Phantom Blooper
08-12-05, 10:33 AM
On Sept. 13, President Reagan authorized what was called aggressive self-defense for the Marines, including air and naval strikes.27 Five days later the United States essentially joined the war against the Muslims when four U.S. warships unleashed the heaviest naval bombardment since Vietnam into Syrian and Druze positions in eastern Lebanon in support of the Lebanese Christians.28 The bombardment lasted for three days and was personally ordered by National Security Council director Robert McFarlane, a Marine Corps officer detailed to the White House who was in Lebanon at the time and was also a strong supporter of Israel and its Lebanese Maronite Christian allies. McFarlane issued the order despite the fact that the Marine commander at the airport, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, strenuously argued against it because, in the words of correspondent Thomas L. Friedman, "he knew that it would make his soldiers party to what was now clearly an intra-Lebanese fight, and that the Lebanese Muslims would not retaliate against the Navy's ships at sea but against the Marines on shore."29
By now, the Marines were under daily attack and Muslims were charging they were no longer neutral.30 At the same time the battleship USS New Jersey, with 16-inch guns, arrived off Lebanon, increasing the number of U.S. warships offshore to 14. Similarly, the Marine contingent at Beirut airport was increased from 1,200 to 1,600.31
A Tragic Climax
The fight now was truly joined between the Shi'i Muslims and the Marines, who were essentially pinned down in their airport bunkers and under orders not to take offensive actions. The tragic climax of their predicament came on Oct. 23, when a Muslim guerrilla drove a truck past guards at the Marine airport compound and detonated an explosive with the force of 12,000 pounds of dynamite under a building housing Marines and other U.S. personnel. Almost simultaneously, a car-bomb exploded at the French compound in Beirut. Casualties were 241 Americans and 58 French troops killed. The bombings were the work of Hezbollah, made up of Shi'i Muslim guerrillas supported by Iran.32
America's agony increased on Dec. 3, when two carrier planes were downed by Syrian missiles during heavy U.S. air raids on eastern Lebanon.33 On the same day, eight Marines were killed in fighting with Muslim militiamen around the Beirut airport.34
By the start of 1984, an all-out Shi'i Muslim campaign to rid Lebanon of all Americans was underway. The highly respected president of the American University of Beirut, Dr. Malcolm Kerr, a distinguished scholar of the Arab world, was gunned down on Jan. 18 outside his office by Islamic militants aligned with Iran.35 On Feb. 5, Reagan made one of his stand-tall speeches by saying that "the situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating and dangerous. But this is no reason to turn our backs on friends and to cut and run."36
The next day Professor Frank Regier, a U.S. citizen teaching at AUB, was kidnapped by Muslim radicals.37 Regier's kidnapping was the beginning of a series of kidnappings of Americans in Beirut that would hound the Reagan and later the Bush administrations for years and lead to the eventual expulsion of nearly all Americans from Lebanon where they had prospered for more than a century. Even today Americans still are prohibited from traveling to Lebanon.
The day after Regier's kidnapping, on Feb. 7, 1984, Reagan suddenly reversed himself and announced that all U.S. Marines would shortly be "redeployed." The next day the battleship USS New Jersey fired 290 rounds of one-ton shells from its 16-inch guns into Lebanon as a final act of U.S. frustration.38 Reagan's "redeployment" was completed by Feb. 26, when the last of the Marines retreated from Lebanon.
The mission of the Marines had been a humiliating failure--not because they failed in their duty but because the political backbone in Washington was lacking. The Marines had arrived in 1982 with all sides welcoming them. They left in 1984 despised by many and the object of attacks by Muslims. Even relations with Israel were strained, if not in Washington where a sympathetic Congress granted increased aid to the Jewish state to compensate it for the costs of its bungled invasion, then between the Marines and Israeli troops who had confronted each other in a realpolitik battlefield that was beyond their competence or understanding. The Marine experience in Lebanon did not contribute toward a favorable impression of Israel among many Americans, especially since the Marines would not have been in Lebanon except for Israel's unprovoked invasion.
This negative result is perhaps one reason a number of Israelis and their supporters today oppose sending U.S. peacekeepers to the Golan Heights as part of a possible Israeli-Syrian peace treaty. A repeat of the 1982-84 experience would certainly not be in Israel's interests at a time when its supporters are seeking to have a budget-conscious Congress continue unprecedented amounts of aid to Israel.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Ball, George, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, Washington, DC, Foundation for Middle East Peace, 1984.
