotional insight into the realities of war. The difficult choices. The sacrifice. The hardships. The trauma.

But that line right here reveals the truth: that's not the goal.

Because the only "human stories we can all identify with" about war is US propaganda about war. It's the actor's version of sacrifice, not the reality of it. This game will regurgitate a "human story we can all identify with" - which is war as we know it from Hollywood.

Tamte finds it easier to identify with propaganda than reality. Tamte finds war crimes "divisive", not horrifying. Iraqi suffering isn't human to Tamte. It is not recognizable.

Tamte is a person trying to make money off of real human suffering that extends to this day.

"Number one is that they didn't tell us about war crimes the US army commited & there's definitely no governmental precedent of overreach and censorship in the US government when it comes to US military personal speaking the truth about atrocities commited", adds Tamte.

"Realism & authenticity matter for this game, which is why we did not talk to the FUCKING CITIZENS WE WAGED A WAR ON AND TURNED LIFE INTO LIVING HELL FOR FOR THE FEW DAYS BEFORE THEY LITERALLY BURNED TO DEATH BY SKYFIRE so because they're dead we can't ask, you see", adds Tamte.

Peter Tamte is a man who thinks the death of innocent civilians by fire that will stick to your skin but can not be doused by water is "too sensational" and "distracting" for your entertainment.

This paragraph is good context offered by @Charlie_L_Hall, who, once again, is doing great work here. So just as a reminder: the US shot up Fallujah with so much uranium-depleted munition that 15 years later, kids are still being born with increased incidence of cancers.

Tamte?

You are LITERALLY suppressing THE LITERAL COST OF WAR in the LITERAL SHAPE OF HUMAN LIVES how the FUCK can anyone NOT BE CONFUSED BY THE COST OF WAR

If people are not confused by the cost of the Fallujah war, it seems it will be DESPITE your game, not BECAUSE of it

How fucking dismissive do you need to be of Iraqi lives to go "we're going to hide the atrocities that the Iraqis' faced" but "nobody will be confused by the costs of war".

You can just say "trust me nobody cares about THOSE deaths haha I sure don't"

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader whether they think Tamte quietly added "they're brown foreigeners who cares". I'm not saying he did, I'm saying I'll leave it up to you to decide how likely it is that he thought that.

Who the fuck asked? Nobody asked whether your game was going to make war seem like a tea social, you claimed you were going to make it authentic and then immediately went "as long as it looks good for the USA"

No but it'd sure be nice if those pesky war crimes were discussed less haha the US military sure would like that oops a few war crimes it could happen to anyone

If I had a your face and a shoe in reach I would throw my shoe at your face with the fury and aim of a million aunties mid-sentence

you shut the fuck up about what iraqi civilians want in the same article that you deny them truth and humanity and justice and representation

A presumed annotation from Tamte: human, read "US humans", not "Iraqi collateral". Because you sure as hell have done everything to avoid discussing any human cost of war in your game that isn't a story convenient to the US

When the best argument you have for your propaganda is "the alternative to people thinking about all the Good Things the US military Heroically did for Freedom in Fallujah is that they're not thinking about it at all."

Game pitch: you gonna be like Vietnam levels of violent on the population of this city for 90% of the game, and for the remaining ten percent we're going to let you listen to carefully vetted citizen reports on the things we don't deem distracting to our "USA USA" story.

"FALLUJAH, Iraq – Hundreds of men trying to flee the assault on Fallujah have been turned back by U.S. troops following orders to allow only women, children and the elderly to leave."

FOX News, 2004. Let me quote a bit more to let you know how this parallel story ends in reality

"The military says it has received reports warning that insurgents will drop their weapons and mingle with refugees to avoid being killed or captured by advancing American troops."

"As it believes many of Fallujah's men are guerrilla fighters, it has instructed U.S. troops to turn back all males aged 15 to 55."

"We assume they'll go home and just wait out the storm or find a place that's safe," one 1st Cavalry Division officer, who declined to be named, said Thursday."

"Army Col. Michael Formica, who leads forces isolating Fallujah, admits the rule sounds "callous." But he insists it's is key to the mission's success."

""Tell them 'Stay in your houses, stay away from windows and stay off the roof and you'll live through Fallujah,'" Formica, of the 1st Cavalry Division's (search) 2nd Brigade, told his battalion commanders in a radio conference call Wednesday night."

Anyway here's how the father's story would end in real life

Footage emerged from Fallujah "in Iraq that appeared to show a U.S. Marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. The U.S. Marine Corps announced that it won’t prosecute that Marine corporal, who was not identified, for his actions." - NPR

Quite a boast to admit you haven't cared about the humanity of Iraqi people for 15 years straight

"But I'll happily help people forget about all the Iraqi sons that died. And daughters. And parents, grandparents, hell, anyone. Including the one that died from US war crimes. Oh yeah, we'll help you forget about those. Oh boy will we ever. It'll be like they didn't even exist."

And they still won't be after playing Six Days of Fallujah. But they'll be a lot more aware of how the US military would like you to think of them.

