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Review: Black Hawk Down 826

Some critics have dissed Black Hawk Down as yet another Jerry Bruckheimer shoot-'em-up crammed with explosions and square-jawed heroes. I disagree. I think Black Hawk Down is an amazing movie. This story is no cartoon. It's true, which gives it enormous punch -- and it's a hell of a story. The kind of camaradarie and loyalty depicted in this movie is unknown to all but a handful of people in the world. The intensity of the battle sequences is jarring and disturbing. Black Hawk Down is a political movie about what happens when dumbass politicians and an ignorant citizenry send people off to die for no good reason anybody can think of (unlike Afghanistan). It also shows us, as military historians and soldiers have argued for centuries, why soldiers fight: for their pals, even in the most pointless of causes. For me, this movie makes Saving Private Ryan look like a TV special. Spoilage warning: plot discussed, not ending.

The movie, directed by Ridley Scott, stars Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard and Tom Sizemore as various Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers who found themselves under seige by thousands of enraged Somalians in a l993 battle that was the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. The soldiers were sent into Mogadishu, the Somalian capital, to capture a warlord and some of his aides.

The mission goes bad when one Black Hawk helicopter, then a second, are shot down by rocket-grenade firing members of a Somalia militia. The Army Ranger motto is "Leave No Man Behind," and they aren't kidding. Even though they captured the people they were looking for, the Rangers and Delta Force soldiers wouldn't leave the area until the bodies were recovered from the Black Hawks, even after it was clear the pilots were dead. The crash scenes brought tens of thousands of heavily-armed militia running, and the U.S. soldiers spend a horrific night under seige. Even though the warlord's aides were captured, what most Americans saw the next day on TV were horrifying images of U.S. soldiers' bodies being dragged naked through Somalian streets by joyous throngs.

The U.S. was initially involved in Somalia to stop the country's warlords from looting humanitarian aid meant for victims of one of the century's worst famines. But the American role there drifted into something else without much public consciousness or, apparently, strategic thinking. Somalia, along with the Bosnian conflicts, taught the American military once again that soldiers shouldn't be sent anywhere unless goals are clearly defined and there is a willingness to pursue the conflict to some conclusion even if there are casualties. Many military analysts say this shadow persisted over the U.S. Armed Forces until September 11.

The American Somalia mission -- clear at first -- degenerated into policing and warlord-busting, and nobody in or outside of the film can really explain why 19 U.S. soldiers gave up their lives. The U.S. mission there was abruptly ended by President Clinton two weeks after the bloody confrontation involving some of America's most elite troopers. More than 1,000 Somalians were killed in the brutal firefight.

Like the best-selling non-fiction book by Mark Bowden on which the movie was based, the film simply tells this astonishing, sad and grisly story. It's almost completely unadorned by speechifying, peripheral love interests and character development, or other Hollywood BS.

As was the case in HBO's Band of Brothers, there is no single star around which the movie flows, apart perhaps from Hartnett, who plays a Ranger sergeant promoted hours before the battle. The shooting is so fast and furious that most of the U.S. soldiers do blend together. There's so much blood, dust and darkness it's almost impossible to tell many apart for much of the movie. Some find that a weakness, but it seemed a strength to me. There is some truly mind-boggling -- and according to Bowden's book -- real heroism in this story, and it is genuinely moving. The Delta Force members in particular come across almost as almost mythic cartoon superheroes, but according to Bowden and the soldiers present their heroism and, in some cases, suicidal sacrifice, really did happen.

It's impossible to view this movie without thinking of Afghanistan, if for no other reason than the two conflicts seem so jarringly different. Somalia threw U.S. soldiers into a civil quagmire without any sense of what victory even meant. In some ways, our involvement in Afghanistan has a clear moral justification and purpose, but is a Drone War, conducted mostly by airplanes with the help of some small numbers of ground forces. In a way, Afghanistan suggests that the kind of heroism, sacrifice and bloody combat depicted in Black Hawk Down is a thing of the past. Today, a few members of Delta force would probably be squirreled away in some of Mogadishu's apartment buildings, directing laser-guided bombs.

This movie is visually rich, capturing the surreal atmosphere of Somalia in 1993, and the almost numbing carnage, bombing and confusion. The action sequences are very well done and harrowing. Some of the critics are complaining that the audience will feel as if it were under seige. I sure did. But to me, that was the beauty of the film.

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Review: Black Hawk Down

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  • by bedouin ( 248624 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @11:50AM (#2872058)
    "Black Hawk Down" - Hollywood drags bloody corpse of truth across movie screens
    By Larry Chin

    January 3, 2002 -- True to its post-9/11 government-sanctioned role as US war propaganda headquarters, Hollywood has released "Black Hawk Down," a fictionalized account of the tragic 1993 US raid in Somalia. The Pentagon assisted with the production, pleased for an opportunity to "set the record straight." The film is a lie that compounds the original lie that was the operation itself.

    Somalia: the facts

    According to the myth, the Somalia operation of 1993 was a humanitarian mission, and a shining example of New World Order morality and altruism. In fact, US and UN troops waged an undeclared war against an Islamic African populace that was hostile to foreign interests.

    Also contrary to the legend, the 1993 Somalia raid was not a "Clinton foreign policy bungle." In fact, the incoming Clinton administration inherited an operation that was already in full swing -- planned and begun by outgoing President George Herbert Walker Bush, spearheaded by deputy national security adviser Jonathan Howe (who remained in charge of the UN operation after Clinton took office), and approved by Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs.

    The operation had nothing to do with humanitarianism or Africa-love on the part of Bush or Clinton. Several US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves. The companies had secured billion-dollar concessions to explore and drill large portions of the Somali countryside during the reign of pro-US President Mohamed Siad Barre. (In fact, Conoco's Mogadishu office housed the US embassy and military headquarters.) A "secure" Somalia also provided the West with strategic location on the coast of Arabian Sea.

    UN military became necessary when Barre was overthrown by warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid, suddenly rendering Somalia inhospitable to US corporate interests.

    Although the pretext for the mission was to safeguard food shipments, and stop the "evil Aidid" from stealing the food, the true UN goal was to remove Aidid from the political equation, and form a pro-Western coalition government out of the nation's warring clans. The US operation was met with "surprisingly fierce resistance" -- surprising to US officials who underestimated Somalian resolve, and even more surprising to US troops who were victims and pawns of UN policy makers.

    The highly documented series by Mark Bowden of the Philadelphia Inquirer on which the film is based , focuses on the participants, and the "untenable" situation in which troops were placed. But even Bowden's gung-ho account makes no bones about provocative American attacks that ultimately led to the decisive defeat in Mogadishu.

    Bowden writes: " Task Force Ranger was not in Mogadishu to feed the hungry. Over six weeks, from late August to Oct. 3, it conducted six missions, raiding locations where either Aidid or his lieutenants were believed to be meeting. The mission that resulted in the Battle of Mogadishu came less than three months after a surprise missile attack by U.S. helicopters (acting on behalf of the UN) on a meeting of Aidid clansmen. Prompted by a Somalian ambush on June 5 that killed more than 20 Pakistani soldiers, the missile attack killed 50 to 70 clan elders and intellectuals, many of them moderates seeking to reach a peaceful settlement with the United Nations. After that July 12 helicopter attack, Aidid's clan was officially at war with America -- a fact many Americans never realized."

    Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Somalis were killed in the course of US incursions that took place over three months. In his book The New Military Humanism, Noam Chomsky cites other under-reported facts. "In October 1993, criminal incompetence by the US military led to the slaughter of 1,000 Somalis by American firepower." Chomsky writes. "The official estimate was 6-10,000 Somali casualties in the summer of 1993 alone, two-thirds women and children. Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded the operation, informed the press that 'I'm not counting bodies . . . I'm not interested.' Specific war crimes of US forces included direct military attacks on a hospital and on civilian gatherings. Other Western armies were implicated in serious crimes as well. Some of these were revealed at an official Canadian inquiry, not duplicated by the US or other governments."

    Bowden's more forgiving account does not contradict Chomsky's in this regard:

    "Official U.S. estimates of Somalian casualties at the time numbered 350 dead and 500 injured. Somalian clan leaders made claims of more than 1,000 deaths. The United Nations placed the number of dead at ``between 300 to 500.'' Doctors and intellectuals in Mogadishu not aligned with the feuding clans say that 500 dead is probably accurate.

