I remember this well since it happen on my birthday and lead to a no-notice deployment of my father with his carrier group.

As to not knowing what we were doing there, actually it was pretty simple. We were trying to restore the status quo, which was the democratic tri-party government that had been ruling the country since the end of the Second World War. We had intervened once before in 1958 to help prop up the government of Lebanon with US Marines and US Navy personnel on the ground, Operation Blue Bat. We withdrew those units after 4 months on the ground. Hopeing the government would stay together. The Lebanonese Government lasted until 1975.

As to the restrictive ROE. I would like to point out that we weren’t the only ones operating under those. 58 French Paratroopers died on the same day due to a similar bombing. They too were operating under restrictive ROE’s regarding the usage of force and the appearance being a military force. The situation was never completely solved to anyone’s satisfaction. Numerous people have pointed fingers all over the place as to why things were done a certain way regarding security. The questions the historians and others looking at this need to ask themselves is how could we do it better in the future? What can we learn from this?

URR,

Some of the articles, that I have read, about the incident some thirty years hence have seemed to ask what our mission in Lebanon was and for what those 241 US Marines and 58 French Paras died for.

You are right the details of how we accomplished the mission was not clear and even in the clear as mud hindsight of almost thirty years since, the details of how to accomplish bringing democracy to Lebanon (and peace to the region) still isn’t there. I do feel that we tried to do our best in the region to prevent the spread of totalitarian regiemes and create democracy in the region. Our only problem is not fully understanding what sort of playing field we are on.

The fundamental error is bringing democracy to countries that do not understand the concept of separating church from state. Any country that bases their government on the Koran or Islamic law is doomed to failure. Lebanon is even more complicated with a segment of its population being Christian.

John Adams in his ‘Defense of the Constitution of the United States’ showed that democracy was a degenerate form of government. By bringing democracy to countries that refuse to separate church from state we only legitimize the factions that have majority control. We are seeing the consequences of this ill conceived idea with the increased bombings in Iraq and the voter fraud in Afghanistan.

I was in the US Navy stationed on the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 when the Beruit terrible terroist attack occurred. I was shocked and angered that my US Marine Corp brothers were not allowed to have their weapons fully loaded, and authorized to shoot per the Chain of Command.

Fast forward 26 years later to Fort Hood Texas. Once again I witness another terroist attacking unarmed US Army personnel who could have stop this terroist after one bullet was fired if only they had been armed with their service handguns.

Can this country not learn that disarming our military personnel, is a invitation for the terriorist to kill us?