thedrifter
09-02-07, 06:02 AM
It's not just about Beirut
By JENNIFER HLAD
Daily News Staff
September 2, 2007
John Selbe still thinks about the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut often - especially when his back starts hurting again. But until a few years ago, he didn't know who was responsible for his recurring pain and the deaths of 241 servicemen." There was nobody to point the finger at," he said. Then, in 2003, he read an article in The Daily News. A group of survivors and family members of the fallen had sued the government of Iran for damages, and won.
"I just started calling people," Selbe said.Selbe got involved in a sister case Peterson vs. Islamic Republic of Iran to the original case, and the judge is scheduled to announce Friday how much Iran is liable for. But without action from Congress, Selbe said, it will be an empty promise. Though a previous court decision Flatow v. The Islamic Republic of Iran allows Americans to sue foreign governments if their government is on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, there is no real way to force the government to pay, said Dan Gaskill, the lead attorney in Selbe's case.
The U.S. Treasury has millions in frozen Iranian assets, but no law exists to allow the treasury to pay that money out, Gaskill said. The first time John Selbe was sent to Beirut, he had no idea what he was getting into."I hadn't even heard of Lebanon," he said.
During his two-and-a-half months there in late 1982, he did meet and greets with the press and appeared in dozens of newspapers. One of his Marines was on the cover of Time magazine. The unit returned to the U.S. in December, he said.In the spring of 1983, he left again, this time with the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit. When they arrived, the American Embassy had already been attacked by a suicide bomber.
At first, Selbe and the rest of the engineer platoon trained the Lebanese Army, teaching them basic demolitions and basic land mine warfare. But the training stopped after they started getting fired upon. "We always knew we were vulnerable," Selbe said.
Then a sergeant, Selbe tried to keep his Marines out of the main barracks building as much as possible, he said, rotating them out to other areas when possible. They had served about seven months in Beirut and were scheduled to go home, but the unit slated to replace them was sent to Grenada in mid-October, Selbe said. The 24th MAU's tour was extended another few weeks.The morning of Oct. 23, 1983, Selbe was scheduled for guard duty, but his shift didn't start until 8 a.m. He was awake in his cot on the third floor of the barracks at 6:22 a.m. when a delivery truck drove through the barbed wire fence at the Beirut International Airport, crashed through the gate and smashed into the barracks. "I heard a crash," Selbe remembers.
"Something told me to curl up in a ball." Selbe fell through the floor in the fetal position, landing nearly upside down on the second floor of the building. He was buried underneath a pile of rubble for at least four hours before rescuers were able to get him out. Then, he said, came the "whirlwind of hospitals" in Europe.
After Selbe was rescued, he learned that one of his Marines woke up with the truck's wheel on his chest. The blast had pushed the vehicle carrying the bomb out of the barracks, through a wall and into the area where the Marine was sleeping, Selbe said. He, along with about 14 other members of Selbe's platoon, survived. Selbe's back was injured, and for a while, the left side of his body from the waist up was paralyzed.
"It was like it didn't exist," he said. But he just needed time. He recovered and stayed in the Marine Corps. Two years later he was working in the minefields in Cuba. He retired in 2001 after serving 24 years.And though he kept in touch with other survivors of the bombing, "we never knew who did it," Selbe said. "We've got to make these people pay." After the family of Alisa Flatow won their case against the government of Iran for her death in a bus bombing carried out by Iran in 1995 survivors and families of the servicemen killed in the barracks bombing began asking, "What about our guys?" attorney Gaskill said. The idea behind the Flatow case, Gaskill said, was "terrorism is so cheap.
If it cost them millions of dollars each time an American was killed, maybe it would be better than nothing happening to them."Still, lawyers weren't sure the case would fly, since this time the plaintiffs were U.S. servicemen. But it was a peacekeeping mission, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in his opinion. The Marines and other service members "were clearly noncombatants operating under peacetime rules of engagement," he wrote.
During the trial, witnesses described how Hezbollah operated at the time "In the '83 time frame, it was essentially a tool of Iran" and how the type and concentration of explosives found at the site was not manufactured in-side the border of Lebanon at the time, but rather, inside of Iran." These are not things that you just go down to the drug-store and buy a pound of, these are not things [for which] you buy innocuous materials and manufacture in your backyard," an explosives expert testified, according to the judge's opinion. The families affected by the bombing are still feeling the pain, witnesses told the court." The pain does not stop when you bury the dead; it is only the very beginning. We feel this loss over and over and over again.