I dare every person in the games press worldwide to ignore this fucking quote as review subheader right here, because it won't get more honest than this.

@IGN @GameSpot @Polygon @Kotaku @rockpapershot @gameinformer @destructoid @GamesRadar @pcgamer & everybody else

Peter Tamte literally cannot begin to imagine Iraqi suffering, example 300 in this short article

I have always respected @Charlie_L_Hall but let me just re-emphasize that he is a gem

You literally admitted a few paragraphs ago you couldn't find anyone to discuss white phosphorus used as weapon in Fallujah, a well-documented and repeated occurrence that was discussed all the way up into the UK parliament & you can't figure out why you haven't heard outrage?

Contrast this line about Iraqi's being upset about war crimes they survived entertainment edition to two paragraphs ago where Tamte went into an impassioned plea about making sure the sacrifices of US troops & war criminals are honoured & not turned into Call of Duty.

That's true, I am sure that Iraqi civilians want to share the truth of what happened in Fallujah. But that's not what you're making, is it?

What you're making is US propaganda in which you're telling a sad story of a father saved by US troops who in reality would've been turned back into Fallujah to die. To stay away from windows and he'd be fine. To be killed when US military kicked in a door and he jumped up.

At least Tamte is honest enough to admit that in Fallujah reality is an inconvenience to telling a story about heroism. I don't think he has fully come to terms with the implications of that.

News: man does not fear erasing the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians at the hand of US military operations, does fear that maybe people are just too harsh on the globally accepted atrocity of the Iraq war and its falsified causes.

You want to find almost certain evidence that Peter Tamte has never spoken to an Arab in his life? Tamte provides willingly.

If you want a sanitized propaganda experience of shooting terrorists only, go play any modern shooter whatsoever.

Six Days of Fallujah promises to be different, but if this Tamte guy is in charge of the project, he has proven in this article he is incapable of delivering.

Six Days in Fallujah promises authenticity, but refuses to deliver because the reality of war is distracting. Six Days promises insight into war, but refuses to genuinely share insight of any group there. Six Days promises realism, but only where it supports a narrative heroism.

The promise of Six Days in Fallujah is that it will be different. That it will be more true, more real, more painful. That we will learn of war and sacrifice.

Tamte cannot deliver that. He can only provide convenience, without distractions or fault. That's not how war works.

"And so, by talking about this battle in a game, we are helping people remember the sacrifice of some very specific people. So that’s number one."

That's all you need to know about what Six Days in Fallujah is. The honest, unfiltered truth by the person behind the game.

Thanks to @Charlie_L_Hall for writing this article, and for the pointed questions. Tamte revealed himself for what he is, and stated in no uncertain terms what he means Six Days in Fallujah to be: just another note in the US military entertainment complex.

If anything is remarkable about Six Days in Fallujah, it is that Tamte rejects the humanity of the Iraqi people enough that he dares to speak of what they want in the same paragraphs he explains he will turn war crimes against them into "fictionalized undistracting entertainment"

As a closing reminder: Six Days in Fallujah represents Fallujah (2004) as a battle against Al Qaeda. It wasn't. It was a hunt, or revenge.

Al Qaeda would not appear in Fallujah until 2014. Any suggestion otherwise is all you need to know about the authenticity of the game.

Sorry for filling your timeline with this, but where I had a sliver of hope for something genuine & truthful days ago, something that would use our medium to talk about complex topics, Tamte has clearly emphasized that it won't be more than the usual propaganda of US heroism.

There is nothing new here. Just a US company lying their way through the bloodied history of their country, and one can only wonder whether they've been brainwashed by the propagandists they now join, or whether they just cannot think of brown foreigners as actually human anymore

A new day, a new article with Tamte of Six Days in Falluja being openly dismissive of brown human lives and erading the actual war crimes the US committed on civilians. This one courtesy of @GIBiz. Just three things I want to point out here in this paragraph.

"Very few people are curious what it's like to be an Iraqi civilian." says a ton about what is happening here. Tamte can identify with the entertainment of killing, but not with the reality of being killed. He sees these real life war crimes as commercial opportunity only.

What the actual fuck. What the actual fucking fuck.

Tamte here straight-up reveals that he has so little consideration for the murder of Iraqi civilians, execution of Iraqi civilians, and war crimes committed against Iraqi civilians that he does not see the hypocrisy here.

There's literally only two things Tamte could be saying here:

1. I forgot that the real Iraqi perspective of being murdered by US war crimes is "beyond what we have in our normal lives" because they're not really human

2. Iraqi's being murdered by US war crimes is normal

Note the word "real" here. Note the emphasis on delivering a "transformational experience" of new perspectives. Note the humanizing of people in horrifying conditions. Note how he stresses the value of this.

Now re-read the first two sentence of the screenshotted segment again.

Tamte compares the experience of being a US soldier to a horror game, but does not even recognize Iraqi humanity enough to recognize the horror of being hunted in a city besieged by a foreign invader under false pretense as skyfire rains down on you & you are denied escape.