I just watched Black Hawk Down again

[mduffy31]

And as I watched it, all I could think about is the men and women that volunteer for the Army. Men who willing walk into gunfire. Would you want to do that? I know that I wouldn't. When the two Delta Force Snipers roped into the second chopper crash to defend the pilot, knowing full well they would probably be killed it brought a tear to my eye. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. As I watched all I could think about is that this is what our Army should be doing. Defending the defenseless, like they were trying to do in Somalia. In the first scene when Aidid's men start shoot civilians who just wanted FOOD, and our soldiers couldn't do anything about it. How can we claim moral authority when we don't stop things like this from happening. I have always felt that for some reason Africa just doesn't matter to the world. That is why the world community didn't stop Rwanda, Darfur. We are too busy fighting some bullshit war over oil. We waste our precious resource, the men and women who want to fight for this country. It is time for this to end.

[BoneDaddy]

1. Unfortunately

that love of fellow soldier and dedication to good causes is manipulated by those at the top.

[Kenergy]

3. True n/t

[opusprime]

2. Its worse than that...

We are now arming the very same people responsible for Mogadishu. Just like Iraq, we cannot help choosing one villan over the next. We never learn, and the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Oh, and guess what southern Somalia has?? OIL.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070107/ap_on_re_af/somalia

[Mika]

4. Whatdoyamean, "we never learn"? Corporations have learned. They make money.

www.whywefightmovie.com

[dave_p]

5. Save them

Thinking of the hundreds of Somali civilians (estimates run to 2000) butchered in the "rescue" mission brings tears to my eyes. I remember the news footage of the operation: it was a holocaust of helicopters raining bullets indiscriminately into the slums below. The US wouldn't have found its forces isolated in an ungovernable hostile city if it hadn't fired a missile into a peace meeting of local leaders three months earlier. Somalis are still paying the price 13 years on.

[JackRiddler]

6. Does it occur to you that this is a movie?

Golly, did it show you how bad the evildoers opposing our always noble troops are? I guess it must be true.

US had no business in Somalia. This intervention was authorized by Papa Bush after he lost the election, probably as a booby trap for the incoming Clinton.

In fact, US military has no business anywhere outside US borders. All moral authority for US involvement in military action was ceded long ago, during the dozens of covert wars, proxy wars, death squad campaigns, election fixes and topplings of other peoples' governments. The military industrial complex creates the problems it supposedly combats.

Why do you think all these people in Mogadishu grabbed their rifles as soon as they saw the foreign invaders coming in on their helicopters? Why do the 1000 Somalis who lost their lives that day mean less than the 18 foreign soldiers who had no business on the opposite side of the planet from any conceivable defense of their nation?

Furthermore, the US and France were both heavily involved in Rwanda. They armed the opposing factions. France had the worst role there, but they intervened directly during the actual genocide to secure the retreat of the Hutu Power forces. In other words, the West DID intervene in Rwanda - in order to make things worse. This is contrary to the entirely false myth of how the West "should have" done something. Absolute bullshit, designed to give a "liberal" justification for future actions on behalf of imperialist interests.