It does not go away and it does not lessen with time; that is a myth," Lynn Smith, sister of fallen Marine Capt. Vincent Smith, told the court. "Vince would have wanted us to fight. Vince would have said … we must hold these men accountable," she said, according to the court opinion. "We stand together to do what they cannot do for themselves." Unfortunately, Selbe said, there are two more branches of the government to overcome before the victims will see their payback. Until Congress passes a law allowing the victims to collect frozen assets from the U.S. Treasury, the plaintiffs will see nothing, Selbe said. But it is not just about Beirut, he said. Though the bombings in Beirut were among the first suicide bombings designed to kill large groups of people, they weren't the last. Over the years, terrorists "have hidden behind immunity laws," he said. "It was a lot different when 9/11 happened," he said. "How are you supposed to sue Al Qaeda? "But with Beirut and other terrorist acts, there was a government behind it, he said. "The point is, we've got to make these people pay," Selbe said." They can't dodge this bullet forever."
On Aug. 2, 15 senators introduced the Justice for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act to the Senate. It's the third bill of its kind to be introduced. The other two never made it out of committee, Selbe said.The problem, Gaskill said, is the money. The president "has the sole ability to decide issues of foreign diplomacy," Gaskill said. "So by the court making this rule, or the Senate making this rule and the court finding what they found, they don't want anything to infringe upon the president's ability to conduct foreign affairs."But the point of the lawsuit, Gaskill said, is to tell terrorists "every time they blow up an American, they're going to have to pay." "(Legislators) say the money is an important bargaining chip," Gaskill said.
"But if we don't bargain with terrorists, for what do we need a bargaining chip?" Selbe said he and the approximately 50 other North Carolinians involved in the related lawsuits want someone to pay. Being able to sue the government responsible for terrorist acts means nothing if they are not held fiscally responsible, he said. "Somebody, somewhere, someday is going to have to deal with this problem," Selbe said. "They can't dodge this bullet forever."
Ellie
By JENNIFER HLAD
Daily News Staff
September 2, 2007
John Selbe still thinks about the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut often - especially when his back starts hurting again. But until a few years ago, he didn't know who was responsible for his recurring pain and the deaths of 241 servicemen." There was nobody to point the finger at," he said. Then, in 2003, he read an article in The Daily News. A group of survivors and family members of the fallen had sued the government of Iran for damages, and won.
"I just started calling people," Selbe said.Selbe got involved in a sister case Peterson vs. Islamic Republic of Iran to the original case, and the judge is scheduled to announce Friday how much Iran is liable for. But without action from Congress, Selbe said, it will be an empty promise. Though a previous court decision Flatow v. The Islamic Republic of Iran allows Americans to sue foreign governments if their government is on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, there is no real way to force the government to pay, said Dan Gaskill, the lead attorney in Selbe's case.
The U.S. Treasury has millions in frozen Iranian assets, but no law exists to allow the treasury to pay that money out, Gaskill said. The first time John Selbe was sent to Beirut, he had no idea what he was getting into."I hadn't even heard of Lebanon," he said.
During his two-and-a-half months there in late 1982, he did meet and greets with the press and appeared in dozens of newspapers. One of his Marines was on the cover of Time magazine. The unit returned to the U.S. in December, he said.In the spring of 1983, he left again, this time with the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit. When they arrived, the American Embassy had already been attacked by a suicide bomber.
At first, Selbe and the rest of the engineer platoon trained the Lebanese Army, teaching them basic demolitions and basic land mine warfare. But the training stopped after they started getting fired upon. "We always knew we were vulnerable," Selbe said.
Then a sergeant, Selbe tried to keep his Marines out of the main barracks building as much as possible, he said, rotating them out to other areas when possible. They had served about seven months in Beirut and were scheduled to go home, but the unit slated to replace them was sent to Grenada in mid-October, Selbe said. The 24th MAU's tour was extended another few weeks.The morning of Oct. 23, 1983, Selbe was scheduled for guard duty, but his shift didn't start until 8 a.m. He was awake in his cot on the third floor of the barracks at 6:22 a.m. when a delivery truck drove through the barbed wire fence at the Beirut International Airport, crashed through the gate and smashed into the barracks. "I heard a crash," Selbe remembers.
