Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 10:17:37 -0700
From: dixiebefree@hotmail.com ("dixie b")
Subject: [azpeace] Somolia:Bushs' next target on War on Terrorism?/action
To: azpeace@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: azpeace@yahoogroups.com
Some of us here in Flagstaff are organizing a picket to raise awareness and
to create dialogue. There are other actions taking place in other parts of
the country.The evidence is growing that not only is US action planned but
the operation may have already begun withcovert operations. For more
information you can email me dixiebefree@hotmail.com
Somolia: Next Target in Bush's War On Terrorism?
An Excellent Article--Eduardo Cohen has spotted a 'new' US target, which
like Iraq, is being targeted because of its oil resources. Also a forward
of an excerpt by Democracy Now--In Exile talking about Somolia and
Hollywoods new blockbuster "Black Hawk Down" that apparently the Pentagon
itself helped shape. And a NY Times review.
There are movies coming out RIGHT NOW about war that condition people
psychologically. Picketing these movies may be a good way for the anti-war
movement to get media coverage and to create dialogue. What about an
informational packet and voices of anti-war vets, feminists, Native
Americans and peace/justice groups outside movie theatres? "Black Hawk Down"
is opening in theaters January 18 (already released in NY and LA).
*****Democracy Now-In Exile*********************************
Story: "BLACK HAWK DOWN": AS WASHINGTON PAVES THE WAY FR AN ATTACK ON
SOMALIA, HOLLYWOOD JOINS FORCES WITH THE PENTAGON TO TRANSFORM THE 1993
INVASION FROM WHAT PRESIDENT CLINTON CALLED HIS DARKEST HOUR, TO WHAT FORMER
DISNEY EXEC CALLS AMERICA'S BRIGHTEST HOUR
It appears that the US is preparing to attack Somalia in the next stage of
the so-called war on terrorism.
Meanwhile, U.S. diplomat Glenn Warren has arrived in Mogadishu. It is the
first time in seven years that a US diplomatic official has visited the
Somali capital. Warren told the country's interim government yesterday the
US was determined to fight terrorism. He is scheduled to meet with rival
clan leaders today.
And British and Kenyan papers are reporting that Kenya has given its consent
for US and British forces to use the country as a base for action against
the neighboring country. Diplomatic sources said the deal was reached during
talks in Nairobi between the British Defense Secretary and President Moi of
Kenya. President Moi is said to be exacting a high price for his
cooperation: the deal is expected to open the way for the easing of aid to
Nairobi as the country moves into an election year.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Hollywood producers are rushing to release
a blockbuster about the 1993 US invasion of Somalia in the next few days
months ahead of schedule. The Clinton administration presented the mission
as humanitarian, designed to liberate thousands of starving Somalis from a
brutal clan leader who was blocking U.N. food shipments and massacring UN
workers. But when US forces dropped into a teeming market in Mogadishu on
October 3, 1993, 18 US soldiers, and over a thousand Somalis, were killed.
President Clinton called the massacre one of the darkest hours of his
administration.
But former Disney studio chief Joe Roth, whose Revolution Studios made the
$120 million movie, says his team would work to assure the audience that "it
is, in fact, America's brightest hour."
Today, we'll spend the hour discussing the events of October 3, 1993 from a
few different perspectives, how the Pentagon helped to shape the movie
"Black Hawk Down," and U.S. interests in Somalia, past and present. In a few
minutes we'll be joined by a Somali NGO leader and a Somali former UNDP
official. But we go now to Mark Bowden, author of the book Black Hawk Down.
I spoke to him before he left for Europe, and asked him to tell us what
happened, from his perspective, on October 3, 1993.
here is that link: http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/exile/dn20011220.html
Commentary From the Edge:
A Dissident American oice
20 December 2001
Somalia: Next target in Bushs War on Terrorism?
by Eduardo Cohen
In the post-September 11th environment of frenzied flag waving and
dangerously unquestioning nationalism, it is increasingly difficult if not
dangerous to raise seriously critical questions about US foreign policy and
its possible motives. Nonetheless, when our foreign policy effects the
lives and deaths of thousands of people around the globe, it may be our
moral and ethical responsibility to do so. And US foreign and military
policy could soon affect the lives and the deaths of hundreds if not
thousands in the African nation of Somalia.
