Salon: A history of Libya and blowback

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Monday, Mar 21, 2011 13:32 ET
War Room
A history of Libya and blowback
By Justin Elliott

http://www.salon.com/news/libya/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/03/21/gadhafi_reagan_lockerbie



Moammar Gadhafi and wreckage from Pan Am flight 103

A fact that hasn't gotten much attention since the Obama administration started its bombing campaign in Libya is that we've been here before. President Ronald Reagan launched a bombing raid on Libya in 1986, known as Operation El Dorado Canyon.

That was a very different era -- one in which Moammar Gadhafi was an active sponsor of terrorism and had been demonized in the U.S. for years. There are, however, interesting parallels to today. The Obama administration, for example, has warned in recent days that Gadhafi may try to hit back at the U.S. or Europe by sponsoring acts of terrorism. In the 1980s, Gadhafi did just that. Reagan's strike on Libya was one of the key events in the run-up to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The Lockerbie bombing killed 270 people. Among the many Americans killed was Matthew Gannon, a Beirut-based CIA officer. Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was ultimately convicted of masterminding the attack.

To learn more about the history of Operation El Dorado Canyon and Lockerbie, I spoke with William Beeman, a Middle East expert and anthropology professor at University of Minnesota. The text that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

[L. Coyote]

1. Reagan killed Khadafy's infant daughter

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