Thirty years ago today Reagan

Good God Edgar! You've just committed a sacrilege against conservatism. You will probably be burnt at the stake for sinning against Saint Ronny!

How Reagan was portrayed on Brit TV, with the very popular but merciless "Spitting Image" series.

Ha. Never saw that before.

Then he bombed the **** out of Ghadafis house.

I was sitting in a swimming pool just opposite Libya (Malta) the day that happened, listening to the news of the attack on the hotel radio. About fifteen minutes later we saw three strange looking jets way off in the distance, going hell for leather.

The soldiers had no weapons. They were allowed to sit there and die. What happened after that is beside the point.

The concessions to Islam killed those soldiers. Reagan never made that mistake again.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1983 Beirut barracks bombings
Part of the Lebanese Civil War


The Beirut Barracks Bombings (October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon) occurred during the Lebanese Civil War when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force (MNF) in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen. An obscure group calling itself 'Islamic Jihad' claimed responsibility for the bombings.[1]
Suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team - BLT 1/8), the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.[2] Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast. Thirteen later died of their injuries, and they are numbered among the total number who died.[3] An elderly Lebanese man, a custodian/vendor who was known to work and sleep in his concession stand next to the building, was also killed in the first blast.[4][5][6] The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 9,525 kg (21,000 pounds) of TNT.[7][8]
In the attack on the French barracks, the nine-story 'Drakkar' building, 58 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured by a second truck bomb. This attack occurred just minutes after the attack on the American Marines. It was France's single worst military loss since the end of the Algerian War.[9] The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed, and more than twenty other Lebanese civilians were injured.[10]
These attacks eventually led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.


American and French response[edit]

File:Reagan Speech Beirut Bombing.ogv

President Ronald Reagan's keynote speech to the Rev. Jerry Fallwell's "Baptist Fundamentalism '84" convention: the marines and their chaplains at the scene of the bombing
U.S. President Ronald Reagan called the attack a "despicable act"[72] and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had privately advised the administration against stationing U.S. Marines in Lebanon,[73] said there would be no change in the U.S.'s Lebanon policy. French President François Mitterrand and other French dignitaries visited both the French and American bomb sites to offer their personal condolences on Monday, October 24, 1983. It was not an official visit, and President Mitterrand only stayed for a few hours, but he did declare "We will stay."[74] During his visit, President Mitterrand visited each of the scores of American caskets and made the sign of the cross as his mark of respectful observance for each of the fallen peacekeepers.[75] U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush arrived and made a tour of the destroyed BLT barracks on Wednesday, October 26, 1983. Vice President Bush toured the site and said the U.S. "would not be cowed by terrorists."[74] Vice President Bush also visited with wounded U.S. personnel aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima (LPH-2), and he took time to meet with the commanders of the other MNF units (French, Italian and British) deployed in Beirut.[76]
In retaliation for the attacks, France launched an airstrike in the Bekaa Valley against alleged Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) positions. President Reagan assembled his national security team and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) believed to be training Hezbollah militants.[77] A joint American-French air assault on the camp where the bombing was planned was also approved by Reagan and Mitterrand. U.S. Defense Secretary Weinberger lobbied successfully against the mission, because at the time it was not certain that Iran was behind the attack.[78]
Some of the U.S. Marines in Beirut were moved to transport vessels offshore where they could not be targeted; yet, they would be ready and available to serve as a ready reaction force in Beirut if needed.[79] For protection against snipers and artillery attacks, the Marines remaining at the airport built and moved into bunkers in the ground employing 'appropriated' Soviet-bloc CONEXes.[80][81]
Col Geraghty requested and received reinforcements to replace his unit losses.[82] BLT 2/6, the Division Marine Air Alert Battalion stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, and commanded by LtCol Edwin C. Kelley, was dispatched and flown into Beirut by four C-141s in less than 36 hours after the bombing.[83] LtCol Kelley officially replaced the seriously injured BLT 1/8 commander, LtCol Gerlach. LtCol Kelley quietly redesignated his unit, BLT 2/6, as BLT 1/8 to help bolster the morale of the BLT 1/8 survivors.[84] On November 18, 1983, the 22d MAU rotated into Beirut and relieved in place the 24th MAU.[85] The 24th MAU returned to Camp Lejeune, NC, for training and refitting.
Eventually, it became evident that the U.S. would launch no serious and immediate retaliatory attack for the Beirut Marine barracks bombing beyond naval barrages and air strikes used to interdict continuous harassing fire from Druze and Syrian missile and artillery sites.[86] A true retaliatory strike failed to materialize because there was a rift in White House counsel (largely between George P. Shultz of the Department of State and Weinberger of the Department of Defense) and because the extant evidence pointing at Iranian involvement was circumstantial at that time: the Islamic Jihad, which took credit for the attack, was a front for Hezbollah which was acting as a proxy for Iran; thus, affording Iran plausible deniability.[7] Secretary of State Schultz was an advocate for retaliaton, but Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was against retaliation. Secretary of Defense Weinberger, in a September 2001 FRONTLINE interview, reaffirmed that rift in White House counsel when he claimed that the U.S. still lacks "'actual knowledge of who did the bombing' of the Marine barracks."[78]
The USS New Jersey had arrived and taken up station off Beirut on September 25, 1983. Special Representative in the Middle East Robert McFarlane's team had requested the New Jersey after the August 29th Druze mortar attack that killed two Marines.[87] After the October 23rd bombing, on November 28, the U.S. government announced that the New Jersey would remain stationed off Beirut although her crew would be rotated. It wasn't until December 14 that the New Jersey finally joined the fray and fired 11 projectiles from her 16-inch guns at hostile targets near Beirut. This was the first time 16-inch shells were fired for effect anywhere in the world since the New Jersey ended her time on the gunline in Vietnam in 1969.[88] Also in December 1983, U.S. aircraft from the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Independence battle groups attacked Syrian targets in Lebanon, but this was ostensibly in response to Syrian missile attacks on American warplanes.
In the meantime, the attack boosted the prestige and growth of the Shiite organization Hezbollah. Hezbollah officially denied any involvement in the attacks, but was seen by Lebanese as involved nonetheless as it praised the "two martyr mujahideen" who "set out to inflict upon the U.S. Administration an utter defeat, not experienced since Vietnam."[89] Hezbollah was now seen by many as "the spearhead of the sacred Muslim struggle against foreign occupation".[90]
The 1983 report of the U.S. Department of Defense Commission's on the attack recommended that the National Security Council investigate and consider alternative ways to reach "American objectives in Lebanon" because, "as progress to diplomatic solutions slows," the security of the USMNF base continues to "deteriorate." The commission also recommended a review for the development of a broader range of "appropriate military, political, and diplomatic responses to terrorism." Military preparedness needed improvement in the development of "doctrine, planning, organization, force structure, education, and training" to better combat terrorism, while the USMNF was "not prepared" to deal with the terrorist threat at the time due to "lack of training, staff, organization, and support" specifically for defending against "terror threats."[91]
Amal movement leader Nabih Berri, who had previously supported U.S. mediation efforts, asked the U.S. and France to leave Lebanon and accused the two countries of seeking to commit 'massacres' against the Lebanese and of creating a "climate of racism" against Shias.[92] Islamic Jihad phoned in new threats against the MNF pledging that "the earth would tremble" unless the MNF withdrew by New Year's Day 1984.[93]