Ever since serving in the Vietnam War in 1966, after volunteering for
service as an Army paratrooper, I have been skeptical of official
government explanations concerning the motives of US foreign and military
policy. It was clear to me within weeks of my arrival in Vietnam, where US
forces were protecting the dictatorial regime of General Nguyen Cao Ky, that
the stated purpose of our mission, defending democracy, had no connection
with reality.
My skepticism was further reinforced over the course of eight years spent in
Latin America where, in Bolivia in 1973, I was shown a silenced sub-machine
gun provided to the right-wing dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer Suarez by
the United States Agency for International Developments Public Safety
Program, and where, in 1985, I interviewed mercenaries in Costa Ricas La
Reforma prison who had been arrested for smggling arms and explosives into
Nicaragua. They had been working for the Central Intelligence Agency to
secretly arm the US supported Contra guerrillas in President Reagans proxy
war against Nicaragua, an operation that had been prohibited by the American
Congress and was officially denied by the Reagan Administration.
And in 1990, shortly after we were told by the first President Bush that the
United States would reluctantly go to war to defend Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
in the wake of the brutal and unexpected Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, I had
seen hard evidence that, on the eve of that invasion, Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein had been given a clear green light for the invasion by at least
three official representatives of the United States government.
Of course that evidence indicated that the Persian Gulf War was a conflict
that the Bush Administration actually wanted, helped to create and that
facilitated expansion of US geo-political control in the region.
So in 1992 when American military forces were dispatched by President
Clinton to carry out humanitarian intervention in Somalia out of American
concern for starving famine stricken Africans, I couldnt help but view
those events with some level of skepticism also. After all, I wondered,
when had concern for starving Africans ever been a significant factor in the
formulation of American foreign and military policy in that part of the
world before?
Then, when the United States became involved in an attempt to build a stable
and assuredly pro-American government there, something we euphemistically
call nation-building, an assignment far exceeding the stated purpose of
providing humanitarian assistance, we were told that American Forces in
Somalia were suffering from something called mission creep. We went into
Somalia do this but somehow we wound up doing that. My curiosity and
skepticism deepened.
So I just scratched my head and wondered... until January 18th, 1993. It
was on that day that I saw an article in the Los Angeles times that allowed
me to stop scratching my head.
The story explained that four American oil giants had negotiated oil
concessions with the previous government in Somalia, effectively dividing up
more than two-thirds of the land area of Somalia into four giant oil
concessions. Geologists had told the oil companies that a subterranean
structure, from which oil was already being extracted in Yemen, extended in
a sweeping arc beneath the Gulf of Aden and much of the Somali desert.
But in order to gain access to those oil deposits, the four companies,
Chevron, Amoco, Conoco and Phillips Petroleum needed a stable government in
Somalia that would honor the agreements they had negotiated with a previous
regime.
Though the story was made available to the national news media over the LA
Times news wire, this critically important piece of information was
systematically ignored by the mainstream American news media
Given the history of US foreign and military policy in the Middle East and
Northern Africa, it would be politically naive to believe that the interests
of these major oil companies were a mere coincidence and that US foreign and
military policy was being driven simply by an unprecedented concern for
starving Africans.
But American operations, apparently to control local militias and install a
friendly government, were cut short when 18 American soldiers, members of an
Army Ranger team, were killed in a failed attempt to kidnap the leader of
one of the most powerful Somali militias.
The American public had not been prepared for a significant loss of American
lives. The number of soldiers killed, along with the graphic footage of the
corpse of a US soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu,
created a sharp political backlash resulting in the rapid withdrawal of US
forces from Somalia.
