Mark Bowden, who wrote the book on which the movie "Blackhawk Down" was based, has just about the most comprehensive view of that controversial conflict as anyone is likely to have.
This documentary includes some reenactments and newsreel footage but mostly we hear Bowden's dispassionate analysis of what happened, along with a dozen or so interviews with Delta Force and Rangers who provide a subjective point of view. By "subjective," I don't mean "prejudiced." I mean personal, as in, "This is what I experienced and what I felt." The documentary is a History Channel Special and, although it's not as big and splashy as the Hollywood production, it has some virtues that the feature film doesn't.
It provides the perspective of the Somali militia who fought against our troops, for instance. Now, I can imagine that many people don't want to hear from the "other side." It's enough to know that we were good and they were evil. Yet no one puts his life at risk by telling himself, "I'm doing this because I'm evil." Taking up arms is always seen as a necessity by both sides in a conflict.
And the documentary gives us some of the back story behind the hatred felt towards Americans. It answers questions such as how WE, on a humanitarian mission, with no other goals in Somalia, could become the enemy? One of the reasons is that the people of Mogadishu couldn't watch CNN or read the New York Times. The only radio station was controlled by Aidid, the chief of the strongest clan, and listeners simply believed what they were told -- that this was an American invasion whose aim was to convert all the Moslems to Christianity.
Another improvement over the feature film is that it clarifies the topographical situation. We learn where the two helicopters went down, the relation of those crossroads to the target building. We learn where the convoy went when it got lost in the maze of urban streets.
We can pinpoint, in retrospect, where our plans were weakest. We underestimated the willingness of those thin, black, raggedy, homely, backward natives to die for what they saw as their nation -- "failed state" though it was. We didn't expect such organization on the part of our enemies, though they had after all been involved in urban warfare with each other for years while our troops had no such experience. We didn't expect so many guns to be turned against us. Every male seemed to carry an automatic weapon or an RPG because they're cheap and available. (Says Bowden, "Everything that could be accomplished with guns was being accomplished in Mogadishu.") Nobody expected to see twelve-year olds firing AK 47s from the hip because the kids were too small to heft the weapons to their shoulders. Nobody expected to have to SHOOT those kids and the women who were firing beside them. We lost twenty-eight troops KIA. The Somali lost thousands of men, women, and children in the battle.
Some offensive footage is shown of American bodies being dragged through the streets. It's offensive because one of the principles of our elite forces is that nobody gets left behind. And it's offensive to ordinary viewers who prefer to think of warfare as a kind of football game or schoolyard fist fight or Hollywood movie in which people die gracefully and are then forgotten. I agree entirely with Bowden that showing such footage is essential in a democracy. We absolutely MUST know what it is that we're getting into.
The Somali celebrate the great victory over the American invaders. It's a "national" holiday. I put that word in quotes because there is no "nation" of Somalia except in name. It's a lawless country whose territory is ruled by warlords and their cronies. And it was hardly a victory. We withdrew our forces, an inevitable move unless we wanted to declare war in order to recover our national pride. And when we left, as one Somali woman states it, "the death and the famine came back." It's a courageous documentary because it tells us about things we don't want to think about. Our elite forces were filled with esprit de corps. One of them admits they thought of themselves as invincible. In the end, no one is invincible. (The Japanese felt the same way in the early months of World War II. They later called it "the victory disease".) Well, nobody always wins, not even when the best of troops is backed up by advanced weapons to fight an enemy that only carries small arms and burns tires to send signals.
This documentary includes some reenactments and newsreel footage but mostly we hear Bowden's dispassionate analysis of what happened, along with a dozen or so interviews with Delta Force and Rangers who provide a subjective point of view. By "subjective," I don't mean "prejudiced." I mean personal, as in, "This is what I experienced and what I felt." The documentary is a History Channel Special and, although it's not as big and splashy as the Hollywood production, it has some virtues that the feature film doesn't.
It provides the perspective of the Somali militia who fought against our troops, for instance. Now, I can imagine that many people don't want to hear from the "other side." It's enough to know that we were good and they were evil. Yet no one puts his life at risk by telling himself, "I'm doing this because I'm evil." Taking up arms is always seen as a necessity by both sides in a conflict.
And the documentary gives us some of the back story behind the hatred felt towards Americans. It answers questions such as how WE, on a humanitarian mission, with no other goals in Somalia, could become the enemy? One of the reasons is that the people of Mogadishu couldn't watch CNN or read the New York Times. The only radio station was controlled by Aidid, the chief of the strongest clan, and listeners simply believed what they were told -- that this was an American invasion whose aim was to convert all the Moslems to Christianity.
Another improvement over the feature film is that it clarifies the topographical situation. We learn where the two helicopters went down, the relation of those crossroads to the target building. We learn where the convoy went when it got lost in the maze of urban streets.
We can pinpoint, in retrospect, where our plans were weakest. We underestimated the willingness of those thin, black, raggedy, homely, backward natives to die for what they saw as their nation -- "failed state" though it was. We didn't expect such organization on the part of our enemies, though they had after all been involved in urban warfare with each other for years while our troops had no such experience. We didn't expect so many guns to be turned against us. Every male seemed to carry an automatic weapon or an RPG because they're cheap and available. (Says Bowden, "Everything that could be accomplished with guns was being accomplished in Mogadishu.") Nobody expected to see twelve-year olds firing AK 47s from the hip because the kids were too small to heft the weapons to their shoulders. Nobody expected to have to SHOOT those kids and the women who were firing beside them. We lost twenty-eight troops KIA. The Somali lost thousands of men, women, and children in the battle.
Some offensive footage is shown of American bodies being dragged through the streets. It's offensive because one of the principles of our elite forces is that nobody gets left behind. And it's offensive to ordinary viewers who prefer to think of warfare as a kind of football game or schoolyard fist fight or Hollywood movie in which people die gracefully and are then forgotten. I agree entirely with Bowden that showing such footage is essential in a democracy. We absolutely MUST know what it is that we're getting into.
The Somali celebrate the great victory over the American invaders. It's a "national" holiday. I put that word in quotes because there is no "nation" of Somalia except in name. It's a lawless country whose territory is ruled by warlords and their cronies. And it was hardly a victory. We withdrew our forces, an inevitable move unless we wanted to declare war in order to recover our national pride. And when we left, as one Somali woman states it, "the death and the famine came back." It's a courageous documentary because it tells us about things we don't want to think about. Our elite forces were filled with esprit de corps. One of them admits they thought of themselves as invincible. In the end, no one is invincible. (The Japanese felt the same way in the early months of World War II. They later called it "the victory disease".) Well, nobody always wins, not even when the best of troops is backed up by advanced weapons to fight an enemy that only carries small arms and burns tires to send signals.