To Hell with Hezbollah (obliterate Hezbollah!)

The American Thinker ^ | 7/24/2006 | Herbert E. Meyer

[Dark Skies]

I worked for President Reagan at the CIA, and during those years I made quite a number of overseas trips. While having dinner one evening with some people from the local CIA station, I fell into a conversation with a young woman who had recently completed her training and was on her first foreign assignment. She was charming, eager, and razor-sharp – precisely the sort of young officer the agency recruited in those days, and the sort of officer who, in time, would rise to a leadership position. She told me that she had just worked a deal through which the agency would give her a leave of absence, with pay, so she could go back to school and get an MBA degree. That would enhance her management skills, she explained, and she thought these skills would come in handy as she moved up the ladder.

As we left the dinner I wished her luck in the MBA program, and asked her to stop by my office the next time she came to Washington to say hello.

“I will,” she replied. “And when I do I’ll tell you about another little deal I’ve worked out to see a part of the world I’ve never been to.”

I asked what she meant, and she explained that when one of our stations needed some help because of an unexpected personnel shortage – due to a combination of vacations and emergency sick-leave, for instance – they passed word around to stations in other parts of the world that if anyone had some vacation time to burn up and wanted to visit that country for a week or two with free accommodation, here was their chance.

“Sounds like fun,” I said. “So, where are you going?”

“Beirut.”

Ten minutes after she showed up for work, on April 18, 1983, Hezbollah blew up that embassy and killed her, along with seven other CIA officers including the station chief, Ken Haas, and the agency’s top Mideast analyst, Bob Ames, and 60 other people. Six months later, on October 23, Hezbollah launched an attack in Beirut that killed 241 of our Marines, sailors and soldiers.

President Reagan decided not to retaliate for either of these attacks, and I believe this was among the toughest decisions he ever made. What the President understood – and what so many people demanding retaliation back then did not – is that in 1983 we were in the final stages of winning the Cold War. This was the President’s great objective and achieving it would absorb all of his, and the administration’s, energies and efforts. He would allow nothing – not even Hezbollah’s attacks on our embassy and our Marines – to distract us from defeating the Soviet Union.

Now we are engaged in another global struggle, and this time Hezbollah is right in the middle of it. In the war on terrorism, Hezbollah isn’t a distraction. It’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran, and a partner of Syria – both of which are determined to stop us from winning in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, through what appears to be its own miscalculation, Hezbollah finds itself at war with Israel. Good. This may be the best break we’ve had since 9-11. We ought to give the Israelis all the help we can – militarily, on the ground as well as in the air – to annihilate Hezbollah and all its leaders. That will weaken Iran and Syria, and by doing so help us win in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So why is our Secretary of State en route to the Mideast? Why is all the talk in Washington about how much time we ought to give the Israelis before we stop them? Why are so many members of Congress and commentators blathering on about cease-fires, balanced approaches, about “degrading” Hezbollah’s military power, of negotiations with its elected politicians, and of a “buffer zone” in Lebanon south of the Litani river? Why are we being drawn into endless arguments about the complex relationships between Shiites and Sunnis, about how to give Syria’s president Assad a “pathway out” of his diplomatic isolation, and about the “sensitivities” of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia?

All of this is super-sophisticated nonsense.

In World War II there was no talk of a “cease-fire” with Japan, or of a “buffer zone” between Japan and China. No one thought it made sense to merely “disarm” or “degrade” the Wehrmacht, or to just push Hitler back into Germany where his National Socialist party could continue to dominate the Reichstag. And no one who suggested that the fire-bombing of Dresden, or the D-Day invasion, were a “disproportionate response” to Hitler’s invasion of Poland was taken seriously.

When you’re in the middle of a war, of course you need to think before you act. But there is such a thing as over-thinking, and today we are in serious danger of making this mistake. In war there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that brings victory faster and more completely than the total annihilation of your enemy. Do that and everything else – what the late, great Senator Sam Ervine of North Carolina once called “the complex complexities” – sort themselves out.

Right now we have an unexpected opportunity to obliterate Hezbollah, and by doing so to increase our chances for victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’d be fools not to go for it.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. His DVD on The Siege of Western Civilization has become an international best-seller.

[Paul Ross]

Ronald Reagan was a great president, but this may have been the single worst Presidential decision of the last quarter-century

Nope. Clearly the Clinton administration was a continuing "Cascade Failure" in foreign policy (sabotaging the indigenous assassination of Saddam, and the CIA Predator drone attack on OBL...to name just a few) that has only now obviously reached the crescendo with the "first-fruits" of 9-11, North Korea and Iranian Nuclear-breakouts. And as the author Herbert Meier intimates, President Reagan's decision, weighed as it was against a Democrat-controlled Congress, and battle for liberty against the Soviets....it was not a mistake, it was a deliberate decision he agonized over...