In recent months, the US military machine has been unleashed against
Afghanistan in what the Bush administration describes as an international
war against terrorism that will not be limited to Afghanistan. The careful
efforts of the Bush Adminisration to prepare the American public in advance
to expect and accept American casualties in the war on Afghanistan indicates
that the lesson of the debacle in Somalia was not lost on the Bush
Administration.
In the wake of what has the appearance of a successful military campaign in
Afghanistan, there is much speculation as to who and where the next target
of Bushs war on terrorism will be. A handful of nations have been
mentioned as either rogue states, nations in which terrorist groups exist
an operate or states that support or sponsor terrorist groups. The list of
potential targets includes North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan,
Libya, Somalia and the Philippines.
The United States is already deeply involved in supporting the Philippine
government in military campaigns against Muslim separatist militias on the
island of Mindanao - at least one of which, Abu Sayyaf, has alleged ties to
Osama bin Laden - and a stronger but less publicized insurgency in the
Central Philippines led by the Marxist New Peoples Army. The Bush
Administration has already sent over 100 million dollars of military aid as
well as a number of military advisers to assist the Philippine Army.
There is good reason for growing concerns that the country of Iraq, already
devastated by a decade of bombing and economic sanctions, may be the next
military target in Bushs war on terrorism. There have been concerted
efforts by many of Washingtons influential military and foreign policy
hawks to garner support for a renewed military campaign against Iraq and its
leader, Saddam Hussein. That campaign is led by Defense Department policy
adviser Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, President of the right wing Center for
Security Policy, former UNSCOM director Richard Butler and Assistant Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz among others. Still, more powerful forces may be
at play.
The oil deposits in Somalia are still there. The four American oil giants,
now reduced to three as the result of the recent merger of Conoco and
Phillips Petroleum, would predictably like to gain access to the oil they
believe is waiting for them. It is that American corporate interest in
Somali oil deposits, estimated to be worth billions of dollars, that may
push Somalia next into the cross hairs of the US military and the War on
Terrorism.
Al-Qaeda, the network which were told was formed by Saudi militant Osama
bin Laden to carry out terrorism against American targets throughout the
world, is reportedly the main target of the American campaign in
Afghanistan. Now we are told by senior American officials that parts of the
al-Qaeda network continue to function in Somalia - a claim that might be
difficult to substantiate at best.
And shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Bush
Administration designated al-Itihaad, a Somali Islamic organization, as a
terrorist group and also ordered the freezing of assets belonging to al-
Barakat, a Somali bank which they accused of funding Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network.
As the military campaign against Afghanistan was beginning, American
officials claimed that al-Qaeda had sent some of its lieutenants to Somalia
to help Somali forces plan the now famous ambush that brought down two
American Blackhawk helicopters and killed 18 American Rangers in 1993.
But why would armed Somali militias, with years of wartime experience under
their belts, need al-Qaeda advisers to tell them how to carry out an
ambush.. It just didnt make any sense... unless, of course, the Bush
Administration was laying the groundwork for another US military
intervention in Somalia.
Ever since hearing those claims, I have been concerned that President Bush
might be preparing to send military forces into Somalia to finish the
mission they were sent there to carry out in 1992. Now, there are growing
indications that a second intervention in Somalia is on the drawing board
and that it may soon be attempted.
According to reports in three British newspapers, a senior German official
who was briefed by US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when Rumsfeld met
in Europe with NATO officials last week, spoke with the press about some of
Rumsfelds comments. He quoted Rumsfeld as saying that Somalia could
become the next target of US action, in an attempt to shut down boltholes
for al-Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan. The German official also said
that US action against Somalia was not a question of "if" but "how and
when".
These comments were confirmed by General Richard Myers, chairman of the US
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who attempte to downplay the imminence of a
military attack by explaining that military action was only one of several
options the United States might consider in going after alleged terrorist
groups in Somalia.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Walter Kansteiner, the
assistant secretary of state for Africa, said last week that the United
States had evidence of links between the Somali Islamic organization
al-Itihaad and al-Qaeda. He also expressed his belief that the Somali
group influenced the interim government of Somalia.
