For God’s Sake, Spare Me the Melodrama
US Embassy 83; Hit in a Sychronized Bombing in Beirut
So, today is an anniversary. The anniversary of the bombing of the US marine barracks in Beirut in 83. News reports like to point out the victims of the bombing by a shadowy , embryonic version of Hizbullah ( in reality, a mix of Islamic Jihad, a barely formed Hizbullah and other Islamic groups) were on a peace keeping mission.
Yet , I’ve heard from one too many marines in Beirut in those times that they were serving….which implies active service in a theatre of war. As France, the US, the UK and Italy sent on their peacekeeping forces to control a volatile Beirut , the reality from the Lebanese viewpoint was that peacekeeping missions do not fire Toyota sized shells from the USS New Jersey into the Chouf mountains, killing hundreds, if not more.
The reality from the Lebanese point of view is that there was more occupation at work than peacekeeping. Oddly enough, as Robert Fisk once pointed out, the Italians had no trouble with locals. They integrated into Lebanese communities, tried to bridge the language gap, and generally respected the ‘hosts’ of their peacekeeping mission.
The other Western players made a Berlin of Beirut and in no way served to keep the peace. They merely added to a war already fueled far too much by foreign policies and interests. As Kissinger was supposed to have said “America doesn’t have friends, it merely has interests.”
It’s been going on two decades and the US sees the Beirut adventure on the same level as Iwo Jima, or the fall of Berlin. Would someone please do their homework, and while, yes…it is sad when people foolishly sign up to defend their countries – without realizing they are signing up to defend ‘interests’ – die?…..it’s about time the US learned to stop making themselves long suffering victims in an international conspiracy against ‘our freedoms.’
For Crissakes, America……….grow up. You were purposefully in the wrong place at the wrong time and were unwanted there. And yes, I am old enough to have seen the breaking news that day and the newspaper headlines. And even then it felt wrong. I asked myself , prolly in a cracking pre-pubescent voice………but what were they doing there in the first place?
If the US could move passed the preciousness of their suffering, they might be able to reclaim some credibility in the world at large. As it stands now, most Americans I meet or interact with still think a Vietnamese, or Lebanese, or Muslim is automatically the enemy……….and that is just too black and white and stupid for words. Next time an American wants to remember some tragic military loss? They should at least google the event first. They might learn something.
In the meantime? Spare me the fucking melodrama of another tragedy to ‘our troops’ who are sent hither and yon to secure more corporate contracts and oil cartel pipelines. As countries go, the US is an infant. But now that it’s reached its terrible twos, its really time it learn the world doesn’t live to serve its interests and doesn’t necessarily mourn the loss of its violent occupiers and arms merchants……
Spare me.
