Posted on 07/20/2012 12:07:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
| Between December 1983 and February 1984, U.S. battleships retaliated against combatants who had targeted the MNF. The USS New Jersey undertook a relentless counterattack against Syrian and Druze forces, shooting its 16-inch guns for the first time since the Vietnam War. By April, the entire MNF, which the United Kingdom had joined, had left Lebanon. The civil war continued until 1990. President Reagan supported Secretary of State George Shultz's arguments in favor of U.S. diplomacy and peacekeeping in Lebanon. But in Weinberger's view, Lebanon was the wrong fight for the United States. In a speech on November 28, 1984, he articulated his six principles for future U.S. military engagements.. The Reagan administration had approved Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and although initially welcomed by many Muslims in Lebanon the United States came to be seen as too pro-Israel, pro-Christian, and anti-Muslim. U.S. forces' unintentional shelling of civilians did not help matters. Furthermore, the re-entry of the MFN was not accompanied by a serious understanding of strategy, objectives and the relationship between them. So President Reagan decided to withdraw U.S. forces from what would likely become a major military quagmire for the United States, instead of a multinational peacekeeping operation. | |
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
U.S. Marines search for victims in Beirut on October 31, 1983, eight days after an attack that killed 241 American soldiers.
Quick, let’s equate Reagan with Obama!
I really am going to bed now, right after I throw up.
Who the hell except the idiot McCain wants to “take on Syria”? Let them burn, kill each other off, and then contain them.
This is a failure of historic proportions. They have been using Islamic Insurgents to topple the regime of Assad. The best outcome from their plan is to have these same Islamic insurgents eventually control Assad's vast chemical and biological WMD components. Their plan is based on either sheer stupidity or sheer insanity. Take your choice.
These “world crises” are just diversions from our domestic problems; I had a female co-worker, who is nearly seventy but can’t retire because she can’t sell her home (and can’t afford to stay in it on her retirement income), tell me she was worried about Iran. The strategy is working well for the Dems; this twit has problems much closer to home (literally) than some far-off issue which has no real effect on us. I’m not going to debate what is happening in the Muslim world; is there any question as to where this lady should be focusing her (limited) attention?
Assad likely to unleash chemical weapons: U.K. military
Bashar Assad is highly likely to deploy chemical weapons as he faces an unprecedented threat to his rule, security sources warned last night.
British military intelligence chiefs told The Daily Telegraph there was a "high probability" of the Assad regime resorting to chemical agents following the assassination of three senior Syrian military figures in a bomb attack on Wednesday.
A source said that the killings amounted to a "red line crossed" for the regime and that a chemical attack could come "soon" as a result. "The threat is genuine," the source added.
Oh looky! There’s folks we’re engaged against that, for all intents and purposes, are part of them folks what have a desire to kill every single one of us here in the US!
Leave ‘em alone or it’ll be a quagmire! You know, like that Vietnam place, where we kicked the living shit out of the enemy and only lost because we ran away at the end!
Howard Zin, Noam Chomsky the cast and crew of Cornell’s South East Asian Studies Program, with the support and appreciation of CAIR, remnants of the PLO, Al Queda, every other jihadiscumist organization and the mullahs of the global caliphate join PBS and the DNC in approving of this message.
“Who the hell except the idiot McCain wants to “take on Syria”? Let them burn, kill each other off, and then contain them.”
If the douchebags of CNN are so worried about the poor Syrians, why aren’t they in there providing us with 24/7 video coverage of the situation?
Just think what that’d do to popcorn stocks? I know I’d watch.
Another lesson we should learn is that we’ve not had much luck at all with the whole “coalition” warfighting thing.
Time and way way way past time to cut long term alliance programs loose. Talking to you, NATO and the UN. Don’t pretend we don’t see you over there in the corner sucking up logistics and finances for zero good gain.
Lebanon was one of President Reagan’s few mistakes.
It was a horrible mistake, and a horrible place to make it.
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