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In Team America: World Police, around the 18 minute mark, there is a flag displayed below the American flag:

Flag Image

What flag is this? It’s a white circle on a black flag and seems almost like the ISIS flag, but while that would kind of fit the theme, it does not seem exactly right.

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    Team America premiered in 2004 during the early stage of the War on Terror, with Al Qaeda being the primary adversary reported in the news (the 9/11 attacks were still a very recent event), and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being the biggest concerns. While ISIS technically existed then, few viewers would have known who they were or recognized their flag at that time.
    – Seth R
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 17:07

2 Answers 2

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It's the POW flag - more properly known as the National League of Families POW/MIA flag.

the POW flag, consists of a silhouette of a prisoner of war (POW) before a guard tower and barbed wire in white on a black field. "POW/MIA" appears above the silhouette and the words "You Are Not Forgotten" appear below in white of the black field.

National League of Families POW/MIA Flag - Wikipedia

POW flag

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    It was also common to fly it under the US flag like that. And it's also very appropriate for the movie. It officially represented US prisoners unaccounted for at the 1975 end of the Vietnam war. Unofficially it represented Rambo-II and other ultra-patriotic movies where US rebels bust into snake-filled POW camps -- movies which Team America riffs off of. Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 3:09
  • yes, it was common to fly it under the US flag, and (unless Biden has reversed it) I believe it is now required to be flown there at prominent federal buildings
    – A C
    Commented Jul 18, 2021 at 20:56
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It is the Prisoners of War / Missing In Action flag.

Aka POW-MIA. It is to honor soldiers who were either captured by the enemy and held in prison camps, or who were missing in action, meaning the soldier "went missing" and it is presumed they were killed and their bodies were not able to be recovered from the battlefield.

The flag came into popularity during/after the Vietnam War. In that war, the enemy provided poor documentation of prisoners of war, so "missing in action" often meant "prisoner of war".

As far as how mainstreamed it is, I am reading this at an Iowa rest stop, and as I came in, I noticed the flag was

enter image description here

The upshot is that it's not uncommon to see the POW-MIA flag paired with the US flag. In this case the state of Iowa flag is there too, no surprise since the state owns and manages the site. And, obviously, made the editorial choice to include this flag.

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