Lebanon Today

[KBay84]

I did a small amount of research on Beirut, Lebanon for an article about the barracks bombing in 23 Oct, '83. I was amaized at how many things were going on all at once.

...That was 23 October of 1983. At about 0620, a Mercedes truck loaded with 12,000 pounds of explosives crashed the compound gate of the barracks at the Beirut International Airport, driving the truck into the lobby of the barracks and triggered the load. It is still a toss-up who carried out the attack; possibly Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Shiite Muslims. It was the most devastating act and highest loss of life to U.S. forces since WWII, and a notice of things to come for American military and diplomatic personnel around the world.
We were in Lebanon to assist in keeping order while Lebanon tried to rein in its own splinter factions of Christian Maronites, and Druze, Sunni and Shia Muslims, and expel Syrian forces and Palestinians from its boarders. Making matters even more complicated was the fact that the PLO radicals used Lebanon as their home base for staging raids against Israelis, who in turn counter attacked back into Lebanon.
The U.S. was called upon as part of a Multi National Force, the U.S. bearing the brunt of the efforts. Their presence was seen as a direct danger to Muslims as much as they perceived the Israelis a threat. It was also thought by Muslims that the U.S. backed the Christian Maronites and Israelis in their clashes with Muslims.
Life for the Marines and the MNF grew more hazardous after the bombing, and the American forces withdrew the last of their personnel on 26 February of 1984. There was no retaliation for the barracks bombing as the U.S feared loss of support from other Arab nations.

In the end, we cut and ran. The following is the results of not staying the course.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173545,00.html

It's like we were never there, and an insult to the fallen military and their families.

In the end, if we go, go big and go to win. There's nothing halfway about commiting troops. This is what the opposing forces are counting on, the current leadership bowing to a minority opinion.

[Snowden]

Originally Posted by KBay84

I did a small amount of research on Beirut, Lebanon for an article about the barracks bombing in 23 Oct, '83. I was amaized at how many things were going on all at once.



In the end, we cut and ran. The following is the results of not staying the course.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173545,00.html

It's like we were never there, and an insult to the fallen military and their families.

In the end, if we go, go big and go to win. There's nothing halfway about commiting troops. This is what the opposing forces are counting on, the current leadership bowing to a minority opinion.

This was one of the earliest open attacks against us, wasn't it? Of course, the Embassy kidnappings in Iran - but wasn't this the next overt attack against the US?

[KBay84]

Yes, the largest and most overt. It was also the advent of the car bomb, something that we hadn't counted on. It didn't help matter that we agreed to Lebanon's request to NOT be active combatants. This resulted in Marines and soldiers standing guard and on patrol with weapons, but the officers hadcontrol of all ammo. This is something that is not noted as to why the guards at the gate did not fire; they had NO ammo.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by KBay84

I did a small amount of research on Beirut, Lebanon for an article about the barracks bombing in 23 Oct, '83. I was amaized at how many things were going on all at once.



In the end, we cut and ran. The following is the results of not staying the course.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173545,00.html

It's like we were never there, and an insult to the fallen military and their families.

In the end, if we go, go big and go to win. There's nothing halfway about commiting troops. This is what the opposing forces are counting on, the current leadership bowing to a minority opinion.

Excellent find, Bay. Cut and run, appeasement ... never solves a thing and only encourages terrorists to continue on as we've seen. I forget the exact chronology, but there was a history of terrorism against America (and our embassies, ships and bases count as American). Before the Beirut bombing there was the Iranian embassy takeover with no real repercussions. Before that I think there was an American military officer kidnapped and murdered.