Black Hawk Down

How the Movie Portrays the United States Special Forces

The war genre film Black Hawk Down was directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Jeremy Bruckheimar, it was made to depict the dramatic events of October 1993.
During the film Black Hawk Down there are parts of the story when US military personnel are depicted making serious ethical decisions.
Modern Day Heroes
The US armed forces are depicted as being sent into the city of Mogadishu in order to protect the innocent civilians amid the chaos of the Somali civil war.The Americans are there to restore law and order alongside the distribution of humanitarian aid.Instead the firepower of the Somali warlord General Aidid and his militias was a serious threat to US military personnel.The American General Garrison decides to launch a raid to capture General Aidid.The Special Forces and their Black Hawk helicopters have been sent into Mogadishu to do just that.The Black Hawk helicopters and the troops on board them soon got into trouble though.

To back up the Black Hawk helicopters the plan was for Humvies armoured vehicles to arrive slightly later than the helicopters to pick up any prisoners.
Failing To Rescue All
The second serious ethical decision that the film Black Hawk Down depicts US military personnel making was the decision to regard the lives of Americans whether they were civilians or members of the armed forces as being of greater importance than the lives of Somalis.Once the first Black Hawk went down then the other Black Hawks were sent to rescue their comrades.
Black Hawk Down depicts the lengths that US military personnel are prepared to go to in order to save each other.The US special forces as well as other UN peacekeeping forces were being attacked on a regular basis whilst they were attempting to distribute food aid.The US military command in Somalia basically decided that a surgical strike to remove the leadership of the most potent militias would succeed in restoring stability.
During the course of the war film Black Hawk Down the third serious ethical decision depicted being reached was related to the US military leadership determination to take action to remove General Aidid via a lighting strike made by its special forces using light armoured vehicles and Black Hawk helicopters.At this point the film does depict General Garrison being unhappy about the Pentagon not allowing a larger force being deployed for the operation.Despite that refusal to use tanks the Americans remained confident that the raid would succeed in capturing General Aidid and that doing so would go along way towards ending the Somali civil war as well as stopping the guerrilla attacks on American troops and other UN peacekeeping units.
Whilst watching the motion picture Black Hawk Down the fourth serious ethical decision made by US military personnel was depicted in relation to the decision by the Pentagon to not offer its forces in Somalia extra resources to carry out the raid against General Aidid in Mogadishu.Washington took that decision according to the film because they believed that the US special forces did not need substantial ground support and that the Black Hawk helicopters would be able to provide adequate air support as well as transport the special forces in and out of Mogadishu.This serious ethical decision made in the Pentagon was important to the way in which, the plot of Black Hawk Down continues.
Sources:
Palmowski J, (2008) Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History, Oxford
Black Hawk Down (2001) feature film
Evans G & Newnham J, (1998) the Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, Penguin, London
Holmes R, (2007) Battlefield – Decisive conflicts in History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, and Cambridge, USA
McCrisken T and Pepper A, (2005) American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh
Mulhall S (2008) On Film – Second Edition, Routledge, London and New York

Article Written by Barry Vale

Mad about Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Birmingham City, & Doctor Who. Check out my E Books about the Church of England, Roman buildings, Western diplomacy What do you mean they played football before 1992? on Amazon Kindle . Also self published as W B Lower - No hair, no remorse


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