Paranoia, like oil, is an inexhaustible resource, but necessary for combating global terrorism in Western foreign policy. Just remember the case of the PlayStation 2 and the missiles of Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator: a story that seems like something out of a science fiction novel written with Red Bull and post-Cold War panic.
The year was 2000. While the world celebrated the beginning of a new millennium, Iraq—a country under embargo, devastated by bombing and isolated by the West, a survivor of a fratricidal war against the Iranian ayatollahs—was accused by US media of massively importing Sony consoles to convert them into ballistic guidance systems. Yes, you read that right: PlayStation 2 as a tool of war.
The story circulating in Washington was that the PS2’s Emotion Engine chip, with its 128-bit architecture, could be assembled in parallel to simulate the power of a military supercomputer. This was reported by WorldNetDaily, and Congressman Curt Weldon even mentioned it in a speech on Capitol Hill: “Iraq doesn’t need thousands of consoles to play games. It’s accumulating them for other purposes,” he warned without flinching.
Entertainment technology or weapon of mass destruction?
The delirium found fertile ground. After all, we were coming from a decade where anything could be considered “dual technology”: from fertilizers to editing software. Why not a video game console? What does it matter if there’s no proof? The important thing is that it sounds credible in an Associated Press cable.
The PS2 became, for a few months, the new Frankenstein of military intelligence. An object of desire for gamers and a common suspect in the halls of the Pentagon. Sony, of course, denied everything. But the symbolic damage was done: a home console was no longer just a toy. It was, potentially, a missile camouflaged in black plastic and circular buttons.
All this was happening three years before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, justified by “weapons of mass destruction” that never appeared. No missiles, no chemical weapons, no consoles assembled in underground laboratories. Just the old formula of fear as a diplomatic strategy. Something very opposite to what is happening today with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its real and dangerous nuclear program.
The PlayStation as a symptom of the times
Thirty years after the launch of the first PlayStation, the anecdote sounds ridiculous, but it’s true because today it’s public knowledge that high-tech missiles require cutting-edge chips. What does it tell us that a Japanese console has been suspected of military use in the Middle East? Everything.
This news reminds us of the fear of the other, of the “technological enemy,” of the Asian advance in the chip industry, of the decline of Western computing hegemony. The PS2 was, unwittingly, a demonstration of civil power that went beyond its scope of use. A digital Trojan horse in times of fragmented sovereignty.
Because technology is not innocent. Not even the best-selling console in history—with more than 155 million units—escapes the logic of war. If a phone can spy, a PS2 can aim missiles. That is the delusional premise on which much of the doctrine on the Middle East was built at that time, and today as well. A doctrine where video games were a geopolitical threat. Where a joystick could trigger nuclear or bacteriological alarms.
And if it were true—because this was never fully proven—then we would be faced with a monumental historical irony: that Saddam Hussein didn’t buy Russian weapons or Chinese software, but Sony consoles on eBay. That technological terror would come packaged with Metal Gear Solid and Winning Eleven. That the weapons revolution wouldn’t be televised… but played.
But no, thank goodness the story was different. Hussein ended up hanged, the PS2 in pop culture museums, and the United States mired in the consequences of a war that invented more excuses than solutions. Removing a ruthless dictator like Hussein gave power and authority to the Iranian ayatollahs. Who was worse or better? Neither, but that’s the Middle East, a hostile place, despite being the cradle of human civilization.
Once again, reality surpassed fiction. And as always, entertainment ended up being more honest than politics.
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