Free Republic

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...

On March 24th, 1983, the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit arrived on station in Lebanon. The Americans were a peace-keeping force attempting to pacify a civil war between several different Moslem and Christian factions in Lebanon. As the line between war and peace distingrated, the Moslem factions began to see the Americans as enemies and began firing mortars and rockets at the Marines guarding the Beirut airport.

The project is critical to the ongoing shift of responsibility from U.S. to Iraqi units. BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 9, 2005 — With the smell of sawdust hanging heavy in the air, the soldiers cut and hammer away at their latest project - turning a parking garage into a barracks. This complicated project and others like it are critical to the ongoing shift of responsibility from U.S. to Iraqi units. The newly-converted barracks will soon be a home for soldiers of the Iraqi Army. “Anything we can do to get (Iraqi Security Forces) set so they can take on the responsibilities...

President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the generation that survived the Depression and fought World War II had a "rendezvous with destiny." The generation fighting the global war on terrorism has a similar destiny, Marine Gen. Peter Pace said, adding that he hopes Americans "appreciate how truly lucky we are to have young men and women to do what these folks have done for us." "These folks" were representatives of the five armed services who were the focus of the Evening Parade July 8 at the Marine Barracks here. Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hosted...

NICE, France (Reuters) - A bomb has exploded at an air forces barracks in the French Riviera city of Nice, at a building targeted in past attacks linked to separatists from the unruly Mediterranean isle of Corsica, a local prefect says. Local government prefect Pierre Breuil confirmed that the explosion was caused by a bomb. The explosion wounded a woman guarding a school beside the barracks and shattered windows in the area around the building, witnesses on the scene said on Friday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Last July, Corsican separatists, who regularly target state buildings on their...

May Day crowd barracks Schröder By Hannah Cleaver in Berlin (Filed: 02/05/2003) Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was barracked throughout a speech he made to a May Day trade union meeting yesterday, as he struggled to defend a harsh package of reforms which has infuriated Left-wingers. His speech to German Trade Union Federation (DGB) members in Neu Anspach in Hesse was a defence of the Agenda 2010 reforms that are being resolutely opposed by parts of his Social Democrat Party. But he was whistled at by sections of the crowd as he urged them to support measures on which he has made...

Columnist Cal Thomas used a recent column to advocate the Reagan approach to dealing with terrorism and threats to our national security. He wrote, "On the day of Ronald Reagan's Inauguration in 1981, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini released 52 American hostages he had held for 444 days. He had kept them that long because he realized a weak and indecisive President Jimmy Carter…wasn't going to employ force to get them back. The ayatollah rightly feared Mr. Reagan might turn Iran into a parking lot if he didn't let our people go." That sounds good, but the fact is that about two...

(CBS) In the Persian Gulf, in late July 1996, American warships, a full complement of military hardware, and nearly 4,000 Marines, sailors and SEALs, were praying they could pull off the mission of their lives. They had been assigned to grab the man, who before September 11th, had killed more Americans than any other terrorist. His name is Imad Mugniyah, and U.S. intelligence believed they had tracked him to the waters of the Persian Gulf, aboard a merchant ship, the Ibn Tufail. Marine commander John Garrett helped plan this top-secret mission to take down the ship, and take Mugniyah into...