War On Terror - the game

TerrorBullGames has just released the board game War On Terror. The first I heard of this was a short article in a local news paper about how much the game has offended some people (quoting someone who was injured in the London bombings). A co-creator of the game Andy Thompkins said "We accept that some people think this is in poor taste and may see it as puerile. But we would say that launching an illegal war on Iraq is in poor taste".

It's not as if profiting from terrorism is anything new. Governments in Australia, the UK, and the US have profited from it at the ballot box and also used it to stifle opposition parties to get unpopular legislation approved. An example of this is the attempts of the Bush regeime to legalise torture, see the Washington Post and The Age (Australia).

Shortly after 9-11 almost every computer company that had anything to do with backups or disaster-recovery was advertising heavily. Oil companies have done particularly well with high prices, they would have done even better if the plans for Iraq had succeeded.

TerrorBullGames appears to have an aim to draw attention to the lies of politicians, which makes them better than everyone else who has profited from 9-11. Maybe if they draw enough attention to the bad things that our governments are doing they can influence the results of elections, and we can get governments that don't promote terrorism.

Here's a review of the game.