>>Re: "The attack on the Marines in Lebanon, imo, should have been more aggressively countered." What exactly would you have done?<<
Gone after Hamas (if I recall correctly, they claimed responsibility) as aggressively as we have Al Qaida.
Consider that far bigger wars have erupted from far fewer casualties. I don't think Marine lives deserve less consideration than if it was several hundred civilians who died.
usmc.mil
Why did we not respond? I guess because of the USSR, but maybe we were pre-occupied with....... Grenada.
beirut-memorial.org
(chilling excerpt below, with my highlights)
Let me ask those who say we should get out of Lebanon: If we were to leave Lebanon now, what message would that send to those who foment instability and terrorism? If America were to walk away from Lebanon, what chance would there be for a negotiated settlement, producing a unified democratic Lebanon?
If we turned our backs on Lebanon now, what would be the future of Israel? At stake is the fate of only the second Arab country to negotiate a major agreement with Israel. That's another accomplishment of this past year, the May 17th accord signed by Lebanon and Israel.
If terrorism and intimidation succeed, it'll be a devastating blow to the peace process and to Israel's search for genuine security. It won't just be Lebanon sentenced to a future of chaos. Can the United States, or the free world, for that matter, stand by and see the Middle East incorporated into the Soviet bloc? What of Western Europe and Japan's dependence on Middle East oil for the energy to fuel their industries? The Middle East is, as I've said. vital to our national security and economic well-being.
Brave young men have been taken from us. Many others have been grievously wounded. Are we to tell them their sacrifice was wasted? They gave their lives in defense of our national security every bit as much as any man who ever died fighting in a war. We must not strip every ounce of meaning and purpose from their courageous sacrifice.
We're a nation with global responsibilities. We're not somewhere else in the world protecting someone else's interests; we're there protecting our own.
I received a message from the father of a Marine in Lebanon. He told me, "In a world where we speak of human rights, there is a sad lack of acceptance of responsibility. My son has chosen the acceptance of responsibility for the privilege of living in this country. Certainly in this country one does not inherently have rights unless the responsibility for those rights is accepted." Dr. Kenneth Morrison said that while he was waiting to learn if his son was one of the dead. I was thrilled for him to learn today that his son Ross is alive and well and carrying on his duties in Lebanon.
Let us meet our responsibilities. For people of the Middle East have lived from war to war with no prospect for any other future. That dreadful cycle must be broken. Why are we there? Well, a Lebanese mother told one of our Ambassadors that her little girl had only attended school 2 of the last 8 years. Now, because of our presence there, she said her daughter could live a normal life.
With patience and firmness, we can help bring peace to that strife-torn region - and make our own lives more secure. Our role is to help the Lebanese put their country together, not to do it for them. Now, I know another part of the world is very much on our minds, a place much closer to our shores: Grenada. The island is only twice the size of the District of Columbia, with a total population of about 110,000 people.
In other words, he had the right idea, but not the follow-through.
Though some consider him soft, check the critique when Colin Powell weighs in: beirut-memorial.org
And note what the Long Commission forecast:
In many respects, the future face of war is reflected in the course of armed conflict in Lebanon since the early 1970s. Warfare in that country has continued on all three levels- conventional war, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism. It involves regular armies, guerrillas, private militias, and terrorist gunmen, some of whom are openly assisted or covertly sponsored by foreign states, by political or religious factions, and even by other terrorist groups.
Warfare in the future may be less destructive than that in the first half of the twentieth century, but also less coherent. Warfare will cease to be finite. The distinction between war and peace will dissolve. Nominal peace is likely to be filled with continuing confrontations and crises.
Armed conflict will not be confined by national frontiers. Local belligerents will mobilize foreign patrons. Terrorists will attack foreign targets both at home and abroad. The United States will be compelled to maintain capabilities for defending against and, with the exception of terrorism, waging all three modes of armed conflict.
beirut-memorial.org
Also this excerpt:
Retaliatory or punitive operations. The United States has few opportunities to engage terrorists directly. Here again we confront an asymmetry--an asymmetry of vulnerability. Terrorist groups field no regular armies. They seldom hold territory. They have no populations to protect. They have no regular economy. In sum, they provide few lucrative targets for conventional military attack. We are compelled to take an indirect approach. For the most part, any retaliatory or punitive operations would be aimed at modifying the behavior of a government that had used terrorist tactics, employed or directly supported terrorist groups, or permitted terrorists to operate from its territory.
Retaliatory operations might be considered if the United States had incontrovertible evidence that agents in the employ of a government had carried out a terrorist attack, that a government had instigated a terrorist attack or permitted one to occur through willful negligence, or that a government was able to bring the perpetrators to justice but refused to do so. Retaliatory or punitive operations also might be aimed at subnational groups in cases where national authority had broken down entirely.
(Note: this report indicates that it was believed Syria & Iran were the culprits)
Look at some of the wrongheaded conclusions though:
A military response is not likely to deter future terrorist activity. Israel's frequent resort to reprisal attacks, for example, did not end the terrorist campaign against that country, although the 1982 invasion of Lebanon did disperse the PLO and reduce the number of terrorist attacks on Israel.
but it also says:
Terrorist attacks cannot be permitted to determine U.S. foreign policy, directly or indirectly. We have to try to invent additional low-cost responses that keep terrorist attacks from forcing the United States to escalate militarily, which in some cases may be exactly what terrorists hope to achieve. These responses may involve special or conventional operations.
and
It would be a mistake, however, to consign the problems of terrorism exclusively to special forces. Even in a world of growing terrorism, specialized antiterrorist units with no other mission may be underemployed, and the remainder of the armed forces will be left without adequate preparation. The entire armed forces must be able to confront diverse modes of conflict, including terrorism.
The best conclusion I gathered was that the presence of the USSR in the region prevented retaliation. So we pulled out, sending the message that the Prez said we shouldn't.
And 18 years later, we are finally starting to respond. Yet even now, I'm left to wonder why Bush singled out Iraq, Iran and North Korea but not Syria.
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