Monday, July 9, 2007

Enemy ads for 'Coming Attractions' in a Theater of War


They are slick and sick. Iraqi insurgents apparently are waging a sophisticated psy-ops strike against off-duty American soldiers who spend their downtime online. According to Britain's Sky tv, mock-ups of over a dozen posters now circulate on the web, featuring lots of gore and a little glib wit. The aim is to demoralize the troops. "Do you want lies with that?" asks one, which purports to advertise "Fast Food Nation."
The campaign is unsubtle, but it recalls a spoof Star Wars poster (below) which was widely circulated by anti-war activists on the net in 2002-2003, prior to the invasion by the "coalition of the Willing". Gulf Wars II, Clone of the Attack. Funny at the time, but now it just makes me sigh. It looks decidedly dated now that Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Saddam are out of the picture.

The official American government poster, used for recruitment and patriotic boosterism, appears rather less slick. The war effort in Iraq ad Afghanistan now costs the US about $12 billion a month.

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