Unnoticed Bombshell (Iran responsible for Beirut 83 bombing - my subtitle)

National Review Online ^ | recently | Freeper Michael Ledeen

[Rodney King]

Interesting. The author is right that the silence on this is telling.

[truthandlife]

Very interesting but not surprising. I hope we do pay them back.

[Loopy]

Gee, this author must be a dullard. We've only known that the 1983 Lebanon bombingS were Iranian since, oh, 1984. My isn't it convenient that this "News" should come out now.

[Rodney King]

While it is certainly not surprising, I don't think that the U.S. has ever stated that they knew that Iran ordered it. You say, Loopy, that we have known this since 1984. We certainly didn't announce it. If so, bombs would have fallen on Tehran.

[Loopy]

Give it a break already. My f*&^%&n God!. There have been so many documentaries on this its not funny. It has been common knowledge that the Iranians were behind this bombing and others ever since I can remember. Are you really saying it makes a difference now that the US has officially given its imprimatur on what we've all known for fifteen years. There was a Frontline on Osama that discussed this Iranian connection over a month ago and the Iranian connection to the lebanon bombingS was treated as a parenthetical.

Now we have a desire to go after Iran, after fifteen years and they trot out this very old story. Boy are you gullible.

[Rodney King]

I am not sure I understand your anger over a guy writing a story about the CIA knowing the precise connection on a bombing that killed hundreds.

Then, you call me gullible. What am I gullible about? I don't get it.

[Loopy]

Lookee here!!!"http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/625820/posts" Lookee here!!!! Osama's in Iran! His cook says so!! Let's start bombing! Turns out they were responsible for blowing up our Marines in 1983 too. Let's nuke em. Kill em all, yeah yeah!! Turn Tehran into glass. Let's roll!! <\sarcasm>

[Rodney King]

Whatever. Take a chill pill and get back to me later.

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[YaYa123]

Slapping myself. I remember specifically flipping by channels when Baer was onscreen. If Michael Ledeen deems his book important, I need to read it. Ledeen was all over television discussing current events in Iran weeks before the President's speech.

Anything we can do to help spur the overthrow of the Iranian government is fine by me. If I read him right, Ledeen says the time is ripe, and I don't think this convergence of information is coincidental.

[Rodney King]

Slapping myself. I remember specifically flipping by channels when Baer was onscreen

Me too! He looks like dork from a liberal think tank or something so I gave him a quarter of a second.

[YaYa123]

I may have misundstood your "sarcasm" warning, but you do understand the ultimate goal doesn't involve overt military action on our part, that it's to have the Iranians overthrow their government, right?

[eno_]

When people ask: "Why cover up terror atacks?" they are ignoring situations like this.

Why the cover up of TWA800? Maybe the country behind it is not a convenient target right at that time. So we don't let the people decide what the government should do with its power, we keep it hidden from the people so we can keep to some plan. Now this plan might be well-intended. I am not suggesting a malevolent conspiracy. But I AM suggesting that our government was/is too arrogant about how it deals with terrorism, and that this arrogance is the reason we had 9/11.

Another one that smells real bad is the Centennial Park bombing at the Atlanta Olympics that killed two and injured a fairly large number. It was first pinned on some fat redneck security guard, a frame that unraveled spectacularly badly. THEN it was pinned on Eric Rudolph who shot some abortionist(?). Why would he want to set off a bomb at the Olympics? So now we have what is probably prosecutors fabricating a case in front of agrand jury in order to cover up a security failure at an Olympics. When will our government learn that honesty can be effective policy?

[MLedeen]

The news is that Iran ordered it and helped it, but that Fatah (that's Arafat) carried it out. I guess I didn't stress it clearly enough. I was working on counterterrorism at the time, and nobody had a clue about the Hezbollah/Fatah link. Baer was a first-class case officer and I have a lot of respect for his conclusions.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I fully understand this man's obsession....my husband was in Beruit also. He was there for the bombing of the American Embassy in April, 1983, and had just come back home the first week of October, just before the Headquarters was blown up.....

It isn't something that you forget easily.

[Loopy]

Bully for you. Its not often that we get the actual author here on FR. But let me ask you this. Why aren't you out there trying to find some independent corroboration that Iran is this huge danger that we are now being told that it is? Iran is hateful enough. I agree with that. However, I haven't seen anything in years that indicates that Iran represented a current threat to the USA. Nothing that would implicate them in anything after the 1980's. Now all of a sudden, there is this seeming need to run out an make Iran some huge threat. Surely if it were such a threat, we would have heard about it for now. Its not like htey've been our best friend for the past twnety years or anything.

You appear to just be jumping on the Bandwagon and trying to tar Iran. As I've said many times: Just because we don't like them, or just because they are fighting another sovereign nation, doesn't mean that we should be seeking to interfere in their internal affairs. Persia/Iran hasn't been an external threat to much of anyone since Cyrus the Great/ Xerxes in the time of Alexander. Why now Michael? Are you just trying to build support for another imperial adventure? There was plenty of time to take on Iran before, and a lot more immediacy in the past and we didn't. Now all of a sudden its number one on the agenda. Why the drumbeat? Do you have an agenda?

[The Westerner]

Michael, thanks for the article. You've made me want to read the book. It's hardly a stretch to believe that one band of mid-east savages works with another. Arafat was getting his funding from somebody. Iran was the largest sponsor of terrorism after the Shah fell. None of our Presidents has had the fortitude to name Iran as the the prime suspect. Let's hope that our current administration doesn't blink. There was a relevant article that I posted under the name, "It's Time to Declare War." I don't know how to do links. It's in my bookmarks.

[SJackson]

Give it a break already. My f*&^%&n God!. There have been so many documentaries on this its not funny.

Actually, I think the Fatah connection is relatively recent.

[Free the USA]

FYI

[okie01]

You appear to just be jumping on the Bandwagon and trying to tar Iran. As I've said many times: Just because we don't like them, or just because they are fighting another sovereign nation, doesn't mean that we should be seeking to interfere in their internal affairs. Persia/Iran hasn't been an external threat to much of anyone since Cyrus the Great/ Xerxes in the time of Alexander. Why now Michael? Are you just trying to build support for another imperial adventure?

Did you not read what Ledeen posted to you? His point was that the news did not concern Iran. The Iran link is "old news". Instead, the news concerned the direct link to Fatah...and, thus, Arafat.

If you want to defend Iran, you should be taking out your spleen on the postre, Rodney King, who put Iran in the article title (mistakenly, as Iran is not the "bombshell").