USS New Jersey fires a salvo against anti-government forces in the Shouf, January 9, 1984
On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawing from Lebanon largely because of waning congressional support for the mission after the attacks on the barracks. [94][95][96][97][98][99] The withdrawal of the 22d MAU from the BIA was completed 12:37 PM on February 26, 1984.[100] "Fighting between the Lebanese Army and Druze militia in the nearby Shouf mountains provided a noisy backdrop to the Marine evacuation. One officer commented: 'This ceasefire is getting louder.'"[101]
On February 8, 1984, the U.S.S. New Jersey fired almost 300 shells at Druze and Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley east of Beirut. This was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War.[102] "In a nine-hour period, the U.S.S. New Jersey fired 288 16-inch rounds, each one weighing as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. In those nine-hours, the ship consumed 40 percent of the 16-inch ammunition available in the entire European theater...[and] in one burst of wretched excess," the New Jersey seemed to be unleashing eighteen months of repressed fury.[103]

And Reagan never made that mistake again.

What you fail to understand that any hypocrisy and stupidity then is no excuse for it now.
Just as you try to use those deaths to excuse the deaths of 4 in Benghazi.

It didn't give the men back their lives.

And it never will. Do you want to deal with the facts or lament human nature?

US Embassy Attacks And Bombings: A Recent History
By Maya Shwayder
on September 11 2012 4:37 PM

Tuesday's attack at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt was nothing new for American envoys and their staffs.

Throughout the years U.S. embassies all over the world have been targets of protests and violence by terrorist groups and discontented citizens trying to make a point, or just generally cause chaos and mayhem. Here is a list of such incidents stretching back almost fifty years.

Libreville, Gabon, March 5 and 8, 1964,: After a failed coup d'etat two weeks prior, the U.S. embassy began receiving threatening phone calls. At 8:15 pm on March 5, a small bomb exploded outside the empty embassy, cracking a few windows. On the evening of March 8, another small bomb exploded 50 feet from the embassy, causing no damage, and a drive-by shooting damaged an out wall. No one was hurt.

Saigon, Vietnam, January 31, 1968: Shortly after midnight on January 31, small group of Viet Cong fighters blasted a hole in the wall of the U.S. Embassy and engaged marines at the embassy in a firefight. By 9 am, the embassy was declared secure. The U.S. had been involved in the conflict in Vietnam for 2 and half years already at the time, and the incident was deeply unsettling to American interests in Vietnam.

