October 23, 1983

Kanook – Tlingit Nation

June 4th, 2010
News sources from around the world today are condemning the boarding of
ships that were part of the “Free Gaza” flotilla, by the IDF with the
resultant loss of nine “civilian” lives at the beginning of this week. Stories
from both sides of the action are as diverse and confusing as one would
expect, whereas supporters of the IHH tell us they did not attack the
boarding forces, what video’s the public has seen on news broadcasts
tells a slightly difference story, and the supporters of the Israeli IDF tell us
that these peace-niks were terrorists with an agenda to cause more
havoc and discord with respect to the continued rocketing and mortar
attacks from Gaza into Israel.

In any case with this particular incident we find the peace-process in the
Middle East once more up-in-the-air as the engrained proponents of either
side exchanging their battle cries through the media as the world’s
population decides who is right and who is wrong, if only it was that
simple?

On October 23rd, 1983 the United States of America experienced its first
large loss of life from the Islamic militants operating within the Lebanese
Civil War, whereas two truck bombs were driven over barbwire barriers
and detonated within two separate military installations, one an American
Marine installation and the other one with French military forces, both in
Beirut, Lebanon.

The loss of life was high, whereas in the US Barracks, 220 Marines, 18 Navy
personnel and three US Army soldiers were killed, along with and elderly
Lebanese custodian. At the French installation 58 paratroopers died in
addition to the wife and her four children of a Lebanese janitor. It was
estimated that at the US Marine installation an equivalent to 12,000
pounds of TNT were detonated. It was two minutes later when the French
forces in the Drakkar building were attacked.

The Islamic Jihad Organization claimed responsibility for the two bombings,
a group that had been up until that time consider a cadre of “telephone
callers” that consistently called the press and who would ever answer the
 phone demanding the departure of “all” Americans from Lebanon, and a
bombing here and there along kidnapping Lebanese citizens and a
foreigner at every opportunity.

Previous to this attack, the group claimed responsibility of another suicide

bombing on April 18th, 1983, 6-months and 5-days before the attack on
the US and French military installations, bombing the US Embassy in
Beirut. Sixty-people lost their lives, mostly embassy staff, including US
Marines and Navy personnel – this attack put the United States on alert
and is said by some as the first attack by an Islamic group, whereas many
maintain that the “war on terror” began when the Palestinian Sirhan
Sirhan, killed Robert Kennedy on June 5th, 1968 in California, some 15-
years and 4-months previous to the events in Lebanon.

