Propaganda

[Sammy Sandbag]

http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/showleaflets.asp

Collection of all the leaflets dropped over Iraq. I like this one:

http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/Images/020-20d.jpg

This one is even better:

http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/images/izd-028.jpg


Attacking Coalition aircraft invites your destruction. Do not fire at Coalition aircraft. If you choose to fire you will be destroyed. Coalition forces will attack with overwhelming force. The choice is yours.

[Gambit]

Collection of all the leaflets dropped over Iraq.

You know, I'll tell you what, though, this totally illustrates the idiocy of the people creating this shit.... in my opinion, at least. A few comments:

- Even on the first one (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leafle ... 0-01dd.jpg (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/images/020-01dd.jpg)), they don't bother to translate correctly... I can't read the Arabic, but the English reads "Then... If... You Decide". Knowing that Arabic is read backwards, it would make a whole lot easier for english speakers to reverse the text/images to read "If... Then... You Decide". If they can't customize to write OUR language correctly, what about one they may not understand as well???

- Similarly, this one (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leafle ... zd-069.jpg (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/images/izd-069.jpg)) has the english text misspelled. "Don Not..."

- And I know we've gotta be forceful and all, but how does saying "We'll blow up whatever we want, whenever we want" (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leafle ... 20-20d.jpg (http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/images/020-20d.jpg)) make us any friends?

You know, the military's great and all, but our core strength certainly isn't diplomacy...

[Sammy Sandbag]

No it doesn't make us friends, but that's not always the idea. Remember that the guys that make these things have a team of psyops people behind them with far better training than you or I. What may be a convincing leaflet to you may not do diddly squat for an Iraqi soldier. They have a different cultural background and a totally different mindset. Maybe hearing that they "may be blown to hell any minute at our choosing", is really what they need to hear. Some societies value strength over any thing else. If the leaflets simply said "give up and we'll give you some food", they might mistake our kindness for weakness and ignore anything else we say. Sometimes you gotta show your strong hand. I'm no specialist of Mid Eastern culture, but this could be a posibility.

[TheTokenGook]

If I was an Iraqi I probably would have shit my pants as soon as I saw the American army after me, much less when Bush took office

[Gambit]

I'm no specialist of Mid Eastern culture, but this could be a posibility.

Can't argue with you... still, they could have translated 'em right. ;)