Black Hawk Down: History, Accuracy, and Legacy

Introduction

This paper analyzes Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott. Specifically, it examines a summary of the film, what parts of the film were accurate, what impact the events had on the period, what impact they had on future periods, and what impact, if any, the film may have on the viewer. "Caring about someone's life, rather than your own," is a very powerful and brave belief to live by, as declared by producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Black Hawk Down brings out the "heroism under fire" by which every soldier of the U.S. Rangers and Delta Force abides.

Historical Background: Somalia and the U.S. Intervention

Somalia, 1993. Two sides were fighting against each other for control of the country. One faction was led by a member of the Abgal (Hawiye) subclan, and the other by General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a member of the Habr Gidir (Hawiye) subclan (Lefebvre 49). By November 1991, thousands of Mogadishu residents had died as fighting erupted between the two factions. The capital, Mogadishu, became two separate "cities," divided by a "green line" between the northern part of the city, controlled by Ali Mahdi's forces, and the southern half, in the hands of Aidid (Lefebvre 49). Both factions claimed that food shipments meant for the starving population belonged to them, and as a result, food was not reaching the people.

The Somali people were starving. "As the result of a two-year drought and internal conflict, by the end of 1992 one-third of Somalia's 7 million people were in danger of perishing from starvation and disease. During 1992 an estimated 300,000 Somalis had died as a result of malnourishment or violence" (Lefebvre 46). The U.N. Security Council had already determined that action was necessary to help the starving Somalis, and had sent 3,000 peacekeepers to deliver food, but serious problems persisted. "Before the arrival of the U.S. Marines the only way relief organizations could operate in Somalia was by paying bribes and hiring one or more of the so-called 'technicals' for protection" (Lefebvre 49). Finally, after many meetings, the United States decided to send troops to Somalia to aid in food distribution.

On December 4, 1992, President George Bush agreed to send nearly 30,000 U.S. military forces to Somalia. Under the auspices of the United Nations, their mission would be to ensure the delivery of food and other emergency supplies throughout the country. Bush's decision to implement Operation Restore Hope came one day after the U.N. Security Council had adopted Resolution 794, calling for the United Nations Unified Task Force (UNITAF) to "use all necessary means to establish as soon as possible a secure environment for humanitarian relief in Somalia." A week later, U.S. Marines went ashore at Mogadishu and were subsequently joined by troops from more than 20 countries (Lefebvre 44).

After U.S. and U.N. troops arrived, general anarchy persisted in Somalia, and General Aidid continued to commandeer food shipments. This was unacceptable to the United States, which decided to remove Aidid from power and restructure the government — an action not shared with other U.N. forces. The U.S. acted alone. "I am not sure policymakers understood either Somalis' social structure or how sentiment tempered this. For instance, as a catchphrase 'ancient ethnic hatreds' seemed perfectly designed for making deeper understanding seem all the more superfluous" (Simons 204). The fundamental problem with U.S. policy in Somalia was the assumption that ending the famine would also end the crisis that caused it. As one scholar observed, "Ending the famine and ending the crisis which provoked the famine were two separate issues" (Menkhaus 142).

Because of mismanagement, miscommunication, and a total disregard for the resistance fighters' network of spies and weaponry, what was supposed to be a quick, thirty-minute operation turned into a nightmare. Black Hawk Down is the story of the U.S. Rangers and the Delta Force who entered Mogadishu to "extract" Aidid and key government officials, and instead were pinned down for nearly twenty-four hours in an ambush by Aidid's forces — an ambush joined by men, women, and children who took up arms to defend their city. As the film states in its opening scene: "Only the dead have seen the end of war — Plato" (Black Hawk Down).

Film Summary and Narrative Structure

Black Hawk Down opens with some background on Somalia and why U.S. forces are there, but the treatment is brief at best and leaves the viewer with questions such as "What did Aidid do with the food?" and "Why was he in charge?" A review of Somali history answers these questions, but the film does not. The first part of the movie introduces the characters in order to make them more sympathetic and to offer insight into why they share such strong camaraderie. They are "brothers," and this section of the film establishes their bond as well as their frustration with some of their leaders — as shown, for example, in the scene in which they mock their commanding officer and he catches them at it.

This early part of the film humanizes the characters and makes the viewer care about what happens to them — which is, of course, its entire purpose, so that the viewer feels outrage when they die in Mogadishu.

The main portion of the film follows the Rangers and Delta Force as they enter Mogadishu for the raid, code-named "Irene." Unfortunately, as soon as they leave the base at the airport, spies report their movements, and a large enemy force is waiting when they arrive. The mission is doomed from the start when young Blackburn falls from a helicopter and is critically wounded. From that point on, it is unorganized chaos. A Black Hawk helicopter is shot down, and another is lost while attempting to rescue stranded team members. The convoy abandons some Rangers as it tries to exit the city. Throughout, there is continuous fighting, groups of men fleeing sniper fire, and a pervasive sense of mass confusion. Where the beginning of the film was easy to follow, this section is frantic — just as it must have been for the men actually involved.