Tehran, Iran, November 4, 1979: The attack that came to be known as the 'Iran Hostage Crisis' began at 6:30 am the morning of November 4, when a few hundred Iranian students called the "Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line" cut the fence to the U.S. embassy and broke through the gates. They initially intended only to make a symbolic occupation, but after the Ayatollah Khomeini expressed his support, and crowds outside the embassy cheered the students on, the occupation's goals changed. The hostages were held for 444 days, until January 20, 1981. A disastrous attempted rescue operation resulted in the deaths of 8 American servicemen and one Iranian civilian. The 52 hostages were released almost immediately after Ronald Regan was sworn into office.

Islamabad, Pakistan, November 22, 1979: Sparked by a report that the U.S. had bombed one of the holiest sites in the Muslim world, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, a group of Pakistani students stormed the embassy and burned it down. The radio report turned out to be false: a Saudi Arabian had led a seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, two days earlier and took hundreds of people there for their pilgrimage hostage. Ayatollah Khomeini claimed that the U.S. was behind the attack.

Tripoli, Libya, December 2, 1979: The U.S. embassy was burned in retaliation for the supposed U.S.-led takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. After the attack, all U.S. personnel were pulled out of Libya. The U.S. did not re-instate its diplomats in Libya until 2004.

Beirut, Lebanon, April 18, 1983: A suicide car bomb killed 63 people, including members of the U.S. embassy and CIA. The attack happened just after the Western-led Multinational Force had decided to intervene in the Lebanese Civil War. The Islamic Jihadist Organization took responsibility, saying, "This is part of the Iranian revolution's campaign against imperialist targets throughout the world. We shall keep striking at any imperialist presence in Lebanon, including the international force."

Kuwait City, Kuwait, December 12, 1983: A truck rammed into the front gates of the U.S. embassy and exploded, killing five people. The U.S. embassy was one of several targets hit that day, including the French embassy and the Kuwait International Airport.

Jakarta, Indonesia, May 1986: The Japanese Red Army fired on the Japanese, Canadian, and U.S. embassies. The Red Army's goals included overthrowing the Japanese government and starting a world revolution.

Rome, Italy, June 1987: The Japanese Red Army again fired on the U.S. and British embassies in Rome.

Lima, Peru, January 15, 1990: The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a left-wing insurgent group, bombed the U.S. embassy.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, August 7, 1998: The bombings of these two embassies brought the name "Osama Bin Laden" to Americans' lips for the first time. The bombings resulted in over 4,000 people injured and 223 dead. The bombings are believed to have been a retaliatory move for the arrest and torture of four members of the Al-Qaeda affiliate, The Egyptian Islamist Jihad.

Paris, France, September 13, 2001: Four men were arrested in Rotterdam on conspiracy to plant a suicide bomber in the U.S. embassy in Paris. The NATO headquarters in Brussels was also targeted. The plot was discovered in July 2001 when a conspirator named Djamel Beghal was arrested in Dubai for passport fraud. He confessed after an interrogation. All the conspirators were part of a small satellite of Al-Qaeda.

Karachi, Pakistan, June 14, 2002, February 28, 2003, March 15, 2004, and March 2, 2006:The string of bombings and attempted bombings outside the U.S. consult in Karachi were thought to be in retaliation for the War on Terror in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. The first bomb in June 2002 was a suicide bomber, who killed 12 and injured 51 people. In February 2003, a gunman killed two police officer and injured five others outside the consulate. In March 2004, an attempted bombing was stopped when police discovered 200 gallons of liquid explosives in the back of a truck. In March 2006, another suicide bomber killed six people outside a nearby Marriott Hotel.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, July 30, 2004: The U.S. and Israeli embassies were targeted by suicide bombers. Two security guards were killed.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 6, 2004: Militants breached the outer wall of the U.S. consulate and began shooting, but did not enter the consulate. Five civilians and the gunmen were killed. Ten people were wounded.

Damascus, Syria, September 12, 2006: Three gunmen were killed after they tossed grenades over the embassy's outer wall and a car bomb exploded outside the embassy. A Syrian security guard and a Chinese diplomat also died.

Athens, Greece, January 12, 2007: A rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the front of the U.S. embassy around 6 am in the morning. No one was killed or hurt. A Greek terrorist group called "Revolutionary Struggle" claimed responsibility.

Istanbul, Turkey, July 9, 2008: Kurdish Turks open fired around 11 am, killing six people and injuring one. The three men had suspected Al-Qaeda links, but this was never proven.

San'a, Yemen, September 7, 2008: 19 people died and at least 16 were injured when a group of men disguised at police attacked the outer security rim of the U.S. embassy. Al-Qaeda affiliate Islamic Jihad of Yemen claimed responsibility.

Reagan was as inept as any president we have had, in such things.

The one president that we have knows what Islam is. That makes his actions treasonous.

If he knew, why did he leave those unprotected people to get blown up?

How exactly are you comparing Benghazi to Beirut? An 8 hour attack vs. a truck bomb?

I'm not. Just demonstrating that going after Obama the way they are is all motivated by hatred of the current president, while ignoring similar incidents involving pretty much every president. - per an earlier post I made.