Thoughts on watching Black Hawk Down
“Thoughts on watc-X185”
We rewatched (most) of Black Hawk Down last night, mainly because it was touted as being a good test of a home theatre (it is). For anyone who doesn’t know, the movie recreates the horrible episode in Mogadishu where US troops suffered greatly at the hands of the Somali’s. The movie shows exactly why we are doomed to failure in Iraq- because you aren’t fighting an army, you’re fighting an entire country. The movie is reputed to be accurate (certain appeared so from our vantage point…).
But I get the feeling that we won’t finish it.
Why?
Because early on in the film a new recruit arrives at the camp and you learn he’s 18 years old. His first day in he falls from a Black Hawk helicopter and has to be airlifted out of the conflict. Watching the movie, I turned to Nancy and asked “Can you imagine Brian in that?”
And we both shuttered at the notion of my film-loving, head in the clouds 18 year old (who’s just now getting a drivers license) walking down a bombed out street in some pissed off locals gunsights. For what?
WMD? A lie.
Ties to terrorist groups? A lie.
9/11? A lie.
Democracy and the liberation of 50 million people? A lie.
BHD is a strong movie that I imagine went a significant way to hardening some peoples concept of “our enemy” in the War on Terror (TM). Dragging bodies down streets and setting them aflame doesn’t really help in the public relations arena. Thus, many of those who you encounter with the magnetic “Support Our Troops” ribbons on their cars imagine that this is who we are fighting, and in a large sense, they are right. But they never ask themselves why they are fighting.
They are fighting because they are proud, independent people. Just like us. And they want us out of their countries. They have for centuries. End of story. If they “attacked us because they hate our freedoms” then why didn’t they attack Switzerland, or Sweden?
Because those countries didn’t rape their land (or children, if descriptions of the blocked by the DoD pictures of Abu Grahib are accurate), nuke their citizens with DU, or overthrow their elected governments, thats why.
I love my country. I fear my government. I loathe our president. I adore my son. My son, who will live to make movies or whatever he decides to do, since he won’t be gunned down in some far away land because Dick Cheney’s buddies say he needs to be sacrificed.
Nope, not on my watch. To those who say freedom isn’t free, I agree. It shouldn’t be cheapened, either.