President Reagan decided not to retaliate for either of these attacks, and I believe this was among the toughest decisions he ever made. What the President understood – and what so many people demanding retaliation back then did not – is that in 1983 we were in the final stages of winning the Cold War. This was the President’s great objective and achieving it would absorb all of his, and the administration’s, energies and efforts. He would allow nothing – not even Hezbollah’s attacks on our embassy and our Marines – to distract us from defeating the Soviet Union.

Clearly, as can be seen by his pointed visitations to these scenes...and with his wife...he was extremely unhappy about having to put off retribution (and it took us awhile to even figure out that it was Hezbollah/Iran...P.S. note precisely nothing has been done about Iran by W either):

The Reagans honor the victims of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. 4/23/83.

President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan attend Memorial Service for Lebanon and Grenada casualty victims, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 11/4/83.

President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan attend Memorial Service for Lebanon and Grenada casualty victims, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 11/4/83.

President Reagan drafts his speech to the Nation on Lebanon and Grenada in the oval office. 10/27/83.

[ArGee]

Israel can blow up everything standing in southern Lebanon and within 6 months Hezbollah will be back in the area, shelling the northern border as if nothing ever happened.

Step 1: Establish temporary security so your people don't have to live in bomb shelters.

Step 2: Cut off their money.

Corollary to Step 2: Try the editors of the NY Times for Treason so they stop making it impossible to cut off their money.

Shalom.

[Tolik]

Nailed It!
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[ArGee]

If Syria or Iran give sanctuary to the leadership, bomb the crap out of them, and be ready to take ground forces in to capture Hezbollah members if we can get solid intelligence info on where they might be located.

I remember someone, somewhere, saying something like:

We will make no distinction between the terrorists, and the countries that harbor them.

Oh, yeah, that's the Bush Doctrine, right? We could just implement that.

Shalom.

[johnny7]

Everything now in the middle-east leads back to Iran. If you want to follow it further... NKorea, China and Russia. The Cold War never ended... it evolved.

[AustinBill]

All the second-guessing over various actions during the cold war overlook the overriding fact that the Soviet Union posed the only existential threat the U.S. has faced during its history. That calculus dominated all U.S. strategic thinking for nearly half a century. It is only by the grace of God and the patient leadership of nine presidents that we came through that period intact.

Most folks understand the tightrope we walked during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 but the cold war was filled with many other such crises which could easily have turned the cold war hot. The history of the cold war has not yet been written (we're still too close to it) but that fact that we're still here to talk about it is testament to one of the greatest sustained acts of political will in history.

[jazusamo]

President Reagan was a great president, without a doubt one of the greatest, IMO. People can come up with reasons we didn't retaliate for the Beirut disaster and the loss of 241 Marines. The fact is that hindsight is 20/20 but it's also a fact that President Reagan just plain screwed up.

[Paul Ross]

We will make no distinction between the terrorists, and the countries that harbor them. Oh, yeah, that's the Bush Doctrine, right? We could just implement that.

Yes, it would be nice if it were. Some evidence that it isn't being implemented...

If Iran which starts every government meeting with a chant of "death to America", is harboring Bin Laden and they instigate so openly their war against Israel by their Hezbollah proxy to buy time to aquire nukes (be prepared for an August surprise?), what should our response be?

Petrified Truth: Osama in Iran
Front Page: Osama in Iran?
Osama in Iran, not Pak: US officials
Osama in Iran?


Osama, Iran and the "Cage"
Imagine That - Osama bin Laden's In Iran! (Get Ready for the Next War)

[Reagan Man]

>>>>President Reagan decided not to retaliate for either of these attacks...

This is simply untrue. Herbert E. Meyer has done an injustice to the Reagan legacy by not revealing all the historic facts. Perhaps Meyer's has a personnel motivation for holding back the truth. Whatever the reason, its necessary to correct the historic record. My research on the Beirut bombing in 1983 found the following.

In 1982, the Reagan adminsitartion sent US military personnel into Beirut Lebanon as part of a multinational peackeeping force. In reality, this US military contingent of mostly Marines, along with Army and Navy personnel, were thrown into the middle of a civil war, and placed in harms way without having been given the proper rules of engagement and without an adequate security system in place. US military personnel couldn't defend themselves and the mission was doomed from the get-go. After the Marine barracks was truck bombed, US intelligence was unable to positively determine who committed the horrible act.

Some experts believed the responsibile party was Hezbollah, supported and encouraged by Iran, Syria and Lebanese Druze. Some say it was a Shia terrorist group. Islamic Jihad and several militant Shiite groups, like the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, actually took claim for the attacks.

Following the Marine barracks truck bombing, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to knock off a military barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. DefSec Weinberger opposed such action. Weinberger told Reagan, any attack without positive proof of who committed the truck bombing, would lead to an expanded civil war dragging in other Arab nations, maybe pulling the Soviets into the conflict, and undermining Reagan's efforts to win the Cold War. In the 1980`s, America was concerned about confronting the Soviet Empire and ending the Cold War. Which is exactly what Reagan accomplished.