US Embassy 3-days after bombing

On both sides of the argument, we find a good majority that maintain that
the Islamic Jihad Organization was actually the core of today’s Hezbollah,
while the Hezbollah denies this link – the western governments find little
credibility in their denials and maintain the Hezbollah core members
where the originating source. Regardless this back and forth dispute
continues today and with the Hezbollah working its way into present day
Lebanese government, doesn’t sit well with the population of the country
that lost 301 citizens to an Islamic radical organization – which in turn has
 branded the Islamic culture as being against the predominately Christian
culture of the West.
After the Marine attack the world finally paid attention to the Islamic Jihad
Organization whereas up until the incident it was “a mysterious group
about which virtually nothing was known,” a group whose “only
members” seemed to be the “anonymous callers”, taking credit for the
bombings, or as some maintain today a group that in fact didn’t exist. In
other words a specially created cadre of Islamic radicals hiding behind the
curtain, whereas a much better organized radical group such as the
Hezbollah was actually committing the acts of violence in the region. In
an article published by the New York Times on December 30 th, 1983 that,
“Lebanese police sources, Western Intelligence sources, Israeli
Government sources and leading Shi’ite Moslem religious leaders in
Beirut are all convinced that there is no such thing as Islamic Jihad,” as
an organization, no membership, no writings, etc, etc. Well known and
respected Robin Wright described the organization as “more of an
information network for a ‘variety’ of cells of/or movements,” this rather
than a centralized organization.
General opinion amongst all was not all of the Islamic Jihads claims of
responsibility were credible, whereas “in some cases, the callers seemed
to be exploiting the activities of groups that had no apparent ties to
Islamic Jihad,” while working with some success to create “an aura of a
single omnipotent force in the region.
More than many, such as Adam Shatz of the Nation magazine described the
Islamic Jihad as “a precursor to Hezbollah, which did not ‘officially’ exist”
at the time of the Oct 23rd bombing, which the Islamic Jihad took
responsibility.
But, using various names, including the Islamic Jihad Organization and the
Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, Hezbollah remained buried in the
background until 1985, when it published a “manifesto” condemning the
West, and proclaiming, “…Allah is behind supporting and protecting us
while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies.”
 On the morning of Oct 23rd at
approximately 6:20 AM, a yellow
Mercedes-Benz truck drove to the Beirut
International Airport, where the 1st
Battalion 8th Marines under the 2nd Marine
Division had established its regional
headquarters. The truck, it was later learned, had been substituted for a
hijacked water delivery truck. The truck turned onto an access road
leading to the Marine’s compound and circled a parking lot, then the
driver accelerate and crashed through a barded wire fence parking lot,
passed between two sentry posts, slamming through a gate and drove
into the lobby of the Marine Headquarters.
Unfortunately, the sentries were operating under “rules of engagement”,
who having weapons but no chambered rounds were unable to respond
quickly enough to the advancing vehicle – by the time the two sentries
had locked, loaded and shouldered their weapons, the Mercedes was
already lodged in the buildings entry way.
The suicide bomber than
detonated the
explosives, which were
equivalent to 12,000
pounds or 6 tons of TNT.
The massive explosion
collapsed the four-story
cinder-block building into
rubble, crushing the
occupants – whereas the
force of the massive
explosions lifted the
entire four-story structure shearing the bases of the concrete support
columns, each measuring 15 feet in circumference and reinforced with 1”
and ¾” steel rebar. The airborne building then fell in upon itself. A
massive shock wave and ball of flaming gas was hurled in all directions.
The War with Islamic Radical Terrorists had began and the West stuttered
and committed many missteps in arriving where our world sits today, the
first in many minds is the response the Reagan administration had in the
early months following the bombing.
US President Ronal Reagan immediately labeled the attack a “despicable
act” and made a strong pledge that America would keep a military force
in Lebanon, while his Secretary of Defense label his original assertion
privately that he had advised the administration against “ever” having
stationed U.S. Marines in Lebanon, in pubic he said that there would be
no change in the US Lebanon policy.
The day following the attack the French President Francis Mitterrand visited
the French bomb site, albeit was not an official visit and he only remained
a few hours he did remark, “We will stay!”
Three days following the attack, US VP George H.W Bush visited the US
Marine bombing said, “The United States would not be cowed by
terrorists.”
In a direct retaliation for the attacks, France launched an air-strike in the
Bekaa Valley (Lebanon east of Beirut) against the alleged positions of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards, or a part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (“IRGC”) from Iran, where it is still today “alleged” they had sent
troops to train fighters in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of
Lebanon. It is mainly the Christian militias, such as the Lebanese Forces,
Phalanges and other Christian groups in Lebanon that stood by their point
IRGC had set up camp in the Bekaa Valley, claiming they had violated
Lebanese sovereignty – while other such as the Muslim militias remained
indifferent to their accusations, albeit the Progressive Socialist Party
(“PSP”) [led by Walid Jumblatt and made up mostly of members of the
Druze faith] and the Movement of Independent Nasserists or al-
Murabitoun (created in 1958, whereas at the height of 1958 Civil War
went up against the forces of the pro-Western president of Lebanon
Camille Chamoun), in the 1970s it re-emerged as a major political faction
within the Sunni Muslim community), with neither group approving of the
presence of the IRGC but to maintain political alliances kept their mouth
shut about their camp in the Bekaa Valley.