The interim government, headed by Abdiqasim Salat Hassan and known as the
Transitional National Government or TNG, is opposed by several Somali
political and paramilitary factions backed by neighboring Ethiopia under the
umbrella of the Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council (SRRC). This
is not unlike pre-war conditions in Afghanistan where the partially ruling
Taliban involuntary shared part of the country with the Northern Alliance,
an umbrella of anti-government para-military organizartions also supported
by a neighboring state, Uzbekistan.
According to reports in several British papers, a team of nine Americans
were seen earlier this month in the Central Somali town of Baidoa meeting
with leaders of at least two of the opposing factions. Representatives of
one of those groups, the Rahanwein Resistance Army, recently claimed that
they had been providing information to the United States about possible
terrorist targets inside Somalia.
Even before the recent indications of a possible American attack, the TNG
had stated its willingness to cooperate with the United States in its war on
terrorism.
And recently, amidst growing fears of such an attack, Somali Transport
Minister Abdi Guled Mohamed told the Independent: "We have said since 11
September that we want to help. If the Americans say there are terrorists
in Somalia, they should tell us how they know this. If there are terrorists
here, then we will put them in prison, put them where they belong. We will
work with the Americans to fight terrorists."
These statements seem to have little effect on the Bush Administration
though. According to a report in The Guardian, US regional envoy Glen
Warren said this week that the United States does not recognize "any
government or regional government or any other sort of administration in
Somalia". Such comments can only heighten fears in Somalia of some kind of
imminent American action.
Those fears can only be heighterned further by recent reports from Kenya.
Alex Duval, South African based correspondent for The Independent, recently
reported widespread concern in Kenya that the US is pressuring the
government there to use that nation as a base for air attacks on Somalia.
If those suspicions are true, they tell us not only of the Bush
Administrations intent to attack Somali targets but also something about
the probable scope and intensity of those attacks.
The United States could launch air attacks against Somalia from aircraft
carriers in the Indian Ocean. But intense air campaigns, such as the
campaign now winding down in Afghanistan, require heavier bombers than those
able to operate from aircraft carriers. Heavier bombers such as the B-1s
and B-52s have been operating from bases in Europe and on the island of
Diego Garcia in the southern Indian Ocean.
Heavier bombers could reach Somalia from Diego Garcia also. But using land
bases in Kenya, next door to Somalia, the U. S. Air Force could fly four or
five times the number of missions in the same period of time. That could
indicate that the Bush Administration is anticipating an extremely intensive
air campaign against Somalia.
Unlike Iraq, where an American military campaign would provoke broad
opposition from Arab and European nations, many of them US allies, Somalia,
with a marginally functioning government at best, would provide a much
easier and less problematic target.
Of course, if there is a new military campaign in Somalia, the American
public will almost certainly be prepared in advance to accept American
casualties. Judging from the first intervention, civilian casualties among
the Somali population could be horrendously high.. And of course well be
told that the purpose of the campaign will be to root out terrorism.
If the American news media function as poorly and as uncritically as they
did during the first US intervention in Somalia, the American people will
have little reason to believe otherwise.
Coincidentally, a Hollywood movie, Blackhawk Down, presenting a dramatic and
predictably pro-American interpretation of the Somali ambush of 1993, is
scheduled for holiday release and will certainly help fuel American desire
for revenge and make US intervention in Somalia an even easier sell for the
Bush Administration.
Should the questions be raised, Im sure well be assured by the Bush
Administration that it is mere coincidence that there are oil reserves in
Somalia with an estimated worth in the billions of dollars, that three
powerful American oil giants have been coveting those oil deposits for
nearly a decade or more and that no fewer than five high ranking officials
in the Bush Administration, including the National Security Adviser, the
vice-president and the President himself, are former oil industry employees.
