# A 1991 Arabic leaflet: a portrait, a mourning band, and one line

A 1991 U.S. psychological-operations leaflet dropped over Iraq shows a line portrait of a man with a black mourning band in the corner and one line of Arabic, "The cold face of death and war."

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      Gulf War leaflet, portrait with mourning band 'The cold face of death and war'

      A 1991 Arabic leaflet: a portrait, a mourning band, and one line
      A 1991 U.S. leaflet over Iraq pairs a line portrait and a black mourning band with the Arabic caption "The cold face of death and war." Public domain.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Name-calling
      Date1991Made byU.S. armed forces psychological operations (leaflet air-dropped over Iraq during the Gulf War)MediumLeafletCountryUnited StatesRegimeGeorge H. W. Bush AdministrationSourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceWikimedia Commons (image credited to a Japanese blog, blog.livedoor.jp/apgdj) , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work, 17 U.S.C. 105; Commons PD-USGov-Military) U.S. government work, public domain; the Commons file page carries PD-USGov-Military, author given as the U.S. armed forces psychological warfare department. Via Wikimedia Commons.
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  A 1991 U.S. psychological-operations leaflet dropped over Iraq shows a line portrait of a man with a black mourning band in the corner and one line of Arabic, "The cold face of death and war."

## What the leaflet prints

A black-and-white drawing of a man's head, turned three-quarters toward the viewer. Across the upper-left corner runs a black band of the kind used on death notices. Below the portrait is a single line of Arabic. The FRAME record does not name the man in the drawing.

الوجه البارد للموت والحرب

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from a 330 px image. The archive's machine translation, not checked by a fluent reader: "The cold face of death and war." Full record at propagandaarchive.org.

## Who made it, and how sure that is

The catalog credits U.S. armed forces psychological operations and says the leaflet was air-dropped over Iraq during the Gulf War. The source class is blurred: the leaflet carries no issuer's name. The image itself has a thin trail. The Wikimedia Commons file credits a Japanese blog for the picture and tags it as a U.S. military work, giving the author as the armed forces' psychological warfare department. That is the whole provenance in the record. It is enough to describe the object and not enough to say more about its print run, drop zone, or date within 1991.

## How to read it

The leaflet makes no argument. It attaches two words, death and war, to a face, and lets the mourning band do the rest. FRAME files it under name-calling. There is no act described, no date, no place, and no evidence. The reader is meant to feel the charge, not to weigh it.

A leaflet dropped from the air has to work at a glance, which explains the economy. It does not change what the method is. A label is offered in place of a fact. If the charge is true, the leaflet does not show it; if it is false, the leaflet would look the same.

Name-calling was the first of the seven devices on the list the Institute for Propaganda Analysis taught American readers to spot in the late 1930s. The test it proposed works on a 1991 leaflet as well as on a domestic speech: set the label aside and ask what is left. Here, nothing is left but a drawing. The same standard applies to every government that drops paper on another country, the United States included. The Gulf crisis case study scores the coalition's leaflets by the same test it applies to Baghdad's messaging.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Gulf War leaflet, portrait with mourning band 'The cold face of death and war', 1991. Issuer as recorded: U.S. armed forces psychological operations.

- Wikimedia Commons, Gulf_War_US_Propaganda_Leaflet.png (image credited to blog.livedoor.jp/apgdj), retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work, 17 U.S.C. 105; PD-USGov-Military).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/gulf-war-leaflet-cold-face-of-death-1991/