I've long awaited this since I've seen it advertised, especially from the Somali perspective. I knew going into it, especially with said perspective, that there will be a lot of angry Somalis who have inevitably been mislead into believing propaganda that exists even to this day.
This documentary series leaves out a LOT of context, especially related to why the U. S. was even there.
Here's just some of the stuff it leaves out:
1. Hostility by locals to the UN mission, and attacks that occurred resulting in the deaths of 30 peacekeepers months before hand. 25 were Pakistani, 5 were American and 2 were Italian.
2. Aidid was originally on good terms with the UN / US, until the UN prevented him and his militia from stealing food aid to starve out his opposition and feed his growing army. As time wore on and he further weaponized starvation, a ICC warrant was issued for his arrest.
3. The reason for distrust among US / UN soldiers about Somali locals, which were a series of bombings committed by militia that blended in with the local population.
4. Women and children were in fact involved in the fighting, though the number of casualties of combatant women and children is unclear to this day. Old clips recorded at the time even show women / children with AK-47 rifles and RPGs, and reports of this were corroborated by other UN soldiers present in the area at the time. This event had a HUGE influence on the rules of engagement involving civilians during later conflicts such as the Iraq war, and influenced urban battle doctrine.
5. The involvement of the Malaysians and Pakistani troops in the rescue convoy.
Originally during Operation Restore Hope, the US had very limited involvement, as many Americans back home did not want to become entangled in yet another war. Somalia is not resource rich, and even to this day we have limited diplomatic involvement with it. The war is still going on to this day.
The documentary seems to unfairly paint the US as the agitator, despite the fact that Somali fighters were firing widely and launching RPGs in densely populated areas. Many civilians were killed during the Durant crash, which further caused anger among civilians, civilians who fail to realize that it was their own people who shot down the helicopter over a densely populated area. This is part of why the US is very hesitant to get involved in humanitarian issues abroad, as despite our intentions the local population never seems to be thankful and would take the word of a tyrannical warlord over us. There was outrage when we ended our involvement in Somalia in 1995 as well.
Ultimately it's a good documentary, but leaves out a lot of history and doesn't really add anything new to the story that can't be found in other documentaries, short of civilians and fighters who are always going to minimize their culpability, the only one being remotely thankful is the women who's house they had to use as shelter.
