This has been a tough day for me. And this is a tough topic. Forty years ago my Marine Corps suffered it’s worse loss of Marines in a single day since the battle for Iwo Jima in WWII. Iran backed Hezbollah terrorists, not content with the Embassy bombing in the spring managed to get a truck laden with explosives driven my a suicide bomber/murderer through defenses (that the Reagan administration refused to let be beefed up) and detonated the bomb at the Marine Barracks at the airport. The final death toll was 241, most of them American. And while some U.S. Navy sailors were in the mix most of the American dead were my brother Marines.
Most of the focus right now is on Hamas, but on Israel’s northern border Hezbollah is a threat and has attempted some (minor so far) incursions. What you need to keep in mind though is whether we are talking about Hamas down in Israel or Hezbollah up in Lebanon we are talking about terrorist organizations. Well funded, equipped and trained terrorist organizations.
By Iran.
I spent most of the winter, spring and summer of 1983 working to get into OCS for the Marine Corps. The Gunny from the recruiting office up in St. Louis took me under his wing after the initial “OSO” (Officer Selection Officer) told me not to bother because a memo had just come down and I was several years past the age they wanted to accept as Officer Candidates. He told me a new one would be taking over soon, and in the meantime hooked me up with the Platoon Leaders Class (a Marine version of not quite ROTC) at my alma mater, a group of about twenty guys. (Still all male back then but they were at least working on that!) I was quickly accepted into their ranks and before summer was to them on equal footing – someone who would join them as Marine Officers one day and in fact be Commissioned before any of them since they had to wait until they graduated.
Needless to say we followed events in Lebanon closely, and if you’re familiar with me you know I have a grudge that will never go away when it comes to the Israeli Defense Force. It developed well before the bombing because word of their insults and contempt became known in Marine combat arms circles. We weren’t allowed to do what we were capable of doing and those motherf**kers who couldn’t project power less than a hundred kilometers north of their own border were mocking us! But we were there at the airport, boots on the ground to provide some stability and time for maybe the diplomats to work something out.
Then, on this date forty years ago as reported in Military.com:
Forty years ago, a suicide bomber in an explosive-laden truck breached the Beirut International Airport and detonated their bomb, killing 241 American troops — mostly from the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit — who had deployed to Lebanon as a peacekeeping force during the country’s civil war.
The article I linked to is a remembrance peace, noting the marking of the day in Jacksonville, NC (Where Camp LeJeune is) but also noting comments made during the ceremony:
“In 1983, the Marines and sailors of Battalion Landing Team 1/8 were deployed to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission to be a friend to the Lebanese people and bring about a semblance of stability to a region marked by decades of conflict,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said.
“Does that sound familiar?” he said during the event, which included Marines, veterans and family members
.It sure sounds familiar to me. The failure to ratchet down tensions in and around Israel and Iran’s sponsorship of significant terrorist organizations, one of which (Hamas) acted in a manner to incite full-blown war has its seeds all the way back to what happened, and more importantly what did not happen forty years ago. The attack on the Marine Barracks at the airport didn’t come out of nowhere:
The Oct. 23, 1983, attack on the Marine barracks was preceded by increased assaults on U.S. personnel, escalating tensions in the region, state-sponsored terrorism, and a U.S. response focused on deterrence and allyship with Middle Eastern countries.
Attacks on U.S. personnel and interests, initiated by Iran have been taking place. And, if you’re wondering about our ships shooting down some of what’s been headed towards Israel, it’s because some of those weapons can be re-directed mid-flight to turn west towards the Mediterranean Sea where we have one carrier based task force already. A second one is about to join them. This whole situation is much more volatile that most realize.
I could write reams about all this. Had the Commanding Officer (Col. Geraghty) been given permission (he DID try to get it) to build a defense that would have prevented that truck from getting anywhere close to the Barracks a major inspiration for the terrorism it inspired wouldn’t have happened. The powers-that-be of the time didn’t want to offend local sensibilities with such barriers/fortifications at access points. Then, in the aftermath Reagan, the supposed tough guy proved not so tough at all. Vietnam was still strong in people’s minds and rather than allow us to reinforce and even add in an Army division specifically trained for just such a mission head up into the Chouf and KILL (or at least put the fear of God/Allah) into every last gomer he had us instead turn tail and run away from the fight.
I will go to my grave believing every awful, tragic terrorist event whether against us or one of our allies by terrorists who pervert the religion of Islam were emboldened in 1984 when we packed up and left. We knew where the gomers were. We had most of the means at hand and could fairly quickly have gotten additional resources. But we didn’t and we and the world have been paying the price ever since. And Iran keeps stirring the pot of sh*t stew and tossing in cherry bombs.