In a joint-decision President Reagan and President Mitterrand agreed to
attack the IRGC in Baalbek
(Bekaa Valley), where it was
firmly believe they were
training Hezbollah militants,
even though they were not
noted as being a legitimate
organization. Their plan to
attack the “Sheik Abdullah”
barracks with a joint American-French air assault team albeit Defense
Secretary Casper Weinberger lobbied successfully “against” the mission.
As history would later show, there was no serious retaliation for the Beirut
bombing from the Americans, albeit aircraft from the USS Enterprise-CVN
65, attacked Syrian targets in Lebanon this was in response to Syrian
missile launched against American aircraft, not because of the bombing
in Beirut.
On February 8th 1984 the USS New Jersey fired almost 300 shells at Druze
and Syrian positions on the Bekaa (Bekaa) Valley, whereas some 30
rounds slammed into the Syrian command post, killing the Syrian general
commanding the forces of Syria alone with several of his immediate
officers. This shelling took place President Reagan order the removal of
the remaining Marine forces on February 7th – whereas they were to move
off-shore to the waiting ships, this operation was completed on February
26th, 4-months and 3-days after the bombing on Oct 23rd. Complete
withdrawal of the multinational force was totally removed by the end of
April. Lebanon’s population was once again on its own.
The result of the attack for the people of Lebanon was a boost of growth to
the Shi’ite organization, Hezbollah, albeit the Hezbollah even today
denies they had anything to do with the bombings, and as seen by the
Lebanese on the ground that they were involved, whereas their soon-to-
be-officials praised the “two martyr mujahideen”, who had, “set out to
inflict upon the US Administration an utter defeat not experienced since
Vietnam.” Locally and all around the Middle East the Hezbollah would
 soon be seen as the “spearhead of the sacred Muslim struggle against
foreign occupation.”
Nabih Berri, today the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon, and the big
boss of the Shi’a Amal Movement, who preceding the bombings had
supported the US mediation efforts in Lebanon, now asked the US and
France to back up their bags and hit-the-road. Whereas, he accused the
United States and France of seeking to commit “massacres” against the
Lebanese people and creating a “climate of racism” against the Shi’ite
Moslems. Following his outlandish assertions the Islamic Jihad began
their phone campaign in earnest demanding that the Multi-National Force
leave Lebanon by New Year’s Day 1984, otherwise pledging that “the
earth would tremble”.
Albeit the USS New Jersey shelled her prospective targets with unparalleled
accuracy, some criticized the decision to use her, whereas they felt that
by shelling the Druze and Syrian forces showing that the United States
was destroying its previously neutral image in the Lebanese Civil War.
This they maintain gave the local Muslims the impression the USA was
taking the side of the Lebanese Christians. The USS New Jersey’s
bombardment killed hundreds of people, mostly being Shiites and Druze –
then General Colin Powell, at the time of the shelling the assistant to
Caspar Weinberger said, “When the shells started falling on the Shiites,
they assumed the American ‘referee’ had taken sides.”
During the following investigation of the bombings the Free Islamic
Revolutionary Movement identified the two suicide bombers as Abu
Mazen and Abu Sijaan. The Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement was an
organization that no one even knew existed until after the bombing when
they claimed responsibility for the twin bombings-whereas in October-
1983 they claimed as membership a few governments in the region – at
the time numerous editorials in American and English newspapers said
that they were bestial and immoral, yet in the same breath questioned
the methods used by “legitimate” governments all over the world. The
editorials and articles spoke loudly to the fact that “the distinction
between terrorism and more respectable forms of killing is a tormenting
 one.” The question in the Western Press evoked the problem of “whom
are we to rage at?”
World opinion shifted from one of a collective action against a visible force
and blended into a collective fear of doing battle against a foe that was
un-named and invisible, on-top of this fear was the inability of the
accepted methods of response in the now new direction that the terrorist
walked into the world’s crisis in dealing with the invisible and deadly
enemy. World authority now begin to realize that these terrorist
organizations did not follow the “accepted” rules of engagement and
recognized it was “useless” to believe that they would, whereas
organizations who load trucks with high-explosives and put their
members behind the wheels who knew that they would not survive the
event, a fact the common defensive mechanisms in-place could not
analyze was new to the governments and citizens of the world.
Under a cloud of mystery over a period of several years opinion emerged
that it was the Lebanese Shi’ite militia and political party Hezbollah,
albeit it was still considered to be underground at the time of the Beirut
bombings, was behind the double massacre. The United States strongly
believed that is was Hezbollah operating with the support of Iran and
Syria; all three entities deny their involvement in the events.
Two years following the bombings a United States grand jury indicted “Imad
Mughniyah” as the mastermind behind the bombings. Imad Fayez
Mughniyah (Hajj Radwan) was a senior member of the Hezbollah
organization where he was described as the head of its security section, a
senior intelligence official and one of its founders. Along with allegedly
being part of the Beirut bombings he is credited with the kidnapping of
dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Imad Mughniyah was indicted in Argentina for his “alleged” role in the 1992
Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires and before 9-11 was believed by
the west as the person who had killed more Americans than any other
militants.
In a July 2003 interview Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah replied
that the United States accusations against Mughniyah were “just
accusations”, and he questioned whether the US could provide evidence
 to condemn Imad Mughniyah. Nasrallah said, “Hajj Imad is among the
best freedom fighters in the Lebanese arena. He had a very important
