How, exactly, is this film propaganda? and for whom?
Yes, "Satellite" and many others look forward to the invasion and freedom from Saddam- they're Kurds. Kurds are an ethnic minority that suffered badly under Saddam's practice of 'Arabization' of Iraq and literally did cheer in the streets when Saddam fell. That's not propaganda, that's reality.
But, as another poster has already stated, despite an initial celebratory feeling as US troops passed through, it is a startling realization to Satellite when the US troops, after his initial jubilation, simply keep moving on- leaving them in the filth and mud in exactly in the same position they had been in before. It was possibly worse for Satellite, as many of his young charges dispersed by the tide of the US forces to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
We already know that the 'predictions' of the armless boy and later Satellite were more akin to omens- everything they predicted was either bad or immediately followed by something tragic happening. So when, at the end of the movie, Pashow tells Sattelite that the armless boy said, "In 275 days something else will happen in this area," Satellite knows that essentially nothing has or will change- he looks around at his world as the US troops that are oblivious to his presence roll by, realizing that what his world was how it was, and the US troops and the war would not, in the end, change his little corner of the world at all.
If it is supposed to be US propaganda, it's terribly bad. Sure Satellite and the Kurds are happy to be rid of Saddam. But at the same time, it points out the fact that most of the mines the children hunt are US mines- or at least built in the US (And probably sold to Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war when the US supported Saddam)- and most of the kids who have lost limbs or been maimed have been as a result of mines.
If it is supposed to be anti-US propaganda, again it fails. Saddam is clearly shown as no friend of the Kurds and the 'raping' scene is shown to be Iraqi soldiers- at least the US soldiers were at least friendly to the kids recognizing them at least as children- whereas to the Iraqi soldiers the Kurds are less than even human. The kids who are mutilated in some way arent maimed as a reslut of the US invasion- though it may have been American mines that did the damage, they were in all likelyhood laid by Iraqi soldiers.
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