And like those in the first US military operation there, as well as my
fellow soldiers in the Vietnam War, the American soldiers asked to kill or
be killed in that far off place may be the only people in Somalia who wont
know why theyre actually there.
# # #
About Eduardo Cohen:
Eduardo Cohen served in a combat unit in Vietnam (173rd Airborne Brigade,
USAR) where he first noticed sharp contrasts between what he saw on the
ground and what was being reported in American newspapers. After two months
in a ground combat unit he was assigned to the 173rds Press Information
Office where he refused orders to make up stories to be given to US news
media.
He later lived seven years in Latin America where he once again saw deep
disparities between the impact of US policy and what was being reported in
the United States. In Bolivia, National Guard officers showed him silenced
9mm submachine guns supplied to them through the US Agency for International
Developments OPublic Safety Program.
He studied Anthropology and Communications at UC Santa Barbara from 1980 to
1984. While at UCSB he created OThe Other Americas radio program at KCSB
in Santa Barbara in 1981. It aired on several California radio stations
until 1995 including seven years on KPFA in Berkeley.
OThe Other Americas used the world press, human rights experts,
government officials and other primary sources, to examine discrepancies
between the impact of US foreign policy in Latin America and the Caribbean
and what was being reported here by the US news media. OThe Other Americas
later expanded its coverage to include Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Eduardo Cohen was one of the first journalists in the United States to
expose the first practice invasion of Grenada, carried out on the Puerto
Rican island of Vieques in 981, and the creation and training of the
Nicaraguan Contras by the CIA in Honduras.
Cohen exposed the covert funding of banned CIA operations in Costa Rica and
Nicaragua - an operation that would later be known as a component of the
Iran-Contra scandal - after interviewing mercenaries imprisoned by Costa
Rican authorities in 1985 for smuggling
arms and explosives.
In 1990 he was sponsored by the Bay Area American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee to participate in a delegation that traveled to the Middle East
during the Persian Gulf War.
In 1991, Cohen produced 'Israel, Palestine and the Requisites of Peace, a
slide presentation on the Palestinian-Israeli crisis from interviews and
photographs taken during three weeks of travels in Israel, Gaza and the
WestBank.
He has lectured on: Media Distortion of US Foreign Policy; Propaganda and
Racism in News and Popular Culture; and How Anti-Arab Racism Distorts
American Perception of Middle East conflict.
He has lectured on these topics at numerous universities including
Stanford,UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, California State
UniversitySacramento, San Francisco State University and Villanova.
In 1999 he was invited to lecture on anti-Arab racism in American news
reporting at a conference at Villanova University organized by the
Department of Arab and Islamic Studies.
He is now a freelance writer, media relations consultant and lecturer
living in Sacramento, California and he is a member of the speakers bureau
of Sacramento-Yolo Peace Action.
His lecture topics include:
*The Hidden History of US Foreign and Military Policy
*The impact of mass media on public perception.
*American news coverage during military intervention and conflict.
*Government management of public perception.
*Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism in US perception of the Middle East.
*The importance of Critical News Consumption;
*Critical failures in American journalism.
*The relationship between the American Press and the CIA.
*The contradictions between covert policies and democratic process.
*The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict thru the lenses of American news media.
Eduardo Cohen can be contacted at:
Tel: (916) 442-5811
e-mail: eduardoben@earthlink.net
e-mail: eduardoben2@yahoo.com
Also see The Independent, UK, Thursday, December 20:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=110973
Los Angeles Times Abstract:
The Oil Factor in Somalia
1. COLUMN ONE;
The Oil Factor in Somalia;
Four American petroleum giants had agreements with the African
nation before its civil war began. They could reap big rewards if peace
is restored.
Monday, January 18, 1993
Home Edition
ID: 0930006020
PART A Section
Byline: MARK FINEMAN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
1850 words
Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major
US oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in
exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of
the Somali countryside.
