Black Hawk Down: One hell of a movie

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Go **** yourself repeatedly. It might eventually trickle in and mix with what little you've got for brains, and give you a second point of IQ to go with the one point you have, asswipe.

That sums up my feelings on the issue pretty well. The damn Somalis who were cheering can go **** themselves as well.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Guynemer

Oh come on. Like Americans don't cheer when German or Japanese planes get shot down in WWII movies?

Does this really happen at your local theatre? I have only seen people actually cheer one time, and it was when De Niro's character shot the Vietnamese dude who was forcing people to play Russian Roulette in The Deer Hunter.

[uh Clem]

They were cheering; I read this yesterday at the BBC.

Somalis cheer Black Hawk Down

[DanS]

Well, they can cheer all they want. We can't control what they do. But the last time I heard cheering was at Independence Day, where the enemy was from an area several parsecs away.

An interesting part of the article...

"There's not one single word of the Somali
language nor Somali music, almost nothing of
our culture in the movie," said Mohamed Ali
Abdi.

"This is absurd, but still they copied our sandy
streets and rough buildings and the crazy
nature of the Somalis to continue the fighting,"
he said.

Crazy... We were probably killing at a ratio of 100:1, but still they came on. It just ain't rational behavior. Reminds me of Zulu, except completely devoid of rationality.

[faded glory]

Ya, the Somali's can **** themselves. We go to feed them, and they ****in shoot us. They can starve to death for all I give a ****...we dont owe them ****. They bit the hand that was feeding them.

[faded glory]

I wouldnt lump the Zulu's in too much with them. The Zulu's atleast gave ****loads of undue respect to there enemys (Rourkes Drift anybody?)

not dragging them through the streets and urinating on there dead bodies.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Most of the Somalis didn't. The mother****ers we got into it (Aidid's people) with were the same people who forced starving Somalis (of different clans/tribes) to reload UN relief onto trucks so that Aidid's people could distribute the food among themselves and sell it on the black market.

There is no sense of being Somali, compared to a sense of belonging to the many different clans. Aidid (and to a much lesser extent Mahdi) used the availability or denial of aid at gunpoint as a weapon of war against what we mistakenly thought were "their" people.

The people we tried to feed, and those who were attacking the UN and later US forces, were different people we lumped in the category of being "Somalis"

[faded glory]

MTG we went in there cause we thought we were doing a good thing. Clinton, pushed into that damn war...all throughout the campaign he *****ed and moaned about it. Not to mention, the Buearacracy involved in the UN...we couldnt even get access to a dozen vehicles that would of made all the difference...


I feel bad for those rangers who got abandoned up in there. I blame Clinton, the UN, and the Russians (for arming somalia to the teeth with RPG's and Klashnikov's)

[MichaeltheGreat]

A dozen vehicles wouldn't have made the difference. A mechanized brigade would have. And the denial of access to IFV's and heavy air support came from Les may he rot in hell Aspin. The UN did not have operational control over our activities.

We armed the "technicals" as much or more than the Soviets - M2HB .50 cal HMGs were widely employed. The preference for Kalashnikovs was simple - they pack more punch, (this was prior to the issue of the 5.45 mm round, which is not popular in 3rd world export) and are superior to the M-16 in a dirty environment with poor field maintenance procedures. Most of the Kalashnikovs present by that time were open market purchased from money derived from stolen aid and other illicit activities. A good number of the *******s we fought were originally armed by the US.

We have never developed a weapon as effective as the RPG for it's weight and use, because it wasn't useful to our operational doctrine. So nearly every banana country armed force uses them because they're dirt cheap, readily avaialable on global arms markets, and there's no competing weapon in the bang for the buck category.

[Evil_Eric_4]

They were cheering

Well, they can cheer all they want.

And you can bet your sweet ass that Ill be cheering when we go back in there with overwhelming firepower and finish what we started.(And I dont mean feeding them).

Bunch of cockroaches

[Bereta_Eder]

I saw a reportage on CNN about that film and Somalia. And the somalis enjoyed it because they liked to see americans die

What were you doing in Somalia? Who asked you to go there?
Why were they laughing? It was clear that you are there enemies.

Can someone please answer me in 2 lines because I do not know much about the subject.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Sikander


Does this really happen at your local theatre?

Yes, and I don't even live in the USA! Well, OK... it's not really the japanese, german or vietenemse in particular, it's what ever is depicted as the villian in the movie. (which is generally always an american enemy, since the films are american.)

[MichaeltheGreat]

The UN went there, in suport of humanitarian relief efforts. As the UN had it's ass handed to it, it asked the US to take a larger security role in the humanitarian mission. We were the enemies of Mohammad Farah Aidid, who's followers found the Somali famine and drought to be a convenient weapon of extermination against the traditional enemies / victims (farmer tribes as opposed to warrior tribes) of his clan.

The famine threatened 4.5 million Somalis. Aidid was quite happy with that, because they weren't his people, they were enemies of his people, so he was happy to attack UN forces (initially mostly non-Americans), and hijack relief supplies from humanitarian groups.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The UN went there, in suport of humanitarian relief efforts. As the UN had it's ass handed to it, it asked the US to take a larger security role in the humanitarian mission. We were the enemies of Mohammad Farah Aidid, who's followers found the Somali famine and drought to be a convenient weapon of extermination against the traditional enemies / victims (farmer tribes as opposed to warrior tribes) of his clan.

The famine threatened 4.5 million Somalis. Aidid was quite happy with that, because they weren't his people, they were enemies of his people, so he was happy to attack UN forces (initially mostly non-Americans), and hijack relief supplies from humanitarian groups.

I see. So you were caught up between fighting fractions.

So logically those whom you tried to help would be on your side.

What is the percentage of those with Aidid and those against him in Somalia, anyone knows?

[Bereta_Eder]

BTW I know this would sound harsh but it sounded like a badly planed operation.

But in this instance and from the few things I have heard about it, it seems to me that this was an instance where the US really did try to help without having an agenda of its own... So I guess I'm sorry that these things happened.

Maybe when the euro-army will be cemented you can just say "do it yourselves and see how it goes".

I think that a very large part of the US military officials had very strong reservations about doing it. And that it was the Clinton administration (good intentions - wrong choices in that matter) who forced the military to go there no matter what.

Isn't it also true that in Somalia the Al Qaeda has a large following?

This whole region seems like a volcano that explodes from time to time and whoever happens to be there gets fried.