I just finished watching The True Story of Blackhawk Down, and I must say that I'm not impressed. Sorry if I'm ranting about this, but I need to express my concerns over this.
1. The film credits the soldiers with doing their duty as U.S. citizens. This is not true. They did their job as U.S. soldiers, not citizens. I have no personal obligation to go to a third world country and risk my life. My dad, when he was eighteen, was forced to choose between signing up for the reserve and having the government send him to Vietnam against his will, or going to jail. If it were me, I'd choose jail. Many people would say this is unpatriotic and cowardly. Smart and logical is what it is.
2. The film refers to the operation as one of a peace keeping nature. When U.N. relief personel went to Somalia and handed out food to starving impoverished civilians, that was a peace keeping (or at least humanitarian) operation. This is one of the major problems the U.S. has, it has to militarize everything. There was no need for military presence to give aid to the Somalians. The Army should have never been involved in the first place, then they'd have avoided this whole ordeal.
3. The soldiers say they can't understand why the Somalian militia were killing U.S. rangers and Delta Force operaters and dragging their bodies through the streets. I can't honestly say I blame them. Would'nt you be pissed if someone rolled into your neighborhood and started blowing the crap out of everything? Even when members of Ailalas council did'nt agree with him and tried to talk over the issue with U.S. envoys, the U.S. still killed around fifty or sixty of them.
