IN THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
Catchlines with painful punch
The American forces' advertisements in Iraq are often at odds with local culture.
- By Mayada Al Askari, Staff Writer
- Published: 00:14 January 3, 2009
- A billboard put up by the American army in Baghdad says: 'Get money for information'. Such advertisements could have been worded in a way that does not offend Iraqi sensibilities
- Image Credit: Supplied photo
The temperature was soaring in Baghdad as a trail of flyers descended from an overhead American aeroplane. Ahmad, a physician working in one of Al Sadr city's hospitals, recalls murmuring to himself:
“Is it a bird, is it a plane or is it Superman?'' No, it was the time to publicise bounty in exchange for wanted heads, using posters — Wild West-style.
Dotting the landscape all over Baghdad are billboards calling attention to “wanted'' people and promising a “fistful of dollars''.
The advertisements announce that information leading to arms caches, terrorists, roadside bombs, cars with explosives and other such information will be rewarded with cash.
Iraq was among the first Arab countries to have cinemas, so these billboards with pictures of “wanted'' people in Baghdad's hot sun and red dust bring westerns to mind.
Children in Baghdad's Al Sadr shantytown stand in awe and anticipation as Iraqi and multinational forces go door-to-door, handing out “wanted'' posters.
Soon enough, the posters turn into paper aeroplanes and boats and it is bad-guys-versus-good-guys games for children who will grow up thinking these posters are as natural as the air they breathe.
Hefty rewards
In the West, a “wanted'' poster is often used to inform people about a person whom authorities wish to apprehend.
They will generally include either a picture of the person — if a photograph is available — or an image produced by a police artist.
The United States has put up billboards in Afghanistan offering hefty rewards for Osama Bin Laden, the supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and the American Al Qaida member, Adam Gadahn.
A blogger wrote on an American website: “I remember coming across US-issued Osama Bin Laden matchbooks that were distributed… [in] Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf.
I bought one, as a joke. ... The joke wasn't that they were issuing matchbooks to help find Osama but that they consisted of a picture of Osama and then a whole lot of English text saying ‘wanted' and ‘reward'.''
As in Afghanistan, the posters and billboards in Iraq may lure some into dialling the phone number indicated on them but the use of these advertisements further deepens the cultural rift between the US and the Iraqi people.
General Abdul Kareem Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, told Weekend Review that issuing such posters was a practice the US forces adopted and the Iraqi government had no hand in it.
Asked if he believed use of such billboards was appropriate for Iraq, General Khalaf said they might yield some result but the language used should be more sensitive to the feelings of the Iraqi people.
He was referring to the stark use of words to promote exchange of information for money.
The advertisements could have said instead that providing such information was a patriotic duty of the Iraqis, without referring to the bounty.
In the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition, the American military developed a set of playing cards to help troops identify the most-wanted members of Saddam Hussain's government — mostly high-ranking members of the Baath Party or members of the Revolutionary Command Council.
The cards were officially named “Personality Identification Playing Cards''.
On a cold and windy October day in New York back in 2003, I saw a street vendor selling miscellaneous items on the kerb near the Trump Tower.
I was surprised to find the deck of cards being sold for $5 apiece. It was painful to look at the images of men who had contributed to destroying lives in Iraq depicted on playing cards, as if it was a joke.
Baghdad-based Lieutenant Greg Flores of the multinational forces press office said that the billboards do not state “wanted dead or alive'' — only “wanted''.
They are based on tip-offs from Iraqi civilians and evidence collected from scenes of crime and terrorist events.
“The Multinational Division-Baghdad works in close partnership with the Baghdad Operations Command to identify alleged and known terrorists and Special Groups operatives in and around Baghdad,'' he said.
“The purpose of the billboards is to inform and warn people about the wanted terrorists and criminals. Tips from Iraqi people have led to the detention and/or capture of numerous terrorists and criminals.''
The Multinational Division-Baghdad and the Iraqi security forces provide monetary incentives for tip-offs leading to the detention of terrorists and criminals, he added.
Looking at photographs sent to Gulf News depicting a demonstration by Iraqis in which young men climbed an American billboard and tore down an advertisement, one wonders about the feasibility of this approach.
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