Aide: Reagan Warned Before Beirut Blast

[deadparrot]

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.

Recollections of an initial 25 Reagan aides were released this week by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Altogether, scholars interviewed 45 Cabinet members, White House staffers and campaign advisers in a project begun in 2001, when Reagan was secluded with advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. Reagan died in June 2004 at the age of 93.

Transcripts offer largely admiring portraits by Reagan's chief loyalists and Weinberger is no exception, crediting the president with restoring U.S. power and outfoxing the Soviet Union.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/ap_on_go_pr_wh/reagan_oral_history

[MnFats]

1. Jesus. I remember that: they were sitting ducks. This makes it worse.

Reagan was so deluded he thought the simple presence of U.S. Marines would prompt the warring factions to lay down their weapons.
It was a foggy mission without set goals, strategy or planning.
Reagan pulled the Marines out of there a short time later.
With nothing but dead Marines to show for it.
Goddamn Reagan.

[MakeItSo]

3. I'd give him a big kiss on the lips if he were president now

Everything is relative. (I hated him at the time, by the way).

[CottonBear]

7. I would cold cock the bastard if he were here now.

Fuck Reagan.

[KansDem]

17. Time to rename that aircraft carrier

USS Fuckwad

[stepnw1f]

14. I'd Thumb His Eyes SInce He Was Always so Blind to Reality

Ignorance doesn't need eyes to see.

[K-W]

4. Soldiers are just pawns to these people. EOM

[wordpix]

18. reportedly an amiable guy but dumb fuck

[daleo]

25. Then came the Grenada invasion

Which a lot of people have speculated was to help the military save face after Lebanon. So, this oversight may be indirectly responsible for that, as well.

[agincourt]

2. Military people still love that asshole,

A conservative always gets a free pass from the military. No matter what happens.

[Knurled99]

10. Bullshit

A conservative always gets a free pass from conservatives in the military, just like he or she would enjoy from conservative civilians. Believe it or not, the military is becoming less and less biased because there is a very diverse bunch enlisting/commisioning. You think we don't notice who fucks up our VA benefits? You think we get all happy when we're sent off to an uncertain fate, whether we think it's for a good cause or not? Most kids joining up these days do it because they need a decent paycheck and a way to pay for college. This is not the hotbed of conservatism it was in the 80's so stop demonizing us ok?

[stepnw1f]

15. He Generalized a Bit There

I happen to know a few liberals who served. My father is one... proud Democrat and will never ever vote GOP. Our wholw family knows the score with these traitors.

[atreides1]

20. Diverse and yet very few stand up to defend the Constitution

Yes I do think that the military notices who fucks up your VA benefits!! No, I don't think you get all happy when you're sent off to an uncertain fate!!!

My question as a former soldier and Desert Storm vet, is what are you guys doing about it???

I left the army in 1991, after returning from Desert Storm, and even then VA benefits were being eroded. I've written to my congressional group and the only reply I get is a form letter.

We liberals, both civilians and veterans, can only do so much. I'm afraid that in order to keep this Republic, we will soon have to do what the Founding Fathers were forced to do. The most important question is what kind of support can be expected from your "diverse bunch"?

[tabasco]

27. I'm still military and I hate Reagan. Always did.

Who are you to claim to speak for all military peole?

[agincourt]

28. Cause all the one I've met personally ,loved that crooked geezer

But it's great to hear from ones who don't , I stand corrected.

[Bozita]

5. "We can't leave because we're there" -- Where have I heard that recently?

from the article:

But 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."

[CottonBear]

6. Fuck Caspar Weinberger. The Marines' blood is on his hands.

Caspar Weinberger can't escape the scarlet letter of history now. Fuck him. And, goddamn him to hell while I'm at it. i lived through goddamned Reagan/Bush for 12 fucking years. Fuck any Reagan/Bush administration people. Burn in hell.

[MnFats]

8. well-put. Agreed.

[eppur_se_muova]

26. Trying to make himself look "out of the loop"? He was SOD!!

Got a chance to whitewash his record, with no rebuttal. I didn't like Raygun -- thought he was dangerously simpleminded -- but I don't care for "blame it on the dead guy" either.

[JI7]

9. "outfoxing the Soviet Union"

the only thing Reagan deserves credit for is not starting a war with them as the Chimp would have done if he was in office then.

but the Soviet Union collapsed in large part because of their internal problems along with Gorbachev's policies which encouraged more openness.

[deutsey]

11. Yeah, but he sure kicked ass in Grenada the next day!

Whoo-hoo!

:sarcasm:

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

12. didn't reagan/weinberger try to blame the marine commander

for it. and then when they bugged out of lebanon, they said it was a "redeployment."

along with the marines, there were several navy corpsmen who were killed.

there was joke in the '80's - who is israel's defense minister? - caspar weinberger.

[Javaman]

13. And so what does this info do for us now?

Is this more of the same "this type of stuff happened before" type crap? So the repukes can say, "look, business as usual, all presidents are crooked, even the great communicator!"
So therefore we are suppose to shrug our shoulders and say, "oh well"????

How about this: instead of these stupid mother fuckers coming out 20 years after the fact to offer up their version of their own little mia culpa, how about they just do their fucking jobs and question and expose these crooked bastards at the start and save thousands of lives??? Oh that's right, that would require a fucking spine.

Pigs.

[UTUSN]

16. One (more) small hole in the Saint Ronnie dike n/t

[KansDem]

19. "I was not persuasive enough to persuade the president ..."

Was he asleep at the time?

[KittyWampus]

21. So that was a LIHOP too?

[Igel]

22. He should have warned the French, too.

"The death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel, and 3 Army soldiers. 60 Americans were injured. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed, and 15 injured. In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast; the wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed."

But the response is one that's considered classic, and much hoped for:

"In retaliation for the attacks, France launched an air strike in the Bekka Valley against Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions. President Reagan assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action, and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Except for a few shellings from the USS New Jersey off Lebanon, there was no real military response from the United States in response to the barracks bombing; however, the US did become involved in several other fights in Lebanon during their stay.

"The (US) Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted, and in February 1984 the Multination Force withdrew from Lebanon. Terrorists saw this as a two-fold victory for their cause, and their activity against Westerners (particularly Americans) increased, prompting various U.S. responses. This event is considered by many to be the beginning of what is now called the War on Terror."

[cally]

23. I'm pissed all over again

Why did we not know this until now??? I hate these neocon bastards. All they do is lie and gain power.

[Orsino]

24. "I believe it was called 'Terrorists Determined to Strike at Airport'"

n/t

[Thor_MN]

29. Is it any wonder that * executive ordered Reagan's paper not be released?

* is deep sixing all the Post Watergate era legislation designed to create more transparency in government so that he can pull off all the same crap that Nixon did, in addition to lining his pockets. He HAS to be stopped. Reagan's papers should be in the public domain now, with Poppie's out soon. But little shrubbie has swept them all under the rug.