"Something told me to curl up in a ball." Selbe fell through the floor in the fetal position, landing nearly upside down on the second floor of the building. He was buried underneath a pile of rubble for at least four hours before rescuers were able to get him out. Then, he said, came the "whirlwind of hospitals" in Europe.
After Selbe was rescued, he learned that one of his Marines woke up with the truck's wheel on his chest. The blast had pushed the vehicle carrying the bomb out of the barracks, through a wall and into the area where the Marine was sleeping, Selbe said. He, along with about 14 other members of Selbe's platoon, survived. Selbe's back was injured, and for a while, the left side of his body from the waist up was paralyzed.
"It was like it didn't exist," he said. But he just needed time. He recovered and stayed in the Marine Corps. Two years later he was working in the minefields in Cuba. He retired in 2001 after serving 24 years.And though he kept in touch with other survivors of the bombing, "we never knew who did it," Selbe said. "We've got to make these people pay." After the family of Alisa Flatow won their case against the government of Iran for her death in a bus bombing carried out by Iran in 1995 survivors and families of the servicemen killed in the barracks bombing began asking, "What about our guys?" attorney Gaskill said. The idea behind the Flatow case, Gaskill said, was "terrorism is so cheap.
If it cost them millions of dollars each time an American was killed, maybe it would be better than nothing happening to them."Still, lawyers weren't sure the case would fly, since this time the plaintiffs were U.S. servicemen. But it was a peacekeeping mission, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in his opinion. The Marines and other service members "were clearly noncombatants operating under peacetime rules of engagement," he wrote.
During the trial, witnesses described how Hezbollah operated at the time "In the '83 time frame, it was essentially a tool of Iran" and how the type and concentration of explosives found at the site was not manufactured in-side the border of Lebanon at the time, but rather, inside of Iran." These are not things that you just go down to the drug-store and buy a pound of, these are not things [for which] you buy innocuous materials and manufacture in your backyard," an explosives expert testified, according to the judge's opinion. The families affected by the bombing are still feeling the pain, witnesses told the court." The pain does not stop when you bury the dead; it is only the very beginning. We feel this loss over and over and over again.
It does not go away and it does not lessen with time; that is a myth," Lynn Smith, sister of fallen Marine Capt. Vincent Smith, told the court. "Vince would have wanted us to fight. Vince would have said … we must hold these men accountable," she said, according to the court opinion. "We stand together to do what they cannot do for themselves." Unfortunately, Selbe said, there are two more branches of the government to overcome before the victims will see their payback. Until Congress passes a law allowing the victims to collect frozen assets from the U.S. Treasury, the plaintiffs will see nothing, Selbe said. But it is not just about Beirut, he said. Though the bombings in Beirut were among the first suicide bombings designed to kill large groups of people, they weren't the last. Over the years, terrorists "have hidden behind immunity laws," he said. "It was a lot different when 9/11 happened," he said. "How are you supposed to sue Al Qaeda? "But with Beirut and other terrorist acts, there was a government behind it, he said. "The point is, we've got to make these people pay," Selbe said." They can't dodge this bullet forever."
On Aug. 2, 15 senators introduced the Justice for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act to the Senate. It's the third bill of its kind to be introduced. The other two never made it out of committee, Selbe said.The problem, Gaskill said, is the money. The president "has the sole ability to decide issues of foreign diplomacy," Gaskill said. "So by the court making this rule, or the Senate making this rule and the court finding what they found, they don't want anything to infringe upon the president's ability to conduct foreign affairs."But the point of the lawsuit, Gaskill said, is to tell terrorists "every time they blow up an American, they're going to have to pay." "(Legislators) say the money is an important bargaining chip," Gaskill said.
"But if we don't bargain with terrorists, for what do we need a bargaining chip?" Selbe said he and the approximately 50 other North Carolinians involved in the related lawsuits want someone to pay. Being able to sue the government responsible for terrorist acts means nothing if they are not held fiscally responsible, he said. "Somebody, somewhere, someday is going to have to deal with this problem," Selbe said. "They can't dodge this bullet forever."
Ellie