    The attack on Mogadishu was particularly vicious. Quoting Bowden: "The Task Force Ranger commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison, testifying before the Senate, said that if his men had put any more ammunition into the city 'we would have sunk it.' Most soldiers interviewed said that through most of the fight they fired on crowds and eventually at anyone and anything they saw."

    After 18 US Special Forces soldiers were killed in the final Mogadishu firefight, which included the downing of a US helicopter, television screens filled with the scene of a dead US soldier being dragged through the streets by jubilant Somalis. Clinton immediately called off the operation. US forces left Somalia in disgrace. Some 19,000 UN troops remained for a short period, but eventually left in futility.

    The Somalia defeat elicited howls of protest and rage from the military brass, congressional hawks, and right-wing provocateurs itching for an excuse to declare political war on the "liberal" Clinton administration.

    The "Somalia syndrome" would dog Clinton throughout his presidency, and mar every military mission during his tenure.

    Today, as right-wing extremist George W. Bush occupies the White House, surrounded by his father's operatives, and many of the architects of the original raid, military fanaticism is all the rage. A global war "without end" has just begun.

    What a perfect moment to "clean up" the past.

    Hollywood to the rescue

    In promoting the film, producer Jerry Bruckheimer (who rewrote another humiliating episode of US military history with "Pearl Harbor") is seeking to convince Americans that the Somalia operation was "not America's darkest hour, but America's brightest hour;" that a bungled imperialist intervention was a noble incident of grand moral magnificence.

    CNN film reviewer Paul Tatara describes "Black Hawk Down" as "pound for pound, one of the most violent films ever released by a major studio," from "two of the most pandering, tactless filmmakers in Hollywood history (Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott)" who are attempting to "teach us about honor among soldiers."

    More important are the film's true subtexts, and the likely emotional reaction of viewers.

    What viewers see is "brave and innocent young American boys" getting shot at and killed for "no reason" by "crazy black Islamists" that the Americans are "just trying to help." (Subtext one: America is good, and it is impossible to understand why "they hate us." Subtext two: "Those damned ungrateful foreigners." Subtext three: "Those damned blacks." Subtext four: "Kill Arabs.")

    What viewers will remember is a line spoken by one of the "brave soldiers" about how, in the heat of combat, "politics goes out the window." (Subtext one: there is no need for thought; shoot first, talk later. Subtext two: it is right to abandon one's sanity, morality and ethics when faced with chaos. Subtext three: when the Twin Towers went down on 9/11, America was right in embracing radical militarism and extreme violence, throwing all else "out the window.")

    In the currently lethal political climate, in which testosterone rage, mob mentality, and love of war pass for normal behavior (while reason, critical thinking, and tolerance are considered treasonous), "Black Hawk Down" will appeal to the most violent elements of American society. Many who have seen the film report leaving the theater feeling angry, itching to "kick some ass." In short, the film is dangerous. And those who "love" it are dangerous.

    Considering the fact that Somalia is one of the targets in the next phase of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism," the timing of the film is no coincidence.

    As Herbert London of the Hudson Institute said of "Black Hawk Down," "I would never deny the importance of heroism in battle, but just as we should recognize and honor heroes, we should also respect the truthfulness of the events surrounding their heroic acts. In the case of 'Black Hawk Down,' we get a lot of the former and almost nothing of the latter."
    • by Pengo ( 28814 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @12:05PM (#2872105) Journal

      Some day I hope that we have a polition that has the balls to say: 'We [invaded/bombed/whatever] this area to protect the interests of Oil for our country. Our lifestyles depend on this Oil, and until it changes thats why we do it.'.

      I feel like thats basically the truth. Maybe when we as citizens and consumers are ready to change our habbits, maybe things in the world will change.

      Unfortunately such honesty is impossible in our political climate. Unforunately it's going to take an epidemic to change our unsatiable consumption for Oil.
    • "True to its post-9/11 government-sanctioned role as US war propaganda headquarters, Hollywood has released "Black Hawk Down," a fictionalized account of the tragic 1993 US raid in Somalia. The Pentagon assisted with the production, pleased for an opportunity to "set the record straight." The film is a lie that compounds the original lie that was the operation itself. " That phrase is a big knock to the credibility of the whole argument. The movie is based on a book and newspaper series [philly.com] of the same name. The movie was done shooting months before 9/11 and the script was written, mostly by the original author, over a year earlier. The pentagon did cooporate, that's true, but mostly because the book had been so non-judgemental, and they hoped the movie would be the same. The method of the book was to lay out all the facts, in a scrupulous journalistic style, and let you decide. The method of the movie is to lay out all the action scenes, in as journalistic a style as possible, and let you see how pointless, yet heroic, the soldiers were. On a slightly seperate rant, Mr. Chomsky needs to stop trying to have his cake and eat it too. There was a massive civil war going on, with four tribes attempting to eradicate each other. Regardless of the reason for US intervention, it's not the US's fault that the culture of blood-warfare existed in the place, or that the civil war occurred.
    • First of all, others have already pointed out that quoting Noam Chomsky, who while a very bright fellow, doesn't seem to be generally attached to "facts" or "reality" when it comes to furthering him own radical political agenda, does not serve your argument very well, and makes you look biased by association with such a fellow.


      Chomsky and his ilk are not popular here on Slashdot - for good reason. The overall Slashdot political mix is, well, mixed, but most techie types tend to be of the rationalist variety, whichever side they fall on. They like to rely on rational analysis of facts to come to conclusions, rather than the usual technique of far right and far left wingers of making the facts fit your own view of the world (think Creationists, think Chomsky, think radical Corporatists, etc.).


      Anyway, that stuff aside, you raise some decent points. It's pretty clear that there was more to Somalia than just a humanitarian mission to distribute food, and it comes off very badly when we are dishonest about our motivations for going to war. Yes, sometimes resources critical to our national wellbeing ARE worth going to war over. Unfortunately, oil IS currently a critical piece of our economy, until we figure out a workaround for that (i.e. fuel cell powered vehicles combined with efficient fusion, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power generation on large scales).


      Nevertheless, I don't think your characterizations of people who resent the Arab world and the Islamist movements are at all accurate. In fact, radical Islamists share quite a bit in common with Chomsky and the far left wing of our own country. For one thing, you are supposed to accept their principles on faith, and reason never enters into the equation (don't get me wrong, the far right is largely the same). I say this because the far left is largely characterized by reliance on Moral Relativism and a retreat to an intellectually weak stance in which one refuses to acknowledge that some moral systems are based on logic, reason, and the common good and some are based on arbitrary systems of faith that do not promote maximal Utility by any sort of reality-based perception.


      I'm not saying the US government is perfect. I really wish we would be honest about our motivations for actions in Somalia and elsewhere (Gulf War). But come on, you have to be stupid ultimately if you didn't realize what it was all about. Just do some background reading. And for the rest of the sheeple in the US, they are happier just thinking of these things in simpler terms anyway, and can't deal with the morally grey areas of international politics.


      I will conclude with this: I can not condone arbitrary agression by the US government against foreign regimes, but I do believe that if such a regime is acting in a way that harms our people's interests, then it is our government's fiduciary responsibility as our representative to the international community to take action. Each government is responsible to exactly the set of its own people and its own country. However, if "the interests of it's people" gets reinterpreted as "increasing profits by certain monopolistic or cartel organizations based in the country that feed kickbacks to politicians", I agree we have a problem, but I believe that problem is better solved through reform of campaign and political finance legislation than by left wing rhetoric about how much we should care about how many thousands of Somalis died (who were trying to kill US soldiers, and therefore got the logical result they could have expected).

      • by xeno-cat ( 147219 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @01:17PM (#2872360) Homepage
        And quite frankly, judging from your statements, you could'nt handle the facts if they were writen in a book and handed to you.

        Whats so frustrating about your argument is that you manage to brush off a tremendous amount of effort in research without adding or substituting a single shred of fact in it's place. It must be extremely comforting to just except the status quo, like a good "sheeple" as you say.

        The evidence for the extreme brutality/racism exhibited by the USA throughout it's history is so easy to find that if you don't see it you must be working real hard.

        And don't feed me a line about weak moral perspectives. If you can handle slaughtering and torturing generations of people to preserve your precious lifestyle then you are a sick human being.

        Kind Regards

      • by miletus ( 552448 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @01:17PM (#2872362)
        I've read many of Chomsky's books, and what stands out are his highly rational arguments, as well as his meticulous documentation from such "left wing" sources as the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, etc. So to dismiss his arguments as "rhetoric" and compare him to Creationists and Islamic fundamentalists make me suspect it is *you* who are highly irrational.
      • we don't need oil (Score:3, Insightful)

        by markj02 ( 544487 )
        Unfortunately, oil IS currently a critical piece of our economy, until we figure out a workaround for that (i.e. fuel cell powered vehicles combined with efficient fusion, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power generation on large scales).

