Gordon Angus Mackinlay
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posted 21. January 2002 10:08
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A realistic view of this "MOVIE"
Black Hawk Down - good box office but bad history
By Scott Peterson
(Filed: 21/01/2021) The Daily Telegraph of London
BRED on Rambo movies and looking the sinister part, American Delta Force commandos making their debut in Somalia in August 1993 launched a manhunt mission as spectacular as it was misguided. Swathed in black - and in full view of night-vision television cameras on a nearby hotel roof-top - the commandos snaked down ropes from helicopters and then burst, firing from the hip, through closed doors into the offices of the UN Development Programme.
Walls were broken down with grenades, doors of the UN office and a neighbouring French relief agency were kicked in, and radio equipment was destroyed before the American Special Forces realised their blunder.
The target of the raid - General Mohamed Farah Aidid, whom the Americans demonised as the "Hitler of Somalia" for his clansmen's killing of 25 Pakistani "peacekeeping" troops - was nowhere to be seen.
The events of that night in Mogadishu were the first of a series of bungled American raids that would mark the failed manhunt for Gen Aidid. Dogged by poor intelligence, the mission culminated in a bloody battle on October 3-4, 1993, patriotically portrayed in the new film Black Hawk Down.
In the fiercest firefight since the Vietnam War, 18 American soldiers lost their lives. Two were mutilated and dragged through the streets of the city by jubilant Somalis, and American policymakers lost their post-Cold War taste for humanitarian action.
Osama bin Laden has called Somalia his "greatest victory", though there is little evidence that his men played more than a marginal role. More importantly, he has also said that Somalia showed him how vulnerable America could be.
As the then East Africa correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, I made dozens of journeys to Somalia to cover these events. But to this day, and despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests, the Pentagon's Somalia after-action report has yet to be de-classified.
That's because Somalia - rightly - became synonymous with failure. Ever since America was humiliated by Somali gunmen wearing flip-flops, the word Somalia has been virtually forbidden at the Pentagon. Until now.
Today, as America seeks to expand its "war against terrorism" beyond Afghanistan, Somalia features high on the target list for its alleged harbouring of al-Qa'eda militants. Following the relatively successful operations in Afghanistan, Americans favour more action.
And, with a military not altogether immune from thoughts of vengeance in Somalia, public opinion will be buoyed by a film that puts a Hollywood gloss on the biggest American military misadventure since peacekeepers were sent to Lebanon in 1983.
Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of Black Hawk Down, says that Somalia was at once a military victory and a political disaster. He points out that in October 1993, Delta Force commandos on their seventh raid did net two Aidid aides before disaster struck.
"It was called a failure by the media. The military doesn't look at it that way," Mr Bruckheimer said. "They accomplished their mission. They killed a thousand of the enemy and brought back the two warlords."
Ridley Scott, the director of Black Hawk Down, told CNN that the Pentagon proved "very, very, very user-friendly" over the film, as long as "what you are actually trying to do is represent the [military] in the right and proper light". The result, Mr Scott said, was an "almost page by page process of negotiation" with Pentagon officials about the screenplay.
Without question, there were moments of individual heroism by American soldiers during the 15-hour melee. These are well described in journalist Mark Bowden's book Black Hawk Down, the basis for the film.
The book doesn't shy away from many uncomfortable facts, about how little American forces knew about the Somalis and their centuries-old system of clans and blood feuds. Nor does the book cover up the Americans' catastrophic intelligence problems, which led to so many bungled raids - a danger for any new American action in Somalia, as clans seek to vilify their enemies.
But any attempt by the film to use valiant episodes of American soldiering to portray the "Battle of Mogadishu" as a victory is a revision of history. Forget for a moment the depth of the political fiasco. Consider the military mistakes.
Why did Delta commanders use exactly the same tactical template in six snatch attempts, so that Gen Aidid and his gunmen could so easily prepare their defences when alerted by helicopters lifting off from their airport base?
Why did American helicopters fly so low and confidently over Mogadishu for months - so low, in fact, that I often thought how easy it would be to hit one by throwing a stone? Why didn't senior officers recognise that Ranger rescue convoys, vulnerably riding in open-backed Humvees through narrow roads, would be seen by Somalis as ripe for ambush?
A few swiftly placed barriers in the road - much less the downing of two Black Hawk helicopters - threw the snatch raid into lethal chaos. The Somalis didn't need bin Laden to point out the many American weaknesses.
Somalis - like many Americans - literally carry the scars from those battles. Some kept scraps of American uniforms and dog-tags and even, for a while, pieces of American flesh as trophies of their victory.
One of the most inhospitable nations in the world, Somalia has always been dangerous. Several of my colleagues were killed by stray and not-so-stray bullets. Four friends were killed by a Somali mob in the aftermath of one American attack. I escaped with a machete wound to the head, one of the many of my nine lives used up in Somalia.
But the peril was far greater if you were a American soldier or UN "peacekeeper", and if your new manhunt mission had morphed you into Somalia's latest armed clan. Will that lesson be learnt, as American officials contemplate returning to Africa's Horn, to root out al-Qa'eda militants, even if they can be identified?
When American Marines first landed on the beach at Mogadishu in December 1992, it was to end a famine that had already crippled much of the country. President George Bush Sr said at the time that American forces were doing "God's work" at which Americans "cannot fail".
Yet fail they did. For most of the past decade, poverty-stricken Somalia has been abandoned by the rest of the world. Perhaps, then, the most suitable lesson regarding Somalia is a more recent one, from Afghanistan, where it is now clear that years of Western neglect allowed bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda network to take root.
Somalia, like Afghanistan, needs a political and cash commitment, to help rebuild schools and stabilise government; to welcome Somalia back to the league of nations. Somalis say they have matured, and should not be cast as villains of the piece.
Isn't this the way America should step back into Somalia, rather than by renewing military strikes - and thereby risking the start of a new blood feud?
Scott Peterson is the former East Africa correspondent of The Daily Telegraph and author of Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda. |
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