role during the occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel. But as for his
relationship with Hezbollah, we maintain the tradition of not discussing
names.”
A fair description of him is provided by a former CIA official Robert Baer,
“Mughniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative
we’ve ever run across, including the KGB or anyone else. He enters by
one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes
appointments on a telephone, and NEVER is predictable. He only uses
people that are related to him that he can trust. He does not just recruit
people.”
At the age of 42-years, 2-months Imad Mughniyah was killed in Damascus,
Syria by a car-bomb planted inside his drivers headrest around 11 PM
local time in the Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Suseh.
It was another Lebanese author Hala Jaber that also claimed that Iran and
Syria helped organize the bombings and that two Lebanese Shia, Imad
Mughniyah and Mustapha Badredeen had been instrumental in the
events. Whereas Mughniyah and Mustapha Badredeen took charge of the
Syrian-Iranian backed operation, where Mughniyah brought his expertise
as a highly-trained security man with the PLOs Force 17 to the table.
It is noted that the pair where charged with gathering information and
details about the American embassy in Beirut and to construct a plan that
would guarantee the maximum impact and by all means, a plan that
would not leave a trace of who was responsible. It is said that the
planning took place at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, and were
usually chaired by “Hojatoleslam Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipur”, an Iranian
cleric who was very active in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and later
became the Interior Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Worldwide
opinion credits him as one of the founders of Hezbollah, and in any case
one of the more radical elements in the exporting of terror within the
Iranian clerical hierarchy in Iran.
Once the plan was finalized the vehicle and explosives were prepared in the
Bekaa Valley, which was under Syrian control.
On March 8th, 1985 a truck bomb made of 440 lbs of explosives blew up in
Beirut killing more than 80 people and wounding more than 256. The
bombs ignition was time to happen at the end of Friday evening prayers
at a nearby Mosque, whereas most of the victims were women and young
girls. The explosion took place some 145 feet from the apartment of
Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Shi’ite cleric believed by many to
be the spiritual leader of the Hezbollah – albeit the USA never admitted to
participating in any direct retaliation to the attack on the Beirut Embassy
and Beirut barracks, the truck bomb was believed by Fadlallah and his
followers to be the work of the United States – whereas some said
sources in the USA said that William Casey, then CIA director was
involved and carried out the attack with funding from Saudi Arabia and
that former Lebanese statesman Elie Hobeika was believed to be one of
those responsible for the operation.
It had been known that Lebanese intelligence personnel and other
foreigners friendly towards the USA were undergoing training by the CIA,
albeit the USA denied any participation in the operation, the CIA
immediately stopped training the operatives from Lebanon.
Within a short time period President Ronald Reagan appointed a military
fact-finding committee with Admiral Robert L.J. Long as the head to
investigate the bombing – the committee found that senior military
officials responsible for security lapses and pointed-the-finger at the
military chain-of-command for the disaster. The commission came down
pretty hard on the sentries at the primary gate not having loaded
weapon’s, in addition they supported the view held among US
Commanders that there was a “direct link” between the shelling of the
Muslims at Suq-al-Garb and the truck bomb attack.
Records show that on September 26th, 1983 the NSA had intercepted and
noted an Iranian telephone call that gave instructions to attack the
Marine barracks – whereas the Iranian Intelligence Service provided
explicit instructions to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus to attack the
Marines at the Beirut International Airport, this information made public
from Marine Col Timothy J Geraghty, in a publication of the US Naval
Institute. Where he continued saying, “the suicide attackers struck us 28-
 days later, with word of the intercept stuck in the intelligence pipeline
until days after the attack.”
He further notes: “It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct
naval gunfire support – which I strongly opposed for a week – to the
Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on 19 September
and that the French conducted an air strike on 23 September in the Bekaa
Valley. American support ‘removed’ any lingering doubts of our
neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay
in blood for this decision.”
Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent, accused the Mossad of
withholding information they had on the planned bombing, based on the
fact that Israel was in favor or the USA and France withdrawing from
Lebanon, thereby giving Israel a clear path politically and strategically for
its on-going operation / invasion of Lebanon. Benny Morris a professor of
History in the Middle East at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at
Be’er Sheva, Israel and David Wise an American investigative reported
argue that Victor Ostrovsky was correct in his accusations.
The twin bombings that day in Beirut are categorized by the United States
as an act of terrorism, albeit that some such as Oded Lowenheim tell us
that since the US Marines had become allied with the Maronite Christians
in Lebanon and were actively engaging in battles, the United States thus
waved their non-combatant status – regardless the United States still
categorized this attack as an act-of-terror as it was directed against off-
duty servicemen, which the United States defines as non-combatants.
Nevertheless, 1983 seems to mark the year that terrorism came home in a
big fashion to the American way of life, and for the last 26-years and over
7-months has remained as a new force to be dealt with in our pursuit of
peace, albeit it might appear from time-to-time the Middle Eastern
terrorist operates outside of the accepted rules-of-engagement, what are
the accepted rules when taking someone else’s life?