Conoco Inc, Amoco Corp, Chevron Corp, Phillips Petroleum Co
Search the archives for similar stories about: Oil - Somalia, Somalia -
Contracts, Oil Industry - United States, United States - Foreign Policy -
Somalia, Conoco Inc, Amoco Corp, Chevron Corp, Phillips Petroleum Co,
Bush,George
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
Note: May not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission. To make a
permissions request, please visit http://www.lats.com/rights/ for
information and an easy request form. The Los Angeles Times archives are
stored on a SAVE (tm) newspaper library system from MediaStream, Inc., a
Knight-Ridder Inc. company.
2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
18 December 2001 22:21 GMT Home > News > World > Africa
Fears of strike on Somalia from bases in Kenya
By Alex Duval Smith Africa Correspondent
The Independent
18 December 2001
There are strong indications that the United States is preparing to launch
air attacks on Somalia from bases in neighbouring Kenya, despite
convincing evidence that al-Qa'ida groups of any significance are unlikely
to be operating in the country.
Although the threat of attacks may yet prove to be a bout of energetic
sabre-rattling by America, it is causing considerable unease in Kenya and
enormous fear in Somalia.
Yesterday, the BBC World Service began broadcasting two extra daily
15-minute programmes on FM in Somalia, a move it denied had been prompted by
the Foreign Office and which it said was in response to growing paranoia and
a lack of reliable information in the country.
Barry Langridge, the head of the World Service's Africa and Middle East
section, said: "People are extremely nervous. Banking systems and phone
companies in Somalia have been hit by the American clampdown on groups
allegedly linked to al-Qa'ida and people feel very isolated."
He said people in Somalia felt the US had a "score to settle" after the
deaths of 18 of its soldiers during a botched US intervention in 1993. "We
have blanket listening in Somalia, but since the closure of banking
institutions and the internet, people cannot get information and feel
nervous.
"The expanded service is our decision. We do not have to ask the Foreign
Office. We have not done this so as to get Mr Blair or Mr Bush on the air."
Kenyans, who were not compensated for the 1998 al-Qa'ida-linked bombing of
the US embassy in Nairobi, are reluctant to invite possible further
instability in their country, which has a large Somali community. They see
any deal between the US, Britain and Kenya's President, Daniel Arap Moi,
merely as a way for the 77-year-old leader to bargain for a resumption of
foreign aid in the run-up to elections next year.
In Nairobi, the opposition leader Mwai Kibaki said he feared Mr Moi had
once again overridden the country's parliament by promising his support for
the second wave of the campaign against terrorism at meetings earlier this
month with the Secretary of State for Defenc, Geoff Hoon, and the US
assistant secretary of state for Africa, Walter Kansteiner.
Many observers believe Mr Moi has offered Kenya as a "launch pad" for air
attacks on Somalia. Others say the US, which according to some reports
already has a small number of special forces in Somalia, is more likely to
bomb the country from warplanes based on aircraft carriers in the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, and support an Ethiopian land invasion.
Mr Kibaki said: "This is too serious a matter for Kenya's government to
act on by itself and they [the US and Britain] should not treat us as a
colony. Parliament must know the scale of risk to our security before we can
justify surrendering any control of our territory."
Few experts on the Horn of Africa region can see any good reason why
Somalia, which has no national government and is largely run by rival
warlords, could be perceived as a viable haven for terrorists.
America's informants on the "terrorist" activities of al- Itihaad, a
Saudi-funded group that unsucessfully tried to unite the country under an
Islamic banner in the 1980s and 1990s, is a Somali faction, the Rahanwein
Resistance Army.
An Action Film Hits Close, but How Close?
