41 years ago today

[kingofnerf]

The Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed.

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www.history.navy.mil

The U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1982 started with the best intentions, as the United States brokered a cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In response to cross-border attacks by the PLO, Israel had invaded Lebanon in June 1982, quickly trapping the PLO in the dense urban environment of Beirut. As Israeli jets pounded the city, Israel rapidly lost international support, and not wanting to incur the casualties of city combat, it agreed to the U.S. plan to create a multi-national force to guarantee the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut by sea to Tunisia, leaving behind Palestinian civilians in refugee camps in Beirut. France and Italy joined the United States in contributing forces to the MNF. In the U.S. case, this was a Marine amphibious unit (MAU) deployed from amphibious ships.

The evacuation of the PLO went well. However, as soon as the MNF pulled out, Christian militia personnel were allowed to pass through Israeli lines to root out any PLO stay-behinds. Instead, the militia massacred probably well over 1,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Shocked by the massacre, and embarrassed, since the MNF was supposed to provide security for the camps under the agreement, the MNF nations quickly put their forces back into Lebanon.

As the situation in Lebanon deteriorated rapidly in the summer of 1983, the U.S. inter-agency bureaucracy could not keep up as the Marines first got caught in the crossfire and then became targets. U.S. Navy ships initially fired in support of the Marines, but then were directed to fire in support of the Lebanese army, thus ending any pretense of neutrality, and ultimately dooming the mission as the Lebanese army finally collapsed into religious factionalism.

I used to work with a Beirut Marine who was on a warship when the barracks was hit and helped recover the bodies of his fellow Marines. Some of them were in the trees. Don't forget them.

Relevant in light of what's going on today. Have we learned from this lesson? Who knows?