*Cockburn, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, New York, Harper Collins, 1991.
Cooley, John K., Payback: America's Long War in the Middle East, New York, Brassey's U.S., Inc., 1991.
*Findley, Paul, Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts About the U.S.-Israeli Relationship, Brooklyn, NY, Lawrence Hill Books, 1993.
Fisk, Robert, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, New York, Atheneum, 1990.
Frank, Benis M., U.S. Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 1987.
*Friedman, Thomas L., From Beirut to Jerusalem, New York, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1989.
*Green, Stephen, Living by the Sword, Amana, 1988.
*Jansen, Michael, The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded Lebanon, London, Zed Press, 1982.
MacBride, Sean, Israel in Lebanon: The Report of the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of international law by Israel during its invasion of Lebanon, London, Ithaca Press, 1983.
Ostrovsky, Victor and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Peck, Juliana S., The Reagan Administration and the Palestinian Question: The First Thousand Days, Washington, DC, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1984.
*Randal, Jonathan, Going all the Way, New York, The Viking Press, 1983.
Schechla, Joseph, The Iron Fist: Israel's Occupation of South Lebanon, 1982-1985, Washington, D.C.: ADC Research Institute, Issue Paper No. 17, 1985.
*Schiff, Ze'ev and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984.
Timerman, Jacobo, The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon, New York, Vantage Books, 1982.
Woodward, Bob, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1987.
* Available through the AET Book Club.
NOTES:
1 New York Times, 3/18/83. For a detailed review of these clashes, see Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 177-92, and Clyde Mark, "The Multinational Force in Lebanon," Congressional Research Service, 5/19/83.
2 See "NBC Nightly News," 6:30 PM EST, 3/17/86; also, George C. Wilson, Washington Post, 2/5/83.
3 Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, p. 51; Cooley, Payback, pp. 69-71.
4 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, p. 137.
5 Frank, U.S. Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, Appendix F.
6 New York Times, 10/1/82. Also see Cooley, Payback, p. 71; Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 175-77
7 The text is in New York Times, 9/30/82. Also see Peck, The Reagan Administration and the Palestinian Question, p. 76.
8 Schiff & Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 225.
9 "Chronology of the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon," Journal of Palestine Studies, Summer/Fall 1982,
p. 189.
10 Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 178-80.
11 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, pp. 45-46.
12 Ibid.
13 Green, Living by the Sword, p. 182.
14 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, p. 56.
15 New York Times, 2/9/83; "Final Report of the Israeli Commission of Inquiry," Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1983, pp. 89-116.
16 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982-1984, p. 56.
17 New York Times, 4/22/83 and 4/26/83. For more detail on CIA victims, see Charles R Babcock, Washington Post, 8/5/86, and Woodward, Veil, pp. 244-45.
18 Ostrovsky, By Way of Deception, p. 321.
19 Cooley, Payback, p. 76.
20 New York Times, 8/30/83.
21 Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, pp. 75-77.
22 New York Times, 9/5/83.
23 Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp. 489-91; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 179.
24 New York Times, 9/6/83.
25 Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 505.
26 New York Times, 9/14/83.
27 New York Times, 9/13/83.
28 Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 12/11/83. Also see Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison, p. 335; Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 505; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 210.
29 Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, pp. 200-01. Also see Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 190-92.
30 New York Times, 9/29/83.
31 New York Times, 9/25/83; David Koff, "Chronology of the War in Lebanon, Sept.-November, 1983," Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1984, pp. 133-35.
32 Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 12/11/83. Also see Cooley, Payback, pp. 80-91; Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp. 511-22; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, pp. 201-4; Woodward, Veil, pp. 285-87.
33 New York Times, 1/4/84; Cooley, Payback, pp. 95-97.
34 New York Times, 12/4/83.
35 New York Times, 1/19/84. Also see New York Times, 1/29/84, and Cooley, Payback, p. 75. For a chronology of attacks against Americans in this period, see the Atlanta Journal, 1/31/85.
36 Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 533.
37 New York Times, 4/16/84. Also see Cooley, Payback, p. 111; Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 565.
38 Cooley, Payback, p. 102; Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 533; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 220.
Donald Neff is author of the Warriors trilogy on U.S.-Middle East relations and of the unpublished Middle East Handbook, a chronological data bank of significant events affecting U.S policy and the Middle East upon which this article is based. His books are available through the AET Book Club.
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