Posted on 04/18/2008 6:30:39 AM PDT by beckaz
(KUNA) -- Ambassador Robert Dillon, who served during the explosion of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, recalled on Friday how this incident shaped US foreign policy in this embattled country 25 years ago, and indicated that Washington possessed information about the culprits. In an interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Dillon said the misinterpretation of US foreign policy towards the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982 and the "Iranian grievances" against the United States are the two main motivations behind this attack.
[SNIP]
He said that investigations revealed that a Shiite family and an emerging radical group from the Bekaa valley "assisted and controlled by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards" are behind the attack.
The former US Ambassador to Lebanon elaborated on how the 1982 Israeli invasion "radicalized the Shiite population of south Lebanon". "Later people have said Hezbollah did it, these were groups that later became part of Hezbollah "In a sense that is true, in another sense it is little misleading since Hezbollah has not been formed yet," added Dillon. On April 18, 1983 a van loaded with explosives drove into the east entrance of the US Embassy in Beirut killing over 60 people inside, of which 32 were Lebanese embassy staff, 14 visitors, and 17 Americans from the State Department, Army, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Islamic Jihad Organization was the only faction then to claim the responsibility of this suicide attack, the deadliest on a US diplomatic mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at kuna.net.kw ...
As to Ambassador Dillon: "Iranian grievances", "misinterpretation" and "not really Hezbollah cuz they had a different name then"???
Thanks for the diplo-speak pal, no wonder we're still being bombed in Iraq and elsewhere by the same guys, 25 effing years later.
We know who did it, and we are going to send Jimmy Carter to meet with them for some aggressive diplomacy!
If the USG had this information, why didn’t Reagan take action against Iran? We know Khobar Towers was blown up by the Iranians, yet Clinton did nothing. The problems we have today with Iran stem from our failure to act ever since our Embassy was taken over in Tehran in 1979.
I wonder which of the world’s major religions these folks practice...
And they are met with excuses and rationalizations by the press and governments world wide.
And I am sick of dividing this cult up by the names they give themselves, when there motives, their stated ideology, their targets, and tactics are the same.
Would any government have treated the KKK the same? Wondering why they hate us?
Exactly! If someone tried to say that there was a real difference between the KKK and Aryan Nation, but they were both "peaceful groups" except for a handful of "extremists," the public would be outraged.
Yes, I’m of the opinion that you have to forge policies that really screw up the globe for billions, for decades, in order to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
I’m not sure Mugabe’s efforts in Zimbabwe are good enough, because although the consequences of his leadership technically rise to the level of a Peace Prize, they are localized and won’t infect an entire continent like Carter’s and Arafat’s have.
Gore’s efforts are resulting in the possible starvation of billions around the globe, by providing incentives for rich people to burn food in their cars (and jets), raising prices for everyone else, another easy case for a Peace Prize.
I think Rachel Carson should have gotten a Peace Prize (or maybe Literature prize) for penning a screed that resulted in the hysterical ban of DDT, dooming hundreds of millions to die of preventable malaria.
I think maybe we need to wait until we find out if Dillon actually said this. Kuwait doesn’t have a free press and there are a couple of shots at Israel and Iran in the article that seem a little, er, gratutitous.
One of Reagan’s few serious missteps while in office. I remember being dissapointed that we were turning tail and running away.
Your so right, no gov or public worldwide would put up with it, so obviously the reason is.......Israel and the US.
This has been a proxy war against Israel and US power.
This is why govs worldwide haven’t unleashed hell on the Islamic cults.
Yep, this is what I found so odd about the headline of this story.
I knew the SECOND it hit the news back in October, 1983 who did it and so did everybody else.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, all ANYONE cared about was that it was the Japanese who did it. NOBODY was at all interested in the name of the pilot who dropped the bomb that sunk the USS Arizona because it really didn’t matter, the enemy was Japan not the individual who planned the attack or carried it out.
I use to think this as well, however, to have literally responded at that point in time would have taken the focus off of the Soviet style spread of global Communism. Which I think was the real purpose of these bombings... draw US off in another direction.
What happened when the Soviet system became so top heavy they began to crumble top down, our liberals demanded US to cash in on what these liberals called the PEACE dividend. But that system was NOT rooted out, Clintonism gave it fertilizer and even assisted the darkest places on this earth to go nuclear.... Now who is the provider for Iran to go nuclear????
Hamas officials have said the meetings with Carter have given the group legitimacy.
Hamas official Mushir Masri, in a fiery speech Friday to thousands of Hamas supporters in Gaza, said the meetings with Carter were proof that Hamas was not a terrorist group, but a national liberation movement.
He said countries and groups are beginning to understand that Hamas is a power to reckon with and the region will not have calm or stability without engaging the group.
“It confirms the failure of the U.S. and European policies of ignoring Hamas,” he told the crowd. “It confirms that all the countries that assume Hamas is a terrorist group should reconsider.”
Yep.
HAMAS is no more a national liberation movement than the Taliban were in Afghanistan.
In fact, HAMAS is just part of an international Islamist movement.
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