Ronald Wilson Reagan, A Tribute
Posted on 01/30/2006 8:55:19 PM PST by jmc1969
WASHINGTON - A former defense secretary for Ronald Reagan says he implored the president to put Marines serving in Beirut in a safer position before terrorists attacked them in 1983, killing 241 servicemen.
"I was not persuasive enough to persuade the president that the Marines were there on an impossible mission," Caspar Weinberger says in an oral history project capturing the views of former Reagan administration officials.
He said one of his greatest regrets was in failing to overcome the arguments that "'Marines don't cut and run,' and 'We can't leave because we're there'" before the devastating suicide attack on the lightly armed force.
"They had no mission but to sit at the airport, which is just like sitting in a bull's-eye," Weinberger said. "I begged the president at least to pull them back and put them back on their transports as a more defensible position."
On another dark corner of Reagan's presidency, the Iran-Contra affair, former Secretary of State George Shultz said Reagan was so moved by meeting the families of U.S. hostages that officials feared the encounters would cloud his judgment, and began keeping the families at bay.
"The president, it just drove him crazy that there were these hostages in Lebanon," Shultz said in his December 2002 interview. Consequently, the "cockeyed dream" took hold of secretly selling arms to Iranians in return for their leverage in freeing the captives.
Weinberger, who often clashed with Shultz on foreign policy, agreed that Reagan's "idea of trying to get the hostages back overweighed almost everything" and arose from meeting the families. "Those meetings destroyed him, absolutely," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Whose families have yet to see the money from the judgement. Guess what's holding it up?
Caspar the not so friendly ghost.
Who ordered the Marines to NOT load their weapons? Don`t think it ever came out.
I'll go one better: The marines shouldn't have been there in the first place. At the time I wanted Israel to march to the Syrian border and obliterate the PLO. If we were there we should have been helping them instead of "peacekeeping". And after the blast we should have sent in 50,000 troops and finished Israel's job for them.
Everything that followed including 9-11 falls back in part to our nonresponse to the wholesale murder of our Marines that day.
Beirut is Reagan's shame. A total waste of life then we ran with our tails between our legs.
There were no loaded weapons on the USS Cole in Yemen!
And what was an Aegis class destroyer doing in unfriendly waters being refueled? Why wasn't it refueled at sea? Who was benefiting financially from the refueling? Why wasn't the investigation made public? Why wasn't the SecDef held accountable? Why wasn't the SecState held accountable?
Oh, wrong party.
I'll take Reagan over either Bush.
Between trading with Iran for hostages, Beirut, and Achille Loro debacle, Reagan was an abject failure when it came to dealing with Arab terror.
That's why I said "in part".
Since mohammed murdered his first victim and declared himself a 'prophet' this cult has been more than a thorn in the side of nations. NOBODY has been able to stop islamic terror. After studying islam a little bit, I don't know of any period in their history when they weren't either invading, murdering or terrorizing someone, somewhere. It's a cult that feeds off the blood of innocents.
He has shown much more spine than Ronnie when the going got tough.
That putz Bud MacFarlane shares a lot of the blame for the Beirut debacle.
Reagan's non-response was unfortunate, perhaps even tragic. But a multitude of others had an opportunity to make an appropriate response and delclined to do the right thing.
Iraq Hostiges, Kobar Towers, Tanzania, Narobi, Cole.....all were basically non-responsive to an entity that had declared war on the United States in 1996!
Blaming Reagan is simplistic and ignorant. Radical Islam many have reared its head on his watch.....but others let it prosper....until G. W. Bush came along.
Beruit remains the greatest black mark on Reagan's presidency. As great as he was, I wonder if he would have the determination in Iraq that Bush has.
Well, I was going to post on this thread. But, I thought Cap was dead, so what do I know?
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