1/18/2015
Time; 9;20PM
Continuation 14- Terrorism and Tyranny
James Bovard
ترجمــــــــــــــــــــــة القمـــــــــــــــــــــــــــبري
14
On September 13 Reagan authorized Marine commanders in Lebanon to call in air strikes and other attacks against the Muslims to help the Christian Lebanese army. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger vigorously opposed the new policy, fearing it would make American troops far more vulnerable. Navy ships repeatedly bombarded the Muslims over the next few weeks.
At 6;20 Am on Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, a lone, grinning Muslim drove Mercedes truck through a parking lot, past two Marine guard posts, through an open gate, and into the lobby of the Marine headquarters building in Beirut, where he detonated the equivalent of six tons of explosives. The explosion left a 30-foot-deep crater and killed 243 marines. A second truck bomb moments later killed 58 French soldiers.
Reagan administration officials scrambled to persuade the American people that the administration was blameless. White House press spokesman Larry Speakes declared on the day of the attack that the bombing "definitely was a difficult situation for us" since "people come out of nowhere and perform these acts."36 Vice President George H.W. Bush rationalized; "It's awfully hard to guard against that kind of terrorism." Defense Secretary Weinberger announced that "nothing can work against a suicide attack like that, any more than you can do anything against a kamikaze flight."37 (Actually, during World War II, the U.S. Navy quickly responded by placing rows of antiaircraft gun on the sides of its big ships.)
A surprise attack on a troop concentration in a combat zone does not fit most definitions of terrorism. However, Reagan perennially portrayed the attack as a terrorist incident and the American media and political establishment accepted that label. It is impossible to understand the first American war on terrorism without examining the political spin after that attack.
In a televised speech four days after the bombing, Reagan portrayed the attack as unstoppable, declaring that the truck "crashed through a series of barriers, including a chain-link fence and barbed-wire entanglements. The guards opened fire, but it was too late." Reagan claimed the attack proved the U.S. mission was succeeding; "Would the terrorists have launched their suicide attacks against the multinational force if it were not doing its job?..... It is accomplishing its mission." He also warned that a U.S. withdrawal could result in the Middle East being "incorporated into the Soviet bloc."38 Reagan said the United States was involved in the Middle East in part to secure a "solution to the Palestinian problem."
Time; 9;20PM
Continuation 14- Terrorism and Tyranny
James Bovard
ترجمــــــــــــــــــــــة القمـــــــــــــــــــــــــــبري
14
On September 13 Reagan authorized Marine commanders in Lebanon to call in air strikes and other attacks against the Muslims to help the Christian Lebanese army. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger vigorously opposed the new policy, fearing it would make American troops far more vulnerable. Navy ships repeatedly bombarded the Muslims over the next few weeks.
At 6;20 Am on Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, a lone, grinning Muslim drove Mercedes truck through a parking lot, past two Marine guard posts, through an open gate, and into the lobby of the Marine headquarters building in Beirut, where he detonated the equivalent of six tons of explosives. The explosion left a 30-foot-deep crater and killed 243 marines. A second truck bomb moments later killed 58 French soldiers.
Reagan administration officials scrambled to persuade the American people that the administration was blameless. White House press spokesman Larry Speakes declared on the day of the attack that the bombing "definitely was a difficult situation for us" since "people come out of nowhere and perform these acts."36 Vice President George H.W. Bush rationalized; "It's awfully hard to guard against that kind of terrorism." Defense Secretary Weinberger announced that "nothing can work against a suicide attack like that, any more than you can do anything against a kamikaze flight."37 (Actually, during World War II, the U.S. Navy quickly responded by placing rows of antiaircraft gun on the sides of its big ships.)
A surprise attack on a troop concentration in a combat zone does not fit most definitions of terrorism. However, Reagan perennially portrayed the attack as a terrorist incident and the American media and political establishment accepted that label. It is impossible to understand the first American war on terrorism without examining the political spin after that attack.