We can debate over whether at some point the U.S. commits actual troops to this new war. Or even starts using air power and risks Naval Aviators being shot down. Those are worthy of serious consideration, discussion and debate.
For the moment however, remember those who were killed in a terrorist attack forty years ago. Honor them. By being thoughtful about what U.S. policy should be right this moment and in the days and weeks to come. President Biden is using all his knowledge and experience to keep the lid on, to keep this from expanding into a much wider war. But it’s complicated as hell. For damned sure talking point/bumper sticker solutions aren’t what we should be spouting, either online or to our elected officials.
Instead, we should be thankful we have a President who is uniquely suited to this moment of crisis. There is no right answer on how to proceed day to day, and circumstances will change daily if not sometimes hourly. What we CAN do it implore, even DEMAND our elected officials stay the f**k out of this, at least publicly. If they’ve got opinions they have ways of making them known to the administration privately and they should talk about them around the office where dumbass staffers who want their “fifteen minutes” can go tattling to a “journalist” eager for a “U.S. in disarray” story!
We can, and should demand that for everyone’s sake it’s time for some old-school politics – the “Politics stops at the water’s edge” rule that used to be honored.
(I know this has been weird, and has taken some turns. As I said my feelings/emotions are all over the place today. This is more personal to me than I can put into words. But on this fortieth anniversary of those who lost their lives in that terrorist attack, we can honor them by remembering. And trying to learn the lessons of why they died and how to keep something like that from happening again. Most importantly, to not give up on finding a way to force Israelis and Palestinians to the table to hammer out a two-state solution)
“Most importantly, to not give up on finding a way to force Israelis and Palestinians to the table to hammer out a two-state solution)”
Ironic, then, isn’t it that HAMAS was only able to build up its political strength in Gaza because a certain ‘Yahu decided to bolster them to counter the FATAH-led Palestinian Authority’s strength in the West Bank and Gaza? Yep. The ‘Yahu decided, years ago, that a “divided” Palestine–with FATAH and HAMAS fighting each other for control as the “true” voice of the Palestinian people–would make his job of going in and letting Jewish settlements (headed up under far-right, Orthodox Jewish leaders) in the Occupied Territories get firmly established and, eventually, “annexed” into Israel proper (with the additional “protection zones” around those little settlements which would be under full IDF control) making the idea of a two-state solution become not merely impractical but absolutely impossible.
For what it’s worth, the right-wing Israelis have never really considered Gaza as part of the “Greater Israel” they want; they will, of course, keep it under permanent military occupation for “security reasons” but Gaza, even in the days of “Historic Israel” (the kingdom established by Saul and enlarged by David and Solomon), was never actually a part of the country but rather a Philistine stronghold (as an aside, the name of Palestine in Modern Arabic is “Filastin”).
Thanks Denis for the history lesson. I was almost drafted into Vietnam when the traitor Nixon ended college deferments. My roommate was a radical peace activist and although I agree with nonviolence as the only way we will ever survive as a species, I disagreed that it would have worked with Hitler or the Japanese. He worshipped Ghandi. I reminded him Ghandi not only had the numbers on his side, he was dealing with a country that believed they were morally superior and he shamed them. Of course many Indian people were killed, and the Hindus and Muslims then fought for power, with killing on both sides. Reagan was a POS all the way around, cutting a secret deal with Iran to hold the hostages to sabotage Carter, approving the Iran-contra deal to kill peasants in Central America, getting into the cocaine/arms trade while locking up pot smokers, and using religion to whitewash his evil. He hung the marines out to dry, and HE WALKED on all his crimes. To see this phucking country support traitors, AND ELECT AND REELECT THEM TO POWER makes me sick with rage. We love to sing the anthem at ballgames and place hands over hearts, but this population of pampered citizens KNOW NO HISTORY, nor do they care to know. When only 1% has served in the military, they have become lazy entitled morons. Trump sh*t on the troops at every turn, dishonored the fallen soliders, lied to avoid service, and pissed on the graves of everyone who died to protect our democracy. The fact that traitor STILL has ANY support and ISN’T in jail makes me furious with the phucking citizens. We don’t deserve the sacrifices that have been made. FACT. I chose to not own a gun, and having them in my face all my childhood makes me abhor the politicians who have gotten rich putting 400 million of them on the street. I do understand the rage however that makes one want to shoot a nazi, whether in ww2, or when they wrap themselves IN OUR FLAG, and sit in congress. Those marines and all like them should be honored as long as this country exists…which is not a certainty by any means. It never was. We’ll know next November whether we are the latest democracy to morph into a fascist state. Should that happen, I will not go gently into that demonic darkness. I will stand with those fallen soliders to fight for the cause they died for.