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A Day That Will Live in Ignominy

Nanocelt TheContrarian
@NanoceltTheContrarian
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October 23 was the 43rd anniversary of the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983. Two hundred forty-one American servicemen died in that bombing, carried out by Iranian proxies that would form the nucleus of what became Hezbollah. That was the greatest number of American servicemen to die in a single day since Iwo Jima. I perused the media for comments on this and found none. The Marine Corps posted an homage to the sacrifice of those Marines. There seems to be a general amnesia of that event, though. How soon we forget. Yet we are still dealing with the same problem with the Iranian regime.

One of Reagan's biggest mistakes (along with making a deal with the devil, er, Democrats, on immigration and the insane Iran-Contra affair) was placing the Marines in harm's way without adequate security and without arms in a hostile environment as part of a "peace-keeping" force. Cap Weinberger rightfully opposed that deployment and argued that the Marines should not be sent on such a vague mission. He predicted they would be targeted, and yet they were housed in a minimally secure facility without weapons. Sitting ducks.

Reagan gave the orders to retaliate, in conjunction with the French, who had also had a facility bombed the same day by the same Iranian proxies. The target was a facility, the Sheikh Abdullah barracks in Baalbek (literally Baal, or Lord, or the Bekaa Valley). It housed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who were training Hezbollah militants. The French carried out their mission. America did not. Weinberger delayed transmitting Reagan's orders until it was too late for the American bombers to participate in the attack. Weinberger feared involvement in a wider war in the Middle East.

Iran has considered America weak ever since, and continues to do so, despite Trump's massive bombing campaign. It likely would have required the wider war that Weinberger foresaw to remove the IRGC in 1983. Then, as now, however, the only solution to the major problem in the Middle East (Iran's terrorist theocracy) is elimination of the IRGC-controlled terror regime. Even Trump seems hesitant to do that, though he has done more toward that end than any president before him. Unfortunately, his efforts to negotiate with Iran have been farcical. There is no possibility that Iran will ever diplomatically cease to be a threat to the West (including Israel, of course). The entire world will remain unsafe unless the IRGC and the mullah-cracy are destroyed.

Trump says the midterms have no impact on his decisions regarding Iran, while in the same breath he says that if he does anything further on Iran, it will be after the midterms. To that end, it seems, he is sending another carrier group to the Persian Gulf and removing unnecessary American personnel from the region. We shall see. This should not be allowed to drag on forever. It is a question of completing the job or leaving without doing the job. In the latter case, we will continue to pay a price for failure, as we have for the last 43 years.

The IRGC seems to understand very well the American mentality, eg, lack of interest and a wish to exit the Middle East and forget about the problems that exist there. The traditional American tendency to turn away from the problems of the world, secure—so we think—between our bicoastal oceans. It seems even 9/11 has not taught us that that is not so.

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Discussion (6)

  • GLDIII Purveyor of Splendid Malpropisms@GLDIII

    And yet most folks refuse to acknowledge that we have been at war with Iran for over 40 years. If you listen to limp wrist politicians, on both sides of the aisle, say let just leave than alone, that we haven’t been attacked. Those folks are ignoring not just the incident you highlighted, but bombs that have killed and crippled our solders, assassination attempts on our political class, and funding regional unrest with our trading partners in the Middle East.

    Just because those folks are willing to absorb casualties they inflict on us as an acceptable price to pay to be ostriches don’t understand that between their development of ballistic missiles in combination with nuclear weapons those days of pin pricks are over.

    Those folks would be the first ones screaming when a few of our blue east coastal cities are nukes ask why our leaders did not do anything to prevent that exact event.

  • Steve Fast@SteveFast
    Edited

    I remember my 7th-grade Civics teacher telling us about the attack after lunch. I was stunned. I couldn't believe anyone would dare do that to America. I couldn't believe that Reagan withdrew our troops without massive retaliation. He was a great president but not perfect. If we had taken care of business in 1983, it would have avoided many more problems.

    Imad Mughniyeh, the top planner, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008, probably by Israel. Israel also killed Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil in airstrikes in 2024. We had bounties on all three but did nothing to bring them to justice. We should have hunted these three to the ends of the earth.

    [Edit: Wikipedia says Mughniyeh was killed in joint CIA-Mossad operation, so I guess we did do something to retaliate.)

  • Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler@Muleskinner

    I remember the night that news came in. I was working as a security guard in a dormitory complex at Big State U. The guard from another dorm in the complex came over to my station, which wasn't unusual, as we were both in the same econometrics class, and he usually came by at some point during the night to compare class notes and homework assignments. He was a junior math major who was taking that graduate-level econometrics class along with a math stats class and some other killer math course that semester. He joined the Marines out of high school and was using his benefits for college. He had heard the news, and by the time he had got over to my station he had decided that finishing college could wait. Bombing a barracks was cowardly, payback was needed. The Corp was short some good men and they needed him. He had decided to see the recruiter as soon as they opened in the morning, and I probably wouldn't see him in class again.

    I didn't see him in class the rest of the week, and when we next worked same night, he told me that he had reenlisted and expected to have his orders to report for duty in the next week or so. Another week went by, and we were working the same complex again. By that point, I hadn't seen him in class for nearly two weeks, but when he came by, he looked a little dejected. I asked him if everything was alright, and he sighed that his orders came through, but not like he hoped. He was supposed to finish college, join the reserves and OCS, and on completion would be a commissioned officer in the Marines. His big fear was that by the time he had finished all of that, he would be too late to help punish the IRGC. Little did we know that we would both be past retirement before anything worthwhile would be done, and whether or not it will be finished, is an open question. I guess the lesson is that there are always Marines willing to go, once the country is ready to send them.

  • Stad@Stad

    One of my coworkers was a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot. He saw action in the Grenada operation as well as the evacuation of Marines from Beirut after the bombing. He was really frustrated with Reagan for not going after those who did the deed in Lebanon. The same is happening now with Trump and Iran. Heck, if the 2028 Dem nominee says he'll finish the job in Iran, that might garner him enough votes to win.

    Attack, Mr. President . . .

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