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"For what it's worth, I'm in Los Angeles and I just saw "Black Hawk Down". The film begins with an unquestioning presentation of the standard narrative -- that we were in Somalia to protect starving people from evil warlords. From there, following the pattern of this type of war movie, the enemy is dehumanized into a screaming mob, and the point is continually made that one American is not only more capable but is worth more than any large number of those screaming foes that fling themselves on our bullets without apparent regard for human life, theirs or ours. The film labors to engage our sympathy for its central theme that war is about "the guy next to you" you're trying to defend, rather than any question of why we're fighting in the first place. It's sort of an Alamo story, except that the surrounded and outnumbered goodguys are in this case the ones who staged the invasion of a city.

Another point reinforced several times is that the battle would have gone better if American soldiers had been willing to fire into crowds of civilians; and those Somali civilians are often shown snatching up weapons to fire on American soldiers. The final credits list character names like "Somali son with gun". I note that the LA Times reviewer, in his lavish praise for the film, described the Somali fighters as a "well-armed and camouflaged army" -- that is, they were wearing their own clothes when their city was attacked by American soldiers. While watching, I thought several times of Mel Gibson's recent "The Patriot", in which children are deemed heroic when they take up guns to ambush and shoot at uniformed invaders.

I could go on like this, but for all of these issues, I don't think the movie has an idea in its head, and its anti-Somali sentiments lack the systematic demonization of, say, the ecent "Rules of Engagement", which overtly and carefully advocated the shooting of Arab children and prisoners of war. "Black Hawk Down", by comparison, doesn't concern itself with causes, but just wants to entertain us with the horror of battle.

Thus it makes political statements by its very lack of political thought, and I think we can deplore the irresponsibility of releasing a film like this in the current climate. Deliberately or not, it fits nicely into the ongoing campaign to justify aggression.

(Good article about the historical distortions of the film at http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19)

Marginal note: As it happens, I had just seen another war movie, a new Bosnian film called "No Man's Land". It's a harrowing funny sincere movie which really IS about the futility and horror of war, and does not accidentally glorify it by way of courage and loyalty. Hope this one makes it to Seattle.