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"You've forgotten the most basic aspect of the situation: it's a game, we're there to play."
No, the most basic aspect of the situation is that millions of dollars of tax money are being spent. If it is just a game, that was developed with my investment (via taxes), then I think it should be sold for profit and I should get some of the income.
If it is, as the Army seems to believe, an effective recruitment tool, then every taxpayer has the right to log on and express whatever they want about it-- gamers be damned. Gamers don't have any right to dictate how this particular game is used by citizens of the U.S. If they want a game where people don't have the right to log on and protest the war, they should play privately at home, or online by subscription on games that were developed for profit.
I, for one, believe that this is a particularly dishonest and manipulative way to recruit young people to a war that has been dishonest from before the beginning. Perhaps if lots of anti-war gamers logged on and disrupted the action, the government wouldn't be able to delude their recruitees so easily, and the gamers who have posted here would have to play games that they paid for instead of this game that all of us paid for.
My taxes weren't paid to subsidize their fun. They were paid to support my country, and anyone who disagrees with the way that money is being used has every right to protest. The very nature of this game brings it into the political arena-- an arena in which freedom of speech is paramount.