December 26, 2001
By RICK LYMAN
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 25 - "Black Hawk Down," a realistic and
action-packed re-enactment of the battle on the streets of
Mogadishu that cost several hundred Somalis and 18 American
soldiers their lives in October 1993, came within inches of
being the first major Hollywood film to directly address
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But in the end, the director Ridley Scott and other members
of the film's team - the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer; the
chief of Revolution Studios, Joe Roth; and Mark Bowden, the
author of the best-seller on which the film was based -
decided that referring directly to Sept. 11 was unnecessary
and too distracting. And so, as Mr. Scott rushed to finish
in time to qualify for this year's Academy Awards, they
rewrote a series of text blocks at the end of the film
(known as the crawl) that had initially linked America's
loss of resolve in Somalia a decade ago with emboldening
the terrorists who attacked America in September.
"In the end, I just felt it was obvious," Mr. Scott said.
"I felt that the questions posed were obvious, they were
presented in the movie, and it really would have been too
much to bring in Sept. 11 at the end."
Of greater concern to the filmmakers, they said, was
keeping the movie as authentic as they could, to give
audiences a taste of the real, brutal stakes of battle,
even in an age of high-tech weaponry.
"When it comes down to it, it's still about somebody having
to do down there and crawl inside that cave in
Afghanistan," Mr. Scott said. The filmmakers were wary of
distracting from that message by invoking potentially
contentious political issues or, worse yet, by being
perceived as exploiting a national tragedy.
"It was a judgment call," Mr. Bowden said. "And I know you
would think that a decision like this would have had
something to do with the commercial aspects of releasing a
movie, but it didn't. It was all about what was the right
thing to do for the film."
Hollywood movies, if anything, generally go way out of
their way to avoid making direct political statements,
fearful that any stand, however feeble, is likely to upset
potential ticket buyers. So it would have been an unusually
bold move for a big, expensive studio production like
"Black Hawk Down" to blame President Bill Clinton and
American public opinion for setting the stage for the kind
of terrorism behind Sept. 11.
"It was a hard decision to think about bringing it up,"
said Mr. Roth, whose recently formed production company
made the film, which will be released by Columbia Pictures
in a handful of theaters on Dec. 28 to qualify for the
Academy Awards before general release on Jan. 18.
The American military effort in Somalia is most often
remembered as a humanitarian mission that went sour, a
well-motivated attempt to save tens of thousands of
starving people in the wa-torn East African nation beset
with civil war among rival clans. Only later, when the
United Nations effort to build some form of government in
the anarchic nation fell apart, did the most powerful
Somali warlord in Mogadishu, Muhammad Farrah Aidid, become
hunted by U.N. forces.
The United States military operation on Oct. 3, 1993, was
intended as a quick incursion by ground troops and
helicopter-borne Rangers to capture some of Mr. Aidid's top
lieutenants at a clandestine meeting in the center of the
city. When two American helicopters were felled by rocket-
propelled grenades and hundreds of Aidid supporters rushed
in to fight, the planned 45-minute mission disintegrated
into a sprawling, 16-hour urban battle that lasted all
night.
It was after news of the deaths reached the outside world -
and especially after publication of Paul Watson's Pulitzer
Prize-winning photograph of one of the dead American
soldiers being dragged through a Mogadishu marketplace -
that American public opinion turned dramatically against
further involvement in the struggle. Within a few months,
President Clinton had pulled out the last of the American
troops.
This led, some have argued, to a loss of boldness and
confidence in the pursuit of American foreign policy that
stretched through most of the next decade, up until Sept.
11.
Others, most notably David Halberstam in this fall's
best-seller "War in a Time of Peace," have argued that this
American military reluctance was actually an outgrowth of
the nation's Vietnam experience, and had also played a role
in the Gulf War campaign that predated Somalia. But the
American deaths in Mogadishu certainly did nothing to
stiffen American public opinion regarding further foreign
campaigns.
It was only following the horrific images of jets plowing
into the World Trade Center towers and of the damage to the
Pentagon that the American public was stirred again, Mr.
Roth said, ending the long period of timidity and
isolationism. "That one picture in 1993 turned it one way
and then, on Sept. 11, another picture changed it back
again," he said.
