Black Hawk Down Analysis

The film Black Hawk Down takes place on October 3, 1993 when United States Special Forces were sent into Somali to deliver food and destabilize their government. Flying in black hawk helicopters to put boots on the ground is when the mission when terribly wrong. The Somalis shot down two of the helicopters immediately. One hundred U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by their captain were dropped off in the capital city of Mogadishu by a black hawk helicopter to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. Eighteen American Soldiers lost their lives and more than seventy were wounded. Somali casualties are estimated between fifteen hundred and three thousand, including civilians. The Somali National Alliance (SNA) claims 315 dead, with 812 wounded (cite). Days later, President Bill Clinton pulled out the troops. The Somali warlords didn’t care about their people, all they wanted to do was protect their

Ashley Dawson argues that Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down may be seen with the benefit of historical hindsight as a portrait of the fear of imperial overreach and failure as written through the psyche of elite U.S. soldiers (cite). Soon after September 11th, 2001, Black Hawk Down was released for a group of military and civilian leaders that included, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Thomas E. White, and Oliver North (cite). Ridley Scott, the director of Black Hawk Down held this early release of the film to the group to clarify the idea that the military had “messed up in Somali” (cite). According to (cite) Ridley Scott says, “The U.S. intervention in Somali was heroic in a very unstoppable part of the world”. The presence of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz at the prescreening of the film suggests that policymakers were sensitive to the role that representations of the United States Military interventions along the