14 DAY TRIAL // During the weekend, U.K. Defense Secretary Liam Fox expressed distress at Medal of Honor's multiplayer component because it allowed player to take the role of Taliban soldiers. Hank Keirsey, U.S. military advisor has defended Electronic Arts' latest first person shooter.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Keirsey had a few things to say about the Taliban soldiers. “From a soldier perspective, I gotta admire certain qualities in those guys. They're not fighting for Al-Qaeda. Maybe one or two of them is. Most of them are fighting 'cos they've always fought.
“They've got what someone told them is a foreigner in town. They're gonna come down from the mountains with their little AKs and rally with other guys and try to beat the foreigner out of there. You gotta get into your enemy's mind set. There's courage on both sides.
“[The media is] making a connection that these are the guys that cut the heads off of women and kids in the night, then the next thing they do is climb into an aeroplane and fly into our buildings. That's not necessarily the case.
“People are always looking at something to throw at the gaming industry – it's all cracked up bad.”
Keirsey, who has worked on Call of Duty: Black Ops, Medal of Honor competitor, admitted that EA's title may lead to the young people having more respect for the soldiers.
He also talked about a battle the Medal of Honor is referencing during the story campaign. Operation Anaconda is a fight that went on in 2002 between the Allied forces and Al-Qaeda and Taliban troops in the Shahi-Kot valley.
According to Keirsey, it was a very intense battle from which people may learn a lot of lessons regarding human courage and human mistakes.
“If we can somehow replicate that fight and get some insight into it, I don't have a problem with it. No more than I have a problem with doing World War II or the Pacific. But I suppose somebody might,” Keirsey ended.