Tom Matthews, who retired after 28 years as a helicopter
pilot, was a lieutenant colonel in charge of all of the
choppers hovering over Mogadishu during the battle depicted
in Mr. Bowden's book. "I think, clearly, that some people
looked at what happened in Somalia and they saw that as a
sign of weakness," he said.
What was important to him, and to the Army Rangers and
Delta Force members who had taken part in the 1993 battle
and who were at the world premiere last week of "Black Hawk
Down" at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in
Beverly Hills, was that the record be made clear that what
occurred on the streets of Mogadishu was not a military
debacle for America.
Sgt. First Class Matthew Eversmann, who played a key role
in the Mogadishu fighting and is the central character in
the film (portrayed by Josh Hartnett), said that he was
satisfied that the filmmakers, within the constraints of
their need to be entertaining, had accurately shown what it
was like to be in the middle of that battle. And regardless
of inferences about how it might have affected subsequent
American foreign policy, which he said he was constrained
from discussing because he was still on active duty, he was
convinced that the film would be a tonic for audiences now
that American soldiers are in conflict once again.
"I think it's going to be good for people to see this movie
in the wake of what has been happening," Sergeant Eversmann
said. "It's good for them to know that we have a capable
military filled with guys willing to slide down the rope
into the furnace, if you'll pardon me using a clich."
Actually, the decision on the closing crawl on the film was
made in early December, as Mr. Scott scrambled to get a
finished print of the film in time for its limited release
(the final piece of the film's score, by Hans Zimmer, was
not finished until 45 minutes before the premiere, the
composer said, which is about as close as you can cut it).
An earlier print of the film, shown to a few journalists
in mid-November, included a closing crawl that ticked off a
series of events that followed the Mogadishu mission,
including the removal of American troops from Somalia by
President Clinton, the assassination of Mr. Aidid, the
conflicts and humanitarian disasters in Rwanda, Bosnia and
Kosovo and, finally, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The
implication was that an American loss of foreign policy
resolve, and a reluctance to get involved in subsequent
disasters, had played a role in convincing terrorists they
could attack the United States.
"With what happened in Mogadishu, with the way that all
came down, you end up with the terrorism we see today," Mr.
Roth said. "It's so obvious now, eight years later. Jerry
and Ridley and I all agreed we would be remiss in not
making this connection to the general audience."
When people who had seen this early version of the film
offered divergent reactions to the message - especially
foreign journalists, to whom the conflicts i Rwanda and
the former Yugoslavia had a somewhat different meaning - it
was at first decided to trim out Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo
but to keep the connection to Sept. 11.
The situations in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia were
murkier and seemed to stir up contentious feelings,
especially abroad, Mr. Roth said. But the filmmakers still
felt on firm ground connecting Mogadishu directly to Sept.
11, particularly on the strength of an interview Osama bin
Laden gave following the bombings of the American embassies
in Africa in which he characterized America's response to
the Mogadishu battle as indicating a lack of national
resolve.
But Mr. Scott still worried about including the Sept. 11
reference at all. Discussions went back and forth, and
finally, as the film approached its final cut, it was
removed.
The closing crawl that audiences will actually see
concludes after describing the withdrawal of American
troops from Somalia, the assassination of Mr. Aidid and the
retirement of the United States commander who had led the
1993 raid. "I think the implication is there, if you want
to discuss it," Mr. Scott said. "To me, it's very clear
that there is a connection between Mogadishu and what is
happening now. But to make it explicit at the end of this
movie would have been too much."
Mr. Bruckheimer said he did not think the audience's
appreciation of the film would really have been swayed by
its political content, or even by having to view it during
a time of actual conflict.
"I think it's a powerful film," he said. "And I think
people are going to go see it based on its quality and not
on any of these other considerations."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/movies/26HAWK.html?ex=1010482550&ei=1&en=2a7b77dc8714a040
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Send FREE Holiday eCards from Yahoo! Greetings.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/IgTaHA/ZQdDAA/ySSFAA/MtTslB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
azpeace-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/