EA's latest MoH release banned at AAFES

I was talking to a friend of mine this past Sunday and he mentioned that in the BX there was a sign posted that stated that GameStop in AAFES locations wouldn't be selling the latest Medal of Honor video game.  My immediate reaction was..."Well that's stupid."  That was, admittedly, knee-jerk because I feel that way about anything that's banned.

I knew that the game's plot takes place in Afghanistan but I still thought that it should be alright.  So I came home and Googled it to find out more information about the reason behind it.  What I hadn't thought about was the multiplayer portion of the game.  When I read that the multiplayer portion of the game has people take the role of Taliban killing American soldiers (and vice versus) it occurred to me that the creators had crossed a line.  Yes there are other games where you can take the role of the "baddies" and kill American soldiers but those game are almost always fictional wars (such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 & 2) or they are past wars like WWII (such as earlier installments of the Medal of Honor series).  This to my knowledge would be the first game that allows you to take the role of a "baddy" while the depicted conflict is still ongoing.

It struck me though that this might be bigger than a simple ban of a game.  I wonder if this doesn't say something of our society and it's morals?  We can debate all day and night about whether it was right to invade Iraq or not.  However, I think that with some minor, insignificant exceptions we are in agreement that the war in Afghanistan was a necessity after the attacks of 9-11.  That said, I can't help to wonder what type of person thought...gee wouldn't it be great to take the role of a Taliban during multiplayer?  Also, why didn't anyone through the chain of decision makers that the game idea passed through stop it?  I'm still of the opinion that this title shouldn't have been banned.  Though, I believe that someone at EA should have halted the multiplayer portion of the game.  I hope and pray that this game will generate very few sales.  I'm afraid though that it will sell millions of copies.  I'm a HUGE gamer and I will not be buying this game out of respect for our fallen and their families.  I hope and pray that our society will send EA a strong message by refusing to purchase this game.  If you're in the market for a FPS game well take your dollars and purchase the latest installment of the Call of Duty series.  They've just released a new game at the same time as MoH.  Use you conscience and heart.