        The US could be energy self-sufficient if it used energy at the rates comparable to some of the more energy conserving advanced nations in the world. Our standard of living wouldn't be affected and we wouldn't lose any jobs.

        US dependency on oil is not much different from US dependency on drugs: it's an addiction that makes lots of people very rich. In the case of oil, the oil companies love it, the military loves it, the car companies love it, and the politicians love it. Think about what trouble these powerful groups were in if we weren't dependent on oil, and it won't surprise you anymore why this country doesn't seem to be able to come up with decent energy conservation measures.

        BTW, I'm not suggesting that this is some grand, deliberate conspiracy. Oil-friendly politicians, for example, probably think they are doing the right thing anyway. But it's a well-established scientific fact that you can't take money from some group and have your decisions not be influenced by their wishes.

      • It'd be nice if our government was more direct in owning up to its actions ("Yes, we send troops to the Middle East every five to eight years to defend our strategic oil interests, and we will continue to do so as long as we rely upon that oil."), but that's not how you play the game in public at the international level. The military becomes a tool of foreign policy, and gets sent to do whatever random mission is important to our interests. And hey, what's Mr Zinni doing now? Trying his hand at shuttle diplomacy between Pakistan and India.

        Clinton ran into the same problem with Somalia as JFK did with the Bay of Pigs - his predecessor had planned and organized the operation, but with the change in administrations, not all the loose ends got picked up. JFK's blunder was nicely compensated for by how the government handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, but Clinton never really recovered. If anything, Somalia showed the necessity for better planning and inter-agency cooperation within the US government & military.
      • ".. some moral systems are based on logic, reason, and the common good and some are based on arbitrary systems of faith that do not promote maximal Utility by any sort of reality-based perception."

        This is blatant flamebait, not to mention philosophically questionable -- as if there were some consensus in western thought that Utility prevails over all else. Back up your statement and provide examples if you disagree.
      • ...left wing rhetoric about how much we should care about how many thousands of Somalis died (who were trying to kill US soldiers, and therefore got the logical result they could have expected).

        What could they expect? Perhaps they expected to live their lives without being invaded by the US, ie. without ever being put in a position where they needed to attack US soldiers.

        The US force was invading their country. Check a map - Somalia is not part of the US. What were US troops doing there? What result would you expect, if foreign troops landed next to where you lived? I would expect the armed forces of my country, and probably me as well, to fight against the invaders.

        Cheers,
        Ian

    • Amazon.com (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DzugZug ( 52149 )
      Have you ever read those reviews on Amazon that start "Well, I haven't read the book, but I think ..." That is what your little article is. Clearly Mr. Chin has not seen the movie, or, perhaps he saw it and didn't pay any attentnion having made up his mind before he got to the theater.

      First mistake is the attempt to discredit the film based on Hollywood's "post-9/11 government-sanctioned role as US war propaganda headquarters" an objectable premise that has not fully been established. It also forgets that movies take several years to go from green light to release and Black Hawk Down was done filming prior to Sept. 11.

      The film clearly shows that the mission in Somalia is not in humanitarian aid in the first sceen of the movie. I'm not going to describe the sceen in detail but if you've seen the movie you know what I mean. Basicaly there is a U.N. food dump being siezed by Aidid's forces and the U.S. Ranges can't stop them because it would violate the rules of engagement.

      There are also two celebrities you meantion, Clinton and Chomsky. The discussion of whether the mission was a Clinton blunder or a Bush Sr. blunder is irrelevent unless you happen to feel the need (through your political afilliations) to defend Clinton from any tainting on his record. Thanks for sharing Chomsky's "corection," but at the end of the movie (not really a spoiler), the credits tell us that 1000 Somalis were killed by American firepower.

      Here's what I'm getting at. The article you posted is trying to correct the film and discredit it based on the idea that it glorifes war and was a justification for our military action. However, Black Hawk Down is probably the first war film in ten years to not glorify war. That is what the army likes about the movie. Black Hawk Down is a film about the strugle of individules. It is about houw they fight to protect one another when the mission is stupid and polititions have them fighting for no good reason. Please see a movie before panning it.

    • Several US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves.

      Tell us more about Somalia's rich oil reserves... I bet you can't, because most rich oil reserves are well known and under tight control (American, British, European, Russian, Arab). This is just one of the many parts of this empty verbal ejaculation.

      For some reason making things up and bending the truth is awful when done by the government, military, or other authority, but it is OK when done to criticize any of the above. IMO, this is even more despicable when done by Chomsky and other self-proclaimed truth-seekers, because people tend to lump issues together, and many real issues are soon perceived to have the same lack of credibility as the demagogue rantings presented above.

      The whole article is nothing more than a (-1 Troll) and in fact reminds me of the infamous "Linux/*BSD is dying" troll.
      • Not clear whether the oil reserves exist or not; much less are rich. The geography is right, and Conoco did a seismic survey. But after the revolution, property rights were uncertain. Hard to drill for oil if you don't know you'll be able to retain ownership of your drilling rig.

        From what I've heard, anybody who wants to go drill oil in (some parts of) Somalia should just ask for permission. If the clan that owns the property gives you permission, then you can buy their protection (akin to paying taxes) and you'll be fine.
        -russ
    • Incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mizhi ( 186984 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @02:07PM (#2872593)
      This article is so full of holes it's not even funny. It's sad. This is an example of someone's blinding hatred of the US. The poster didn't even write this which leads me to believe that he's done little reading of the facts and instead has gotten all his information filtered through Anti-American bigots like Noam Chomsky.

      Am I saying that being Anti-American automatically disqualifies you from making a statement? No, go ahead. That's your right, protected, I'll remind you, by soldiers willing to put their lives on the line. But, I will emphasize that a character like Noam Chomsky, is not known for his objectivity and I don't care how good a fucking linguist he is, has a tendancy to run with the conspiracy theorists.
      For instance, where does Chomsky get his figures for the number dead? And even if 10,000 Somalians were killed, that number pales in comparison to the 300,000 that had died of famine, not even counting the number that died as a result of the warlordism, gun-running, and civil war that had destroyed the nation. I particularly like this sentence, "Bowden's more forgiving account does not contradict Chomsky's in this regard" Since when has Chomsky become the yardstick with which to measure accuracy?

      In short, when I write my responses, I am not trying to exonerating US forces, and I do not hate anyone un-American, but I am not going to let some punk run roughshod over the facts and make baseless accusations because of a blinding hatred of the United States.

      Now, onto the response.

      You bias is showing when you attempt to completely exonerate Clinton of the fiasco. Read "Wrong Turn in Somalia", by John R. Bolton. It is written by a former Bush Sr advisor, and tends to be a little light handed with Bush, but it is an excellent Foreign Policy analysis of what happened to the mission during the transition from Bush to Clinton. Bush wasn't a saint, but Clinton has more than a little blood on his hands.

      As to the movie and the book, I've seen the movie, and read the book. The movie is quite true to the book, save a few details. Moreover, the book was not some sort of flag waving little ditty. Bowden includes elements from all sides to give a well-rounded picture of the situation. Yes, there is an emphasis on the US forces, but the point is, Bowden didn't simply write a one-sided account. As for the mission of Task Force Ranger, no, it wasn't there to feed the hungry. They were sent there to give the humanitarian missions some breathing room to carry out their mission. There is no myth about that, so don't even pretend there was. That helicopter attack was reported and not covered up, so where's the lie?

      The historical inaccuracy of this article is showing particularly in this paragraph

      "After 18 US Special Forces soldiers were killed in the final Mogadishu firefight, which included the downing of a US helicopter, television screens"

      1) They were not Special Forces. SF guys are Green Berets. They were Rangers from one of the Ranger Battalions and Delta operators.

      2) There were 2 Black Hawks brought down.

      Get your facts straight before you start telling people that what they believe on foreign policy is wrong. The fact that this article gets those details incorrect leads me to not believe anything his says.

      "The Somalia defeat elicited howls of protest and rage from the military brass, congressional hawks, and right-wing provocateurs itching for an excuse to declare political war on the "liberal" Clinton administration."

      What's funny is that this article loves to paint left-wing liberals as the innocents in this debacle. There were none. The bias is amazing in this little piece.