There was a clear lack of leadership. The convoy literally got lost, with men repeatedly asking for its location. In an interview on Frontline, PFC Anton Berendsen described the experience: "The forward observer up on the top in a helicopter telling us 'go right,' 'go left,' and we started getting lost. And you can just imagine, you know how you feel when you're driving in the city and you're lost, that feeling of desperation. Just magnify it times a hundred" (Weiss). Eventually, the convoy abandoned ninety Rangers who were pinned down in order to get the wounded back to base. Then another group of Rangers had to go in to try to recover their men. Throughout it all, their motto was "leave no man behind" — a difficult motto to honor under such conditions.

This section of the film not only conveyed the overwhelming odds the Rangers were facing but also showed how they held together and attempted to save one another. They were genuinely shaken when comrades fell, and they did everything possible to get the wounded out of harm's way. In the scene when the first Ranger is killed while manning the fifty-caliber gun on a HumVee in the convoy, the other characters seem stunned that one of their own was killed in what was supposed to be a routine exercise. Later, surprise gives way to anger and determination to survive. This section of the film very realistically portrays the horror of war and how men are terribly maimed and killed.

It also demonstrated the validity of their training and how they struggled to keep both the mission and their unit intact even after everything had fallen apart. This was the longest portion of the film, and it felt even longer because of the relentless action and the sense that the nightmare would never end — which seemed to capture perfectly what the men themselves must have felt.

The aftermath is shown for only a few minutes at the end of the film, but it is enough to make the story both more poignant and more devastating. One character says, "What's changed? Nothing" (Black Hawk Down), and he was correct. The aftermath suggested that nothing the Rangers had accomplished made a difference. Somalis were still starving, Aidid was still in power, and nineteen American soldiers had been killed.

Conclusion

The personal impact of the film was considerable. At first, it prompted a sense of devastation that the entire episode had occurred at all, and that so many men had died for what appeared to be nothing. Then came the recognition that the same can be said for nearly any war, especially from the perspective of those who have lost. The film showed that war does not carry inherent meaning; rather, it is a mechanism for resolving disputes through the exercise of power.

The realization was also clear that the United States had no place in Somalia's civil war. In this particular case, set against the backdrop of famine in Somalia, the U.S. chose to intervene alongside the U.N. in an attempt to halt the 300,000 civilian deaths caused by starvation. The complexities of foreign policy, however, can quickly spiral beyond anyone's control. Somali warlords were intercepting humanitarian aid supplied by the U.N. and the U.S. in order to feed their own militias. The U.S. concluded that it was in the interest of national security to address this directly.

Regardless of the consequences, the Rangers and Delta Force went in as a team of brothers to capture the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and bring him to justice. The mission assigned the Rangers to secure the area while the Delta Force prepared to assault and complete the extraction. That extraction, however — planned as a thirty-minute operation — broke down into an agonizing eighteen-to-twenty-two-hour rescue effort. The initiative was lost almost immediately after a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down. Matters worsened when a second helicopter was disabled and crashed.

What was supposed to be a swift, clean operation had a devastating outcome. Had the U.S. not committed itself to such an interventionist foreign policy, those soldiers might not have become casualties. Nevertheless, they were heroes in their own right, even if they were fighting someone else's war.

The film conveyed all of this, and more. As historians look back on October 1993 in Mogadishu, they see acts of courage, bravery, and extreme violence — twenty-four hours that entered the historical record but accomplished little. The despotic general remained in power. The United States lost valuable personnel and equipment. The Somali people were still under the control of a cruel warlord. It was a disappointment, a travesty, and a failure — and yet it also revealed the best of humanity in the brotherhood of men who fight side by side. As the film itself concludes: "Nobody has to be a hero. It just sometimes turns out that way" (Black Hawk Down).

References

Black Hawk Down. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. William Fichtner, Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Jeremy Piven, Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore. Sony Pictures, 2001.

Clarke, Walter M., and Jeffrey M. Herbst, eds. Learning from Somalia: The Lessons of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.

Lefebvre, Jeffrey A. "The U.S. Military Intervention in Somalia: A Hidden Agenda?" Middle East Policy II.1 (1993): 44–62.

Menkhaus, Ken. "U.S. Foreign Assistance Somalia: Phoenix from the Ashes?" Middle East Policy V.1 (1997): 124–149.

Simons, Anna. Networks of Dissolution: Somalia Undone. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.

Weiss, Thomas G. "Ambush in Mogadishu." Frontline. 2001. 16 Nov. 2002. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/