03Fox2/1
09-09-07, 20:14
From Associated Press, By Matt Apuzzo. September 8, 2007
"Iran Ordered To Pay For Beirut Blast"
Washington-- Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge declared Friday in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth described his ruling as the largest ever such judgement by an American court against a foreign nation.
"These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter-century for justice to be done," he said. Most of those killed were Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune.
Iran has been blamed for supporting the militant group Hezbollah, which carried out the suicide bombing in Beirut. It was the worst terrorist act against U.S. targets until the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Hundreds of people crowded into a federal courtroom to hear Friday's ruling. Parents have grown old since their children were killed. Siblings have grown into middle age. Children have married and started families of their own.
Weeping spectators stood and erupted in applause and hugs as Lamberth left the bench.
The ruling allows nearly 1,000 family members and a handful of survivors to try to collect Iranian assets from various sources around the world. Finding and seizing that money will be difficult, however, and the families are backing a law in Congress that would make it easier for terrorism victims and their families to do so.
Families were encouraged by Libya's decision to ultimately accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland. The country, once a pariah by Washington's view, agreed to compensate the families of the 270 victims. Part of the $2.7 billion has been paid. A final $2 million installment to each family is outstanding.
"This is a sense of victory, of winning a battle," said Paul Rivers, who was a 20-year-old enlisted Marine on the second floor of the barracks when it exploded. "When we win the war is when we collect, when we make them pay for what they did."
Iran has denied responsibility for the attack. The nation did not respond to the six-year-old lawsuit and was represented only by an empty table.
Family members said they hoped friday's ruling would pressure foreign governments not to sponsor terrorism. lynn Smith Derbyshire, whose brother, Vincent Smith, was killed in the attack, said countries won't stop until "it begans to actually cost them money to kill Americans."
*Some comments by me:
Since relationships have been more or less normalized with Libya, it seems that there is no longer an incentive for their leader Gaddafi, to pay the remaining money, as agreed, to the families. Maybe we should resort to what initially encouraged Gaddafi to admit guilt and offer compensation for the air disaster over Locherbie, Scotland in 1988. I believe it was an American missle attack on one of his favorite relaxation haunts in the Libyan desert. We missed him but we did get his attention and the rest is history.
It is obvious that the leadership of Iran has learned nothing from the past except that apparently, once you inflict enough casualties against American military forces, we will probably leave. Unfortunately, by all indications, they appear to be right. This is another reason why I believe the United States needs to be