      "right-wing extremist George W. Bush occupies the White House"

      He is hardly a right-wing extremist.

      This next part is full of stuff in the article that just pissed me off:

      "CNN film reviewer Paul Tatara describes "Black Hawk Down" as "pound for pound, one of the most violent films ever released by a major studio," from "two of the most pandering, tactless filmmakers in Hollywood history (Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott)" who are attempting to "teach us about honor among soldiers."

      Well, gee, what do you think war is? You send people into war-torn countries on humanitarian missions, or peace keeping missions, and people die? They get shot? Blown up? As for "honor
      among soldiers", yeah, it actually exists. I won't
      call US Soldiers saints, they're not, but that honor does exist in mass quantities. I think the film did a good job of showing a variety of characters. There are soldiers who are there for moral reasons because they truly want to help, and there are soldiers there just to blow shit up.

      "What viewers see is "brave and innocent young American boys" getting shot at and killed for "no reason" by "crazy black Islamists" that the Americans are "just trying to help." (Subtext one: America is good, and it is impossible to understand why "they hate us." Subtext two: "Those damned ungrateful foreigners." Subtext three: "Those damned blacks." Subtext four: "Kill Arabs.") "

      This paragraph is full of assumptions and low blows. 1) The Islamic faith in Somalia is not played up in the movie at all. It was also not a factor in the attacks. You are drawing a dangerously presumptive causal relationship between the two. The fact is, the people in Somalia just happened to be Islamic. Period, end of sentence, next question. 2) I wouldn't call America good. America has done some awful things in its period of existance. But compared with other regimes, and the warlords in Somalia, we're pretty good. You are not going to get a perfect country, and I challenge you to find one. 3) The fact that the people were black, or Arab, was NOT, I repeat NOT, played up in the movie or the book at all. This article is now just making baseless accusations.

      "What viewers will remember is a line spoken by one of the "brave soldiers" about how, in the heat of combat, "politics goes out the window." (Subtext one: there is no need for thought; shoot first, talk later. Subtext two: it is right to abandon one's sanity, morality and ethics when faced with chaos. Subtext three: when the Twin Towers went down on 9/11, America was right in embracing radical militarism and extreme violence, throwing all else "out the window.") "

      He was talking about the individual soldier and his personal tactics in trying to stay alive. Not the strategy of a nation. Get it right.

      "Considering the fact that Somalia is one of the targets in the next phase of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism," the timing of the film is no coincidence"

      Actually, it is. This movie has been in the making for at least a year now and the release date was supposed to be back in November. I can't explain why it was late, but it just happened to fall in with Sept 11.

      In short, get your facts right.
    • While I disagree with most of this post (in particular the glib asertion that "The operation had nothing to do with humanitarianism or Africa-love on the part of Bush or Clinton" and the entire supporting paragraph that doesn't bother with a shred of evidence), it doesn't seem productive to argue matters of opinion. I'm not going to convince you, nor you me.

      However, I will take issue with one particular point: "But even Bowden's gung-ho account makes no bones about provocative American attacks that ultimately led to the decisive defeat in Mogadishu" (emphasis added). Which decisive defeat? No Ranger will tell you that the mission in Mogadishu failed. Likewise for Delta and the 160th SOG. The mission that day was to capture two Aidid lieutenants; they were captured. To be sure, there were casualties on the mission, but the mission itself succeeded. It was a victory. Of course, it was a political defeat; the politicians (Bush at first, but then Clintion, whose administration also denied Task Force Ranger armor and airborne fire support) had tied their soldiers' hands and spent eighteen lives. It ultimately led to the pullout of all US forces from the region.

      Nevertheless, the definition of "defeat" that says that any mission in which friendly soldiers die is a failure is frought with danger. It leads towards a brand of isolationism that, in the current world, will lead us to a disastrous inability to defend ourselves. Moreover, it simply makes no sense. After all, by this definition, D-Day, Stalingrad, Gettysburg, are some of the greatest defeats of friendly forces in all of history.

      Anyone for some revisionism?

      -db
    • Today, as right-wing extremist George W. Bush occupies the White House,

      That right there (among other such phrases) killed all credability of the article and showed how truely Bias this "news reporter" is
    • "Black Hawk Down" - Hollywood drags bloody corpse of truth across movie screens

      The movie made a point in showing that the Somalis who fought the americans didn't do it because they were black or muslim or somali. They did it because it was a civil war.

      They made a point of showing that the US agent who found out about the meeting was muslim. They showed Somalis celebrating the defeat of the americans... the also showed Somalis in the "friendly zone" joyously supporting the Americans when they returned. They showed Americans killing civilians and children in the confusion of the firefight... including a powerful scene where a grandfather walks in front of the convoy carrying the bloody corpse of his very young grandson... obviously killed by Americans.

      The movie very accurately dipicted the large number of somalis who were killed and also very accurately portrayed that there were many civilians who just got caught in the middle. It did not villify the Somalis who fought the americans... It shows somalis fighters getting mowed down by american bullets and thier widows running out to them and dying too.... It shows the grief of a child who accidentally kills his father.

      Granted, this is very subtle... but it is a subtle movie.. the characters only discuss the matter at hand and only make vague references to the politics..
    • Is the parent of this post getting moded down by motherfucking FBI agents or just by shallowminded loosers who can't take any criticism? This is ridiculous, the post used to be at 5Insightfull and the mark was reduced by 3Overrated mods. How is it overrated? Ignorance, as most of you may well know, is a bliss, and some of the people out there want the rest of you to be ignorant. For fuck sakes, I can't understand why some of us would ever want not to know the thruth? On the other hand, it is the case the those in power command those in government to do everything possible to hide all truths from the public view. Are we lemmings to follow the crowd?
  • Say what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Muerte23 ( 178626 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @11:57AM (#2872074) Journal
    Black Hawk Down is a political movie about what happens when dumbass politicians and an ignorant citizenry send people off to die for no good reason anybody can think of (unlike Afghanistan).

    You mean that an international effort to bring drought relief and order to a country in the midst of self destruction is "no good reason"?

    The special forces in Mogadishu were sent on that particular mission to arrest the henchmen of a notorious criminal who was stealing food from his own people to buy guns to steal more food from his own people. When it comes to war, it doesn't get much clearer than that.

    My person favorite quote from Mr. Katz here is:
    ignorant citizenry

    I suppose that he means the entire world, given the number of nations involved in that particular relief effort.

    Next time there is a crisis in another country where starving people need help, we can ask Jon Jatz for his opinion and we can let them all starve to death instead.

    Muerte

    • Re:Say what? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Performer Guy ( 69820 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @12:35PM (#2872201)
      This is true, but Aidid also ordered a massacre of U.N. peacekeeping troops. He wasn't declared an enemy because of the theft of food, which was pretty much the cost of doing business, the guys with guns are always the last to starve. He was declared an enemy because he attacked and massacred a patrol of Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers.

      And yes, this was not about oil, it was entirely humanitarian. It is sickening that every time the U.S. does something to help the innocent the twisted propagandists crawl out of the woodwork and accuse it of the worst.
    • First off, you're absolutely right. To say that there was no reason to get involved in Somalia is flat wrong. To say that objectives were ill-defined and the means of obtaining them poorly thought-out; or that domestic committment was too shallow for such an operation is another matter, but that's not what Katz said.

      On the matter of theft of food aid, I should point out that this happens almost universally with food aid. Food assistance, while pretty uncontroversial outside the international aid community, is the most controversial kind of assistance within it. It tends to get stolen to support whoever is in charge, and it generally warps the economic and political fabric of the area where it's used -- and sometimes quite far from the area where it's used. And the availability of cheap food through commodity programs often throws struggling farmers out of business, ensuring that there will be a shortage next year, too.

    • Re:Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by markj02 ( 544487 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @02:51PM (#2872783)
      You need to think back a little further. Like, for example, why Somalia had a hunger crisis, why there were warlords, why there were lots of weapons, and why the situation there was as bleak as it was. The US, USSR, and Europe were involved in the region for centuries and have to accept responsibility for many of the conditions there. That isn't to say that Africa would be a paradise without outside involvement, but at least its crises would be of its own making. And while "food aid" may sound like a glorious justification in the short run, its delivery may cause even more problems in the long run.

      "Look at the starving people" and "we need the oil" are both convenient justifications for diplomatic and military actions, but they don't get at the root causes. Such disasters can only be averted if we start thinking very far ahead, and we may well have to let a country sort out its problems for itself in order to eventually emerge as a cohesive and free nation. Or where do you think the US would be today if the UN, Britain, and Russia had sent in peace keepers during the US civil war?

