I’ve never understood why Cutter betrayed the black-ops team and let the drug cartel kill them. Couldn’t he just have had the soldiers pack up and go home? Can someone explain to me why they had to let the soldiers get killed?
shareIt was part of the deal he made with Cortez.
Cortez could then leverage his position with the other drug lords.
Hitler! C'mon, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade.
That doesn't answer the question. Sending the black-ops team back home could have just as easily been part of the deal with Cortez. Sending the black-ops team back home could have just as easily allowed Cortez to leverage his position with the other drug lords.
shareYou'd have to ask Clancy.
Hitler! C'mon, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade.
For Cortez to claim credit for removing the threat, he has to been seen removing the threat. Allowing the soldiers to quietly disappear from the country would deny Cortez the opportunity of making an example of them, something he could point at and say "see what I did to protect us?"
shareStuFL,
I see 2 problems with your theory. First off, why would they need to have Cortez kill the soldiers in order for him to claim credit? He could just as easily claim credit for negotiating with the U.S. Government to have it remove the soldiers. He could tell the other drug lords about his negotiations with the U.S. Government and he would still end up with the same leverage.
Second, even if it was necessary for the soldiers to be "seen" being killed then they could just as easily fake their deaths. The black-ops team could just quietly leave and Cortez could pretend that he actually killed them. The other drug lords never actually saw the soldiers get killed. It was Cortez's men that killed them.
I agree with the theory that Cortez wanted it that way.
Cortez wanted a real victory (with deaths and POWs) so that the Columbian drug lord has a solid proof that his 650 million dollar loss has been avenged and also, there is no further threat to his life.
Since he promised something that was hugely in favor of the president's agenda, Cutter agrees to throw the black ops and Ryan under the bus.
and, since this was an illegal war, both Cortez and Cutter was not worried about retaliation from the US military.
To them, Jack Ryan, William Dafoe's character and the black ops are all just expendable pawns.
april_rain,
It's understandable why Cortez would want to have the soldiers killed. He had nothing to lose from it. But the point you're missing is that the U.S. Government officials who would have to agree to this plan had an enormous amount to lose from it. If the public found out about it they could all lose their jobs and possibly even go to jail. Even if Cortez wanted it that way, the real issue is why the U.S. Government officials went along with the plan when it had the potential to hurt them so terribly.
The scandal of an illegal war against the drug cartel would be made that much worse by arranging to have the other side kill your side's soldiers. There was a significant risk that the public would find out about what they did. For starters, John Clark was aiding the black-ops team and he could alert the world to the fact that the government betrayed them and let them be killed. In addition, the cartel's assault on the black-ops team had very sloppy execution. One of the soldiers was able to get away undetected. So now there's a survivor of the battle who could talk to the press and to Congress. This plan to betray the black-ops team was clearly a very stupid risk for the government officials who agreed to it.
Simply having the black-ops team quietly go back home or having them go back home while pretending that they were killed off in a battle with the cartel would clearly be a much smarter plan from the perspective of the U.S. Government officials involved. They could simply take random dead bodies and put U.S. military uniforms on them in order to pretend that they were U.S. soldiers. That clearly would have seemed like a much better plan from where the U.S. government officials involved were sitting.
I see your point. Logically, your theory makes perfect sense. In a real world scenario, that's how a smart politician would have probably played that game. Even a mild allegation that US soldiers/diplomats might have been abandoned by the people in charge can end presidencies. What cutter did was not just morally wrong but totally reckless. I chalked it up as cinematic liberties to draw the line between the bad guys and good guys.
Until the pivotal scene where the deal is brokered, Ritter and Cutter were just shown as slimy politicians. That scene made them into downright war criminals. Maybe they were so secure in their positions that they thought they could get away with anything. We can see that hubris on display when Ritter says "Boom!" in an earlier scene.
From the script standpoint, Cutter's bad decision gave way to the final rescue subplot and made Jack Ryan/black Ops morally superior.