In a September 2001 PBS Frontline interview, former DefSec Weinberger said: "we still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing of the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport, and we certainly didn't then".

Reagan did order air strikes from the carriers Independence and Kennedy, and offshore shelling from the USS New Jersey. Terrorist enclaves were damaged and enemy combatants were killed. Reagan came to understand that Beirut and all of Lebanon was an untenable situation at that time. In February-March 1984, US military forces were finally pulled out for good.

It's easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say Reagan was negligent for his lack of action. Fact is, if Reagan was given clear evidence who committed the killing of the Marines, he would have taken stronger military action then he did. Taking into account both the political environment at home and geopolitical circumstances, Reagan made the best decision possible. The fact is, the US was about to start an all out war in the ME. That scenario wasn't in the cards at any time.

While the Marine barracks bombing was a contributing factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the ME, it wasn't the cause.

In May 2003, District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth concluded, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the responsible party in the 1983 Marine Barracks attack. He based this on the grounds that Iran founded Hezbollah and financed the group for years.

[Non-Sequitur]

Step 1: Establish temporary security so your people don't have to live in bomb shelters.

If memory serves you tried that in Lebanon between 1982 and 2000. And here you are again.

Step 2: Cut off their money.

Considering that their main source of arms and funds, Iran, is awash in both money and missiles I don't think that's going to happen soon.

Corollary to Step 2: Try the editors of the NY Times for Treason so they stop making it impossible to cut off their money.

Treason against Israel?

[ReleaseTheHounds]

B.S., jiggyboy. Reagan's victory in the Cold War was one of the greatest accomplishments of any president in the 20th Century and it did require compromises and focus. I wish we did retaliate for that bombing and those terrorist attacks, but our armed forces were seriously degraded at the time and only because of Reagan coming back. And our economy was equally degraded and just coming back. Oil had spiked to $40 a barrel -- unheard of in those days -- but had settled back down to under $10 a barrel thanks to Reagan jawboning and eliminating the last vestiges of price controls. Go back and read some history, jiggy...

[Reagan Man]

The US did retaliate for the Beirut bombing. See #49.

[Edgerunner]

You go after the enablers, Iran and Syria!

[Tennessean4Bush]

Islamic Jihad and several militant Shiite groups, like the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, actually took claim for the attacks.

Whether or not they actually did it, if a group takes credit for the attacks, why not oblige them with payment for that credit?

[ReleaseTheHounds]

AustinBill:

I like your perspective on this "second-guessing" even on this thread... I can't remember who it was in the Reagan (or first Bush) Administration who said this, but I agreed with it at the time and today... He said: "We always believed we would win the Cold War; we just never expected to see it in our lifetime."

I assume the Freepers on this thread who are second-guessing Reagan didn't live through the 1950's and 1960's to realize what those times were like with all of the "inevitable march of Communism" cr*p we lived with.

Reagan did what no other politician in America even dreamt about: win the Cold War without firing a single shot. And now some Freepers want to tag him with "the worst decision by an American president in the last 25 years"! Amazing.

I counter: "Grow up, Freepers! Go back and study your history. Review Reagan's record and the times in which he was president -- and the sad shape of things when he became president. Review the economy at the time these deicisons were made and the implications." I'm sure the great Ronald Reagan would have preferred to retaliate at the time but there were other priorities.

Thank God for Ronald Reagan!

[prairiebreeze]

Unfortunately, Congress and the majority of the American people convinced Reagan not to act when I believe he knew that he should have.

I tend to agree. Presidents were consistently given horrible advice over the years about how to deal or not deal with the ME. Bush 41 made a mistake in not going after Saddam for fear of "inflaming the Arab street".

Too many people who subscribed to realist analysis in State and elsewhere gave presidents a lot of poor advice. George W. Bush finally decided to listen elsewhere.

[Tahoe3002]

I have it from reliable sources that many hezzie artillery positions were taken out by our forces. It did not receive any news, and the USA did not want any attention. But it got done.

It still does not replace the 241 USMC, USN, USA lost that Sunday morning.

RIP: Major Macroglou and Capt Bill Winter.
Beirut, 10-23-83.

[CholeraJoe]

Think Curtis LeMay's incindiary campaign against Japan.

We could use a man like Lemay these days.

[Tokra]

How do you obliterate Hezbollah? How can you tell if they're all gone? They aren't a country, they have no borders or cities or infrastructure that you can level. They don't wear uniforms or announce their presence with flags or banners. Cut off the head of the snake and the head just growns right back. Kill everyone who looks suspicious and you just increase their recruiting. Israel can blow up everything standing in southern Lebanon and within 6 months Hezbollah will be back in the area, shelling the northern border as if nothing ever happened.

So your solution is...............???

To do nothing?

Better to try, even if there is no guarantee of success then to do nothing.

[Non-Sequitur]

You go after the enablers, Iran and Syria!

Makes sense. How?