  • My 2 cents (Score:5, Funny)

    by whanau ( 315267 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @11:58AM (#2872078)
    I personally think this movie is excellent - do not miss it. However make sure you read Mark Bowen's book for more history than the movie has time to convey. But I have one nitpick

    THEY NEVER MENTION THE COMBAT JACK

    In the book all of the rangers are obsessed with having the wierdess jack. So during the middle of one firefight when some of the troopers are nuts from the shell shock one of them whips out his trouser snake and starts going for it. Hence the combat jack. Now you know why army guys are a bit nuts
    • Re:My 2 cents (Score:2, Informative)

      I noticed the Combat Jack was never brought up in the film, but your facts about the Combat Jack in the book are a bit skewed ... it was in a pause in the fighting that two of the rangers talked about it, but they never actually "did the deed"
  • My Review... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by markdev ( 147826 )
    I found the movie quite depressing.
    A simple operation turned chaotic and many people died fighting someone else's war. It was very violent and, unless you like that kind of movie, or like to be depressed, I wouldn't reccomend it.
  • by JoshMKiV ( 548790 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @11:59AM (#2872084) Homepage Journal
    As a history piece, from what I have read, the movie is right on. As a movie, it was pretty good really, it sure sucked me in. I enjoyed it. If you are looking to grow close to people in the story, it will not happen, as the development is really missing.

    But this is not meant to be a great story, it is meant to be a telling of what really happened. And since I was not there, I can't be sure it was true. But if it was...

    Here is a link to the original Philly Inquirer series. 29 chapters of what might be the real story. Read this and see the movie, then compare.

    " Black Hawk Down original newspaper series" [philly.com]
    • As a history piece, from what I have read, the movie is right on.

      I watched this movie yesterday afternoon. I have also read the book. The movie was nothing like the book -- the amount of pure spin in the movie was sickening. Why did the movie completely ignore the Somali's side of the story? There was a reason why the entire city rose up and attacked the US soldiers -- they were sick and tired of their disruptive presence, and decided that the "evil warlords" were easier to tolerate than the US soldiers.

      Before you pass any judgements, read the book too. Please.

  • Isn't that special (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20, 2002 @12:01PM (#2872088)
    It's nice that the hero of the story, John Stebbins aka John Grimes, is currently serving time in Levenworth for raping a 12 year old [guardian.co.uk]. Yeah, a real hero there.
    • by Boone^ ( 151057 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @12:58PM (#2872286)
      The guy was a hero in his actions that day. He was the coffee clerk who donned body armor and held up on his end. What the guy did afterwards has no bearing on that day's story.

      I find what he did afterwards to be morally and horribly revolting, but it shouldn't tarnish his actions as a Ranger that day.
    • Heroism is not a character attribute, its a choice of actions. Read any account of the civil war, and you see that some people were heroes one day and cowards the next. Anyone in battle (or life) for more than a few days has many opportunities to be heroic, cowardly, and in between...
    • This is true. Stebbins had, to put it euphamistically, a run in with the law. It doesn't negate his heroism in Somalia. But it does mean he should be put away for life.

      I wish the movie hadn't changed the name. But even if it had been Stebbins, what did you want them to do, put the fact on it's own screen? It wouldn't have made a lick of difference other than people could go to google.com and find out he went to prison.

      This is a cheap shot.
  • I saw this movie on friday night. I had two major problems with it.

    1) No character development - you never really established a connection with one character or another, part of the reason this was a problem was that there were too many characters it seemed, and to me they all looked pretty much the same, because they all have the standard military buzz cut.

    2) Too much action - I like action movies, I really do, but there was just too much action and not enough plot in this movie. Going along with the whole character thing, you never really knew which characters were doing what where. I came out of the movie rather confused.

    The movie seemed to have had a very good message, but all that got lost in the scores of characters and events going on.
  • needs to be said (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kitts ( 545683 )
    In some ways, our involvement in Afghanistan has a clear moral justification and purpose...

    Ah yes. Kill more civilians [zmag.org] than were killed on Sept 11th, and replace one band of thugs with another (only these ones are on our side (in much the same way that bin laden himself was on our side...)). Also, don't cry too hard when you can't actually get your man, so that the massive increase in political power at home and internationally can stick around for a while longer.

    Very clear. Very moral. Very justified.

    Jeez, Katz. I expected better of you.
    • Very clear. Very moral. Very justified.

      Tell that to the Afgan women who were being subjected to grossly unjust treatment at the hands of the Taliban. Or the Buddhist population of Afganistan. How about considering the trade-off between their fate under the Taliban (i.e. extinction) vs. the new set of thugs?

      It's quite clear that the situation in Afganistan was a severe danger to US security, leading not only to many civilian deaths in the US, but also great oppression and instability in other areas.

      The US found a way to deal with the problem. Unless you can present a convincing argument that there was an effective alternative method for dealing with the problem that would lead to better results than the current state of affairs, the US response in fact is clearly moral and justified.

      Regardless of whatever phonily inflated statistics of civilian deaths you can fake up.
  • Not political (Score:2, Informative)

    by qengho ( 54305 )

    Black Hawk Down is a political movie

    Not according to Stephen Hunter [washingtonpost.com] at the Washington Post. It's a battle movie, not a war (&quotpolitical") movie.

  • ...has there been such an engrossing movie about Americans getting their butts kicked (well, yeah, there was Pearl Harbor, but we kicked theirs by the end of the film). I've never been in combat or in Mogadishu either, but Black Hawk Down made me feel like I was there, at least for a couple of hours.

    But it's pretty funny that Katz had to warn of plot spoilage for a movie based on a historical event. What next, a plot spoilage warning on the History Channel?
  • The men who fought on the ground that day didn't give a lick about the politics that put them there. To many of them, it was the opportunity of a lifetime; to add to the history of what being a Ranger has meant throughout history. The movie skimmed the surface of it, but it can't really be well understood by those who have never been there. I have not read Mr. Chomsky's work, but I'm confident that his concerns where not shared by the men who were under the gun that day.

    From what it looked like the movie accomplished its objective, capture the fast pace of urban combat and convey it to the audience. The lack of character development is a statement about the lack of being able to focus on anything in a fast unfolding situation. It was enough to get out alive for those who were combatants. I doubt they had time to focus on much of anything, except a narrow field of view in which an enemy might suddenly appear to take your life, or the life of the man next to you.

    Oil, politics, power, corporate greed. BS.

    Mission Accomplishment, Honor, the Creed.

    BTW - For the Record - it's "I Will Never Leave Behind a Fallen Comrade".
  • Blackhawk Down by Mark Bowden is a great read! I asked for it for Christmas so I could read it before the movie.

    After reading it I am not sure if I want to see the movie to avoid the post-book let down.

    It weighs in at almost 400 pages and is pretty detail oriented.

    There were two things that stood out in the book that I hope they hit in the movie:

    1) Mogadishu as a place of anarchy and kids with guns.
    2) The feel of 15 hours of battle. The book works as it describes what each hour feels like.

    Blackhawk Down by Mark Bowden.
  • by -tji ( 139690 )
    Mr. Katz's review seems to follow the government approved propaganda.. Here is a story from "The Independant", a London newspaper, with a different take on the events in Somalia:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=11401 3 [independent.co.uk]
    • With all due respect, that story is filled with factual errors and meaningless innuendo. The writer had no more than a cursory understanding of what happened. For more detailed analyses, see the thread on fark.com about it -- there are an average of 300 mistakes per sentence in this article (or something like that)...
      • This would be the incisive and totally factual rationale near the debate on boobies, and pass the booger would it?
        Have you perchance checked out the government publications mentioned in the independant article?
        What, exactly did you consider was wrong with it? And what proof did you have it was wrong?
        I'm sorry, but saying "It's wrong and filled with errors" doesn't exactly say you know much about it.
        I'm not saying that I know much about it either, but consider: Some country decides America needs some 'aid', and sends troops over, despite the government saying 'no'. Some redneck shoots one, or several of these troops. Said country "sends in the boys", and all hell breaks loose. Would the US citizens consider any rescue force of these people heroes or terrorists? Odds on that they'd have the full force of the military behind them, and have them tried, and most likely executed for terrorist offenses.
        Every story has three sides. Your side, their side and the truth. I'm sure the Somalis have a very strong perspective on this, and it will likely upset them greatly.
        The US military will have a gung ho attitute on it (as per normal), and the truth is most likely somewhere much closer to the indie article than is comfortable. Several independant historic researchers (who's job it is to do this research across countries, and many records) seem to be coming up with the same answers, and it's much closer to the Independant article that the fluff reasons in the movie.
        If you point me to hard evidence from reliable sources, I'll be happy to reconsider, but I need to have historic sources, documents etc. not the "Well, they wouldn't do this, they'd do that" rhetoric of armchair warriors.

