Reagan: Airstrike against Libya victory against terrorism (when reporting even by Helen Thomas wasn't biased)

UPI ^ | April 15, 1986 | Helen Thomas

[DoodleBob]

WASHINGTON, April 15, 1986 (UPI) -- The blistering U.S. airstrike against Libya was a victory in the global battle against terrorism, President Reagan said Tuesday, warning the United States is ready to repeat its message ''in the only language Khadafy seems to understand.''

As Reagan pledged he will not relent in his campaign to ''eradicate the scourge of terror in the modern world,'' reports from the Libyan capital of Tripoli said that Moammar Khadafy's 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the bombing and two of the Libyan leaders's sons were seriously hurt.

After night fell in Tripoli Tuesday, the thud of anti-aircraft guns could be heard, arousing fears another raid was under way, but Pentagon spokesmen flatly denied another U.S. assault was taking place. White House spokesman Larry Speakes also told reporters that the military operations had concluded.

Reagan, speaking to a business group, noted that two American airmen are missing -- their F-111 bomber failed to get back to its base in Britain after Monday night's surprise attack that the Pentagon called ''Operation Eldorado Canyon.''

In the first direct diplomatic fallout from the raid, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev canceled a planned meeting between Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze because of the ''criminal'' attack on Libya.

[DoodleBob]

Notice how the Soviet response back then is comparable to Democrat response today with the Iran kerfuffle.

The reporting here is actually quite favorable, and all the more astonishingly so given the reporter in question.

Here is one more great point of contrast between then and now:

Domestic reaction to the strike was largely supportive of Reagan. Speakes said calls to the White House were about 80 percent in favor of the attack and on Capitol Hill lawmakers, with few exceptions, backed the president's decision.

''Khadafy is an international outlaw with blood on his hands and he deserves whatever punishment he gets,'' Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said. But he added ''only time will tell'' whether the raid ''will deter future terrorism by Libya or whether it will increase terrorism.''

[Impy]

#Sovietdemocrats

[Sacajaweau]

IIRC, after this event, Khadaffi gave up his nuclear weapons.

Khadaffi had a strong control the Muslims.

Obama, and I still don't know his reasoning, had Khadaffi assassinated.

[Sacajaweau]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/opinions/libya-chaos-civilian-deaths-bergen-sims/index.html

[Amberdawn]

As it turned out, his daughter wasn’t killed, but the media reported that she was.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Can you imagine Helen Thomas-72 of them?

[DoodleBob]

Sam Kinison's ultra-patriotic Libya bombing rant (NSFW)

[montag813]

Sadly, the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 (259 dead) was Libya's response to that attack. That means something to me since I had been working in Brussels and supposed to have taken that very flight to come stateside for Xmas, but was delayed (for a romantic encounter) a day in London and missed it.

Which just goes to show that there is no such thing as a "victory against terrorism." The only true way to defeat terrorism is to keep terrorists out of Western nations. $8 trillion and 20 years of the "War on Terror" do not change the fact that we welcomed the 19 hijackers with open arms (and without questions, and without tracking once they were here). Florida handed 13 of them driver's licenses. And 5 of them were stopped with expired visas -- including Mohammed Atta -- and were let go without consequence, let alone arrest or deportation.

We LET IN the San Bernardino scumbags and the Tsarnaev scumbags and the Orlando mass jihadist. No number of weapons or troops in the Middle East can ever change the facts of our sheer suicidal idiocy on immigration.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***two American airmen are missing — their F-111 bomber failed to get back***

I’ve read that the F-111s flew from Britain and had to go around Spain and France as they refused to open their air space to allow the aircraft to fly over them.

It was thought that flying fatigue may have been the cause of their aircraft going down.