In a televised speech four days after the bombing, Reagan portrayed the attack as unstoppable, declaring that the truck "crashed through a series of barriers, including a chain-link fence and barbed-wire entanglements. The guards opened fire, but it was too late." Reagan claimed the attack proved the U.S. mission was succeeding; "Would the terrorists have launched their suicide attacks against the multinational force if it were not doing its job?..... It is accomplishing its mission." He also warned that a U.S. withdrawal could result in the Middle East being "incorporated into the Soviet bloc."38 Reagan said the United States was involved in the Middle East in part to secure a "solution to the Palestinian problem."
14
خوّل في سبتمبر/أيلول 13 ريغان قادة بحريون في لبنان للقيام بالضربات الجويّة والهجمات الأخرى ضدّ المسلمين لمساعدة الجيش اللبناني المسيحي. عارض وزير الدفاع كاسبر واينبرغر السياسة الجديدة بشدّة، كان يخشي من أن تكون القوات الامريكية أكثر عرضة . قصفت السفن البحرية المسلمين مرارا وتكرارا على مدى الأسابيع القليلة التالية .
في 6;20 من صباحا الأحد الباكر، أكتوبر/تشرين الأول 23, 1983، لوحده ، قاد مسلم شاحنة مرسيدس خلال مكان وقوف السيارات، تخطي اثنان من حراس الموقع ، خلال باب مفتوح، وإلى لوبي المقر البحري في بيروت، حيث فجّر ما يساوي ستّة أطنان من المتفجرات. ترك الإنفجار حفرة بعمق 30 قدم وقتل 243 جندي من البحرية . بعدها بلحظات شاحنة مفخخة أخري قتلت 58 جندي فرنسي .
بذل مسؤولو إدارة ريغان الجهد لاقناع الشعب الأمريكي بأن كانت ادارته بريئة. ناطق بيت ألابيض الصحفي لاري سبيكز أعلن في يوم الهجوم بأن القصف "بالتأكيد كانت حالة صعبة لنا " منذ أن " خرج أفراد فجأة وقامت بعمل هذه الأفعال"36 نائب رئيس جورج إتش دبليو بوش برّر؛ " من الصعب جدا بشدّة الوقاية من ذلك النوع من الإرهاب." وزير الدفاع وينبرغر أعلن "بأنّ لا شيء يمكن أن يقف أمام هجوم إنتحاري مثل ذلك، مثلما لا يمكن أن تعمل أيّ شئ ضدّ الطيران إلانتحاري "37 (في الحقيقة، أثناء الحرب العالمية الثانية، ردت القوة البحرية الأمريكية بوضع صفوف من البندقية المضادة للطّائرات بسرع على جوانب سفنها الكبيرة. )
أي هجوم مفاجئ علي قوّات مركزة في منطقة القتال لا تلائم أغلب التعاريف الإرهابية. على أية حال، صوّر ريغان الهجوم بشكل دائم كحادثة إرهابية وأجهزة الإعلام الأمريكية والمؤسسة السياسية قبلا تلك الشعار . من المستحيل فهم الحرب الأمريكية الأولى على الإرهاب بدون دراسة الدورة السياسية بعد ذلك الهجوم.
في الخطاب المتلفز، بعد أربعة أيام من القصف، صوّر ريغان الهجوم بعدم امكانية إيقافه، معلنا بأنّ الشاحنة " اندفعت خلال سلسلة الموانع، تشمل وصلة سلسلة من السياج وأسلاك شائكة. فتح الحرّاس النار، لكن كان متأخّر جدا." إدّعى ريغان بأن الهجوم أثبت المهمّة الأمريكية كانت تنجح؛ " هل كان الإرهابيون يطلقون هجماتهم الإنتحارية ضدّ القوة الدوليّة إذا هي لم تكن تعمل مهمتها ؟ . . . . .أنها تنجز مهمتها ." حذّر أيضا بأنّ إنسحاب أمريكي يمكن أن يؤدّي إلى الشرق الأوسط أن "تدمج إلى الكتلة السوفيتية" 38 قال ريغان بأن الولايات المتّحدة شاركت في الشرق الأوسط جزئيا لضمان "حلّ لمشكلة الفلسطينيّة."
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