        Malk
        • This would be the incisive and totally factual rationale near the debate on boobies, and pass the booger would it?
          Have you perchance checked out the government publications mentioned in the independant article?


          So what you're saying is that i actually pointed you to a specific location that pointed out errors in this article, and you didn't even bother to go there? Yet you get on a high horse about whether or not I have read the associated documents that the director of "Repo Man" used in his insightful political analysis? The only things he cited were military analyses of racism within the military -- what the hell do they have to do with US foreign policy, or tactical command?

          There are very few "facts" in this article at all, aside from a brief history of what led up to the conflict. But 90% of the article is a series of innuendos and diatribes.

          From the article:On 3 October 1993, a team of so-called "elite troops" - Delta Force Rangers - tried to capture Aideed again, in central Mogadishu. Aideed wasn't there, but the American troops became confused.

          For those who haven't cracked a newspaper open in a decade, this is clearly not true. They didn't go that day to capture Aideed, didn't expect him to be there, and weren't "confused" by anything except the shootdown of their helicopters. Now if the entire point of the mission is wrong in this article, how thorough is this guy's understanding of what happened, much less his mind-reading of the motivations of those who did it?

          Let me make it easier for those who follow:
          this is the thread [fark.com]

          Note that the thread is at least 2/3 full of people against the US actions in Afghanistan and somalia, that doesn't make the article any more accurate.

          Allow me to continue:
          In the early 1990s, there were various humanitarian disasters also deserving of urgent intervention. For the United States to spearhead a United Nations mission to Somalia was, from a humanitarian viewpoint, capricious.

          Um, why? What is capricious about it? The US regularly spearheads UN missions, because we're one of the only military forces in the world capable of moving on short notice. This is part of why the EU is building their own security force, so the US isn't always out there first.

          This makes it sound like the US demanded to be allowed to go to Somalia, when in fact 99% of the planet felt intervention was necessary. Glossing over the humanitarian crisis in mootivations is like suggesting Pearl harbor had nothing to do with US involvement in WW2 -- we were just looking for an excuse to kill some japanses folks because we were all racist.

          The United States meant business in Somalia: this was obvious from the location of the American embassy, established a few days before the US marines arrived in Mogadishu, in the Conoco corporate compound. The Los Angeles Times reported that Bush's special envoy to Somalia had used the Conoco compound as his temporary headquarters.

          Clearly written by someone who has never been to a third-world country with no infrastructure. Corporate compounds overseas are not called compounds for nothing -- they are self-sufficient, easily-defended, properly constructed, and adequately supplied with telecomm and other basic infrastructure. It's not like the Ambassador can check into the local Hyatt Regency.

          It is interesting to note that Cox went straight from "intervening in the humanitarian mission" to "trying to capture Aideed" while completely glossing over the fact that the US military had pretty much LEFT the country after the initial deployment, and the UN took over the humanitarian mission. Pakistani soldiers were slaughtered by Aideed, and the UN requested that we COME BACK and help get rid of Aideed.

          This isn't some minor detail in the history of the events, this is the whole point of what happened! But I guess it doesn't figure into the USA=racists theory, because black africans killing brown pakistanis and the USA coming to HELP afterwards is a tough fit.

          And of course he refers to "Delta Force Rangers", which are two completely different groups. There's Delta Force, and there's Army Rangers. More fact-checking that never happened. Anyone with the briefest familiarity of the events or the US military (or even exposure to Chuck Norris films!) could have told you that.

          Sorry, i've only made it like 4 paragraphs through this story again and already the corrections are too much. It wouldn't be hard to write an article about the US military or US foreign policy being motivated by the wrong things, but this article is NOT the one...
    • This article gets so many basic facts just plain wrong that it can't be taken seriously. "The Independent" tends to do great pieces that are not carried in the states, but I can't believe it got so much wrong. To give you a taste of what I mean, the US did not go in to Somalia initially. It was the UN.

      Now come on, HOW could this article get that basic fact wrong and expect a reader to take it seriously?
  • Black Hawk -- and Truth -- Down

    Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org

    January 8, 2002

    On Alternet [alternet.org]

    I went to a war last night, and for two and half hour had my adrenaline pumped and my patriotic heart strings tugged by U.S. soldiers in battle, bravely tracking down and trying to capture the enemy. No it wasn't Osama, because the movie which felt like it might have taken place in the rubble of Kabul was actually a replay of the battle of Mogadishu in l993.

    The film is Black Hawk Down, an account of elite ranger and Delta force soldiers fighting the good fight. Their mission, the publicity flyer tells us, "to capture several top lieutenants of the Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, as part of a strategy to quell the civil war and famine that is ravaging that country." The action is non-stop only the outcome is disasterous. Nineteen Americans were killed along with l,000 Somalis before U.S. forces were withdrawn in an intervention that started nobly and ended in one of the bloodiest messes you can imagine.

    The movie showed what the TV news of the current war has not: actual combat, and the feelings of those engaged in it. You see soldiers fighting with great courage, but they are not motivated by a cause or an ideology; they fight to protect each other, for personal survival. Obvious is that U.S. forces have a clear advantage in terms of helicopters, communications, etc. But in the end they are defeated by the determination of a far less organized urban guerilla force that sees itself defending its hometown against a foreign intervention. And like the TV news accounts of Afghanistan, the movie comes to us context-free, with a twisted and distorted perspective that simplifies that conflict beyond recognition.

    Black Hawk Down also seems part of a propaganda strategy aimed at Americans, not people overseas, where it is unlikely to win many hearts and minds. Notes Larry Chin in the Online Journal: "True to its post-9/11 government-sanctioned ro le as U.S. war propaganda headquarters, Hollywood has released Black Hawk Down, a fictionalized account of the tragic 1993 U.S. raid in Somalia. The Pentagon assisted with the production, pleased for an opportunity to 'set the record straight.' The film is a lie that compounds the original lie that was the operation itself."Forget the revelations that one of the story's big heroes, in real life, later gets convicted as a rapist. Forget the dramatization formulas. Just think about the impression left with the audience, and how that perception has little to do with reality. After watching the film, which made me uncomfortable because it showed how senseless the U.S. policy was as well as how ineffective, I also realized how little it conveyed what really happened in that tortured land.

    The film starts with signposts -- literally, writing on the screen, a few short paragraphs, to remind us what happened. The problem is the information is false. It implies, for example, that U.S. troops were sent to Somalia to feed the hungry. Not true. Later, I turned to David Halberstam's new book, War in a Time of Peace, which recounts the Somalian mishap in some depth.

    Halberstam's book mentions, but does not detail, the bloody background: The massive crimes of the Somali dictator Siad Barre, who the U.S. backed and who Somali warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid ejected. It also does not fully explain how the stage was set for a confrontation, and how the U.S. provoked he fiasco that followed.

    Halberstam does describe, however, the Washington debate and incompetence at a time when a policy launched by one administration was handed off to another. He tells us that the defense secretary told an associate, "We?re sending the Rangers to Somalia. We are not going to be able to control them. They are like overtrained pit bulls. No one controls them." The Rangers were indeed sent with great fanfare, to hunt and capture Aidid. Their mission failed.

    Halberstam also describes the American hatred for Somalis, expressed in the much-bandied phrase, "The only good Somali is a dead Somali." Is it any wonder Somalis fought back? (In the movie, the battle looks like a racial war, with virtually all-white U.S. forces going mano-a-mano with an all black city.) Halberstam reveals how these forces made arrogant assumptions in Somalia, underestimating the resistance, and how the urban "battlefield became a horror ... a major league CNN-era disaster..."

    You can read Halberstam's book, and many others, if you want to know more. But the point is that the romaticization of our modern warriors all too often misses the underlying political dimension of a conflict. On Jan. 7 it was reported that Green Beret Sgt. Nathan Ross Chapman, who was just killed in Afghanistan, may have been set up by so-called Anti-Taliban allies. In Somalia, we intervened in the domestic affairs and conflicts of another society. What started as war on hunger became a war on Aidid. We became warlords ourselves. In Afghanistan a war against terror became a war against the government, and may have put in power people who are as ruthless as the ones that were displaced.

    Black Hawk Down is an action movie that tries to turn a U.S. defeat into a victory by encouraging you to identify with the men who fought their way out of an urban conflagration not of their making. But with Somalia looming as a possible next target in the war against terror, Black Hawk Down may turn into a recruiting film for revenge. While Al Qaeda was not visible in the film, there is evidence that they, too, were involved in the background of the events in l993, stirring up the violence and training the warlord militias. The deaths of journalists there, including Dan Eldon, the son of a colleague, was not mentioned.

    Rambo-like films like Black Hawk Down, which seem realistic, can also accelerate the death of journalism itself, because high production values makes the dramatization of a political event far more memorable than actual news coverage. My advice: Miss it!

    • Who am I suppose to believe? You, Halberstam, the US military? Whatever handwringin, conspiracies, blah you can think up off, there were hungry people out there, the hungry were fed.

      IANAA, but a Malaysian. I cringed everytime I read review saying that BHD was about 18/19 americans who die in a firefight. I wonder how many Somalis died, not to mention the Malaysian soldier who was also killed in the firefight. (Contrary to many reports, the Malaysians soldiers wanted to get into the fight, but the Americans wanted US troops in the Malaysians' APCs. They compromised on Malaysian drivers with American troops.)

      But it is easy to criticize from the comforts of the movie theatre. Don't fault the soldiers for doing what they are ordered to do.
  • by TheLinuxWarrior ( 240496 ) <[aaron.carr] [at] [aaroncarr.com]> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @01:42PM (#2872473)
    First, let me preface this by saying that I was a member of the United States Army for 11 years, and a member of an elite unit within that organization for my last 6. Some of my friends were in this battle.

    I saw the movie the day it was released nation wide. I have a few observations about your comments.

    The movie does have a few flaws. Big deal. All movies do. The simple fact is that this movie has relatively few, which in my book, is a good thing.

    As for all of you bitching about the reason the US was in Somalia. Get over it. This movie wasn't meant to address the political agenda that took the Rangers and Delta operatives into Somalia. It was meant to tell the story of the battle that took the lives of 18 US soldiers and countless Somalian militia and civilians.

    In case you people haven't noticed, soldiers don't choose the places they go, the missions they do, or the reasons why they do them. Their job is one simple task. Get it done.

    For the rest of you bringing up issues about the potential for racism in a primarily white elite military unit, and the poor judgment of a US soldier with an under age Somali, all I have to say is that again, these things are not within the scope of the movie. Do you really want to sit through a six hour movie so that all of these little before and after details can be brought out? I don't. I guess the only thing I can say to you is read the news. Then you'll hear all of these things.

    Bottom line? It was a good movie, some Hollywood license was taken, but overall I liked it.

  • PBS's Frontline (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Passacaglia ( 3824 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @01:51PM (#2872525)
    did a piece on the rangers' escape from Mogadishu; it also dealt with the disappointment felt by the military when the operation was considered by the administration to be a failure, because they _did_ get their man, and their frustration when they were pulled out of Somalia. But the best part, and what made this the best Frontline ever, was that the story was told mainly by the rangers themselves. These dudes were totally amazing - articulate, intelligent, down-to-earth, just talking about what happened to them and their friends, and their narrative made this the most powerful Frontline ever. See it if you can.
  • In some ways, our involvement in Afghanistan has a clear moral justification and purpose, but is a Drone War, conducted mostly by airplanes with the help of some small numbers of ground forces.
    One wonders if Mr. Katz has ever heard the words "Northern Alliance", and if he realizes just how many of them have fought and died trying to oust the Taliban.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Copyright 1993 The Times Mirror Company
    Los Angeles Times

    January 18, 1993

    THE OIL FACTOR IN SOMALIA FOUR AMERICAN PETROLEUM GIANTS HAD AGREEMENTS WITH THE AFRICAN NATION BEFORE ITS CIVIL WAR BEGAN. THEY COULD REAP BIG REWARDS IF PEACE IS RESTORED

    .

    By MARK FINEMAN

    DATELINE: MOGADISHU, Somalia

    Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

    That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

    According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

    Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

    But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for pece.

    Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to mantain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government's role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.

    Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters. In addition, the president of the company's subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government's volunteer "facilitator" during the months before and during the U.S. intervention.

    Describing the arrangement as "a business relationship," an official spokesman for the Houston-based parent corporation of Conoco Somalia Ltd. said the U.S. government was paying rental for its use of the compound, and he insisted that Conoco was proud of resident general manager Raymond Marchand's contribution to the U.S.-led humanitarian effort.

    John Geybauer, spokesman for Conoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as "a good corporate citizen and neighbor" in granting the U.S. government's request to be allowed to rent the compound. The U.S. Embassy and most other buildings and residential compounds here in the capital were rendered unusable by vandalism and fierce artillery duels during the clan wars that have consumed Somalia and starved its people.

    In its in-house magazine last month, Conoco reprinted excerpts from a letter of commendation for Marchand written by U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Frank Libutti, who has been acting as military aide to U.S. envoy Robert B. Oakley. In the letter, Libutti praised the oil official for his role in the initial operation to land Marines on Mogadishu's beaches in December, and the general concluded, "Without Raymond's courageous contributions and selfless service, the operation would have failed."

    But the close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company, leading many to liken the Somalia operation to a miniature version of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led military effort in January, 1991, to drive Iraq from Kuwait and, more broadly, safeguard the world's largest oil reserves.

    "They sent all the wrong signals when Oakley moved into the Conoco compound," said one expert on Somalia who worked with one of the four major companies as they intensified their exploration efforts in the country in the late 1980s.

    "It's left everyone thinking the big question here isn't famine relief but oil -- whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored," the expert said. "It's potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that's what the whole game is starting to look like."

    Although most oil experts outside Somalia laugh at the suggestion that the nation ever could rank among the world's major oil producers -- and most maintain that the international aid mission is intended simply to feed Somalia's starving masses -- no one doubts that there is oil in Somalia. The only question: How much?

    "It's there. There's no doubt there's oil there," said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast.

    "You don't know until you study a lot further just how much is there," O'Connor said. "But it has commercial potential. It's got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together."

    O'Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusion on the findings of some of the world's top petroleum geologists. In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.

    Presenting their results during a three-day conference in London in September, 1991, two of those geologists, an American and an Egyptian, reported that an analysis of nine exploratory wells drilled in Somalia indicated that the region is "situated within the oil window, and thus (is) highly prospective for gas and oil." A report by a third geologist, Z. R. Beydoun, said offshore sites possess "the geological parameters conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas."

    Beydoun, who now works for Marathon Oil in London, cautioned in a recent interview that on the basis of his findings alone, "you cannot say there definitely is oil," but he added: "The different ingredients for generation of oil are there. The question is whether the oil generated there has been trapped or whether it dispersed or evaporated."

    Beginni 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre's government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.

    The companies' interest in Somalia clearly predated the World Bank study. It was grounded in the findings of another, highly successful exploration effort by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corp. across the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen, where geologists disclosed in the mid-1980s that the estimated 1 billion barrels of Yemeni oil reserves were part of a great underground rift, or valley, that arced into and across northern Somalia.

    Hunt's Yemeni operation, which is now yielding nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and its implications for the entire region were not lost on then-Vice President George Bush.

    In fact, Bush witnessed it firsthand in April, 1986, when he officially dedicated Hunt's new $18-million refinery near the ancient Yemeni town of Marib. In remarks during the event, Bush emphasized the critical value of supporting U.S. corporate efforts to develop and safeguard potential oil reserves in the region.

    In his speech, Bush stressed "the growing strategic importance to the West of developing crude oil sources in the region away from the Strait of Hormuz," according to a report three weeks later in the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey.

    Bush's reference was to the geographical choke point that controls access to the Persian Gulf and its vast oil reserves. It came at the end of a 10-day Middle East tour in which the vice president drew fire for appearing to advocate higher oil and gasoline prices.

    "Throughout the course of his 17,000-mile trip, Bush suggested continued low (oil) prices would jeopardize a domestic oil industry 'vital to the national security interests of the United States,' which was interpreted at home and abroad as a sign the onetime oil driller from Texas was coming to the aid of his former associates," United Press International reported from Washington the day after Bush dedicated Hunt's Yemen refinery.

    No such criticism accompanied Bush's decision late last year to send more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, widely applauded as a bold and costly step to save an estimated 2 million Somalis from starvation by opening up relief supply lines and pacifying the famine-struck nation.

    But since the U.S. intervention began, neither the Bush Administration nor any of the oil companies that had been active in Somalia up until the civil war broke out in early 1991 have commented publicly on Somalia's potential for oil and natural gas production. Even in private, veteran oil company exploration experts played down any possible connection between the Administration's move into Somalia and the corporate concessions at stake.

    "In the oil world, Somalia is a fringe exploration area," said one Conoco executive who asked not to be named. "They've overexaggerated it," he said of the geologists' optimism about the prospective oil reserves there. And as for Washington's motives in Somalia, he brushed aside criticisms that have been voiced quietly in Mogadishu, saying, "With America, there is a genuine humanitarian streak in us . . . that many other countries and cultures cannot understand."

    But the same source added that Conoco's decision to maintain its headquarters in the Somali capital even after it pulled out the last of its major equipment in the spring of 1992 was certainly not a humanitarian one. And he confirmed that the company, which has explored Somalia in three major phases beginning in 1952, had achieved "very good oil shows" -- industry terminology for an exploration phase that often precedes a major discovery -- just before the war broke out.

    "We had these very good shows," he said. "We were pleased. That's why Conoco stayed on. . . . The people in Houston are convinced there's oil there."

    Indeed, the same Conoco World article that praised Conoco's general manager in Somalia for his role in the humanitarian effort quoted Marchand as saying, "We stayed because of Somalia's potential for the company and to protect our assets."

    Marchand, a French citizen who came to Somalia from Chad after a civil war forced Conoco to suspend operations there, explained the role played by his firm in helping set up the U.S.-led pacification mission in Mogadishu.

    "When the State Department asked Conoco management for assistance, I was glad to use the company's influence in Somalia for the success of this mission," he said in the magazine article. "I just treated it like a company operation -- like moving a rig. I did it for this operation because the (U.S.) officials weren't familiar with the environment."

    Marchand and his company were clearly familiar with the anarchy into which Somalia has descended over the past two years -- a nation with no functioning government, no utilities and few roads, a place ruled loosely by regional warlords.

    Of the four U.S. companies holding the Siad Barre-era oil concessions, Conoco is believed to be the only one that negotiated what spokesman Geybauer called "a standstill agreement" with an interim government set up by one of Mogadishu's two principal warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Industry sources said the other U.S. companies with contracts in Somalia cited "force majeure" (superior power), a legal term asserting that they were forced by the war to abandon their exploration efforts and would return as soon as peace is restored.

    "It's going to be very interesting to see whether these agreements are still good," said Mohamed Jirdeh, a prominent Somali businessman in Mogadishu who is familiar with the oil-concession agreements. "Whatever Siad did, all those records and contracts, all disappeared after he fled. . . . And this period has brought with it a deep change of our society.

    "Our country is now very weak, and, of course, the American oil companies are very strong. This has to be handled very diplomatically, and I think the American government must move out of the oil business, or at least make clear that there is a definite line separating the two, if they want to maintain a long-term relationship here."

    Fineman, Times bureau chief in Nicosia, Cyprus, was recently in Somalia.

  • by notany ( 528696 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @03:29PM (#2872952) Journal
    Those of you who want to read the real story (it was not told in US) Short summary: Read this [refuseandresist.org]
  • by e_n_d_o ( 150968 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @05:02PM (#2873323)
    It might change your mind about the way they think about the innocent Somalians. If you read the book you learn how these folks really "fight": like cowards. They used women and children as human shields. Their tactics were to run out of crowds, rapidly fire off a few unaimed rounds, and then run back in.

    There is one instance in the Bowden's book that describes a man lying prone in the middle of the street behind no hard cover. Two women were kneeling, one on either side of him, and children were sitting on top of him. The ranger's response to this was pretty impressive, IMHO... a ranger threw a flashbang grenade (yes, just like half-life) at them and the women and children promptly scattered, leaving the prone man entirely uncovered, an easy target who was quickly killed.

    Make no mistake, there were Somalians who fought bravely, but the overall picture is that they fought using the most dispicable tactics available: they tried to take advantage of the fact that the United States holds human life sacred.

    All this information I have conveyed is based directly on the book. My knowledge comes entirely from reading Mark Bowden's book and watching the movie. The book is widely acknowledged as the truth and a significant section of the book is even devoted to specifically backing up each claim and source.

    Other inaccuracies in the movie inclue:

    - The rangers didn't take over the Somalian truck and use it to destroy the other Somalian truck.

    - The little bird gun runs were constant throughout the night... this was the ONLY reason the Somalis were kept from overrunning the rangers.

    - The night was never quiet.

    - more that I don't remember.

    Again, all this information is based on my reading of the book. I'd appreciate anyone who can point out any inaccuracies in this statement.
  • On Somalia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hagbard_Celine ( 111134 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @08:03PM (#2874051)

    First off, it's "Somali" not "Somalian".

    I spent 1984 and 1985 in Somalia as part of "Operation Peace Horn". Among other elements, that mission brought in Ground-based tactical radar systems (US AN-TPS43-E's built by Westinghouse [now Northrop Grumman]). I was a radar jock assigned to train Somali officers. I was stationed in Galcaio. Galcaio is not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.

    On the "Italian Road" that connects Mogadishu with Belet Weyne is a little town called Garoe (pronounced ga-ROY). Along side the road in Garoe is something the Somali call a "Government House". These are like our jail/courtroom/local-government centers.

    A large painting on the side of the building depicted a Somali soldier kicking the butt (literally) of a Russian soldier. (The US had been in Ethiopia while the Russians were in Somalia. When Haile Selassie died, Ethiopia went Communist, the situation flipped - Russia went to Ethiopia and the US went into Somalia.)

    I was in a Land Rover escorted by a Somali Army Major and on the way to Galcaio for the first time - I laughed at the painting on the Garoe Government House as we went by it.

    The major turned to me, and in a dead-serious voice said, "If you treat us like they did, we'll do the same to you." We did treat them as badly as the Russians, and sure enough we were out.

    "Mission Creep" is what got our men killed - that and hubris.

    My year in Somalia was quite an experience. I found the Somali to be incredibly kind and gentle people - until someone pissed them off.

    I knew Omar Jess when he was in charge of Dusa Mareb (between Belet Weyne and Galcaio). Then Major Jess was in charge of keeping the Ethiopians off the Somali border in that area. Major Jess has no love for Ethiopians - captured Ethiopian soldiers were routinely disembowled alive as protection against their ghosts returning to haunt the Somali. Major Jess was an articulate, educated man, but absolutely brutal to the enemies of his people.

    I was saddened, but not surprised, to see that video of one of our dead troops dragged through the street in Mogadishu. I had seen worse in Dusa Mareb. I never forgot my escort's words as we drove through Garoe - and as soon as I heard the UN was asking us to go from humanitarian aid to hunting down the "warlords", including then Colonel Omar Jess, I knew what would happen. It did.

    The Somali have occupied their land for perhaps a thousand years or more. To a man, woman, and child (most Army regular troops were under the age of 14) they will fight to keep their land and people safe from any perceived danger. It really doesn't matter who - the US, the Russians - it makes no difference.

    Looking at that clinically and substituting the name of any country (including the US) for the name Somalia, I do not blame them one damned bit.

    Peace,

    Hagbard
  • by beanerspace ( 443710 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @01:56AM (#2874960) Homepage
    I was discussing the film with a former Army Ranger who was invited to the premiere in D.C. He moved on to fly choppers a year or two before the Somalia fubar, but not before he recieved combat wings for Panama, as well as some nifty ribbons for Desert Storm.

    His assessment was that the story was about as accurate as Hollywood is with other such historic subject matter. Many of the timelines and events were either compressed, attributed to a single character, or abbreviated. Such is to be expected when you reduce 2 months of bad planning and a 15 hour fire-fight into 2.5 hours.

    While he was very complimentary of the technical accuracy, the portrayal of Ranger moxy and the fast-paced action, he did wish the film would have hammered a bit more at the mismanagement that created cluster-*uck e.g. Les Aspin turning down requests to send in armor & air support because of "how it would look" (see links below).

    pbs:frontline [pbs.org]

    boston herald [bostonherald.com]

    That said, he's all for seeing it again as a bunch of us do a men's night this week ... provided we can get tickets!

    BTW, here's a review I read on Epinions that includes some quotes and some of the order of battle from the book, Black Hawk Down ... that make for some informative reading for potential movie-goers.

    epinions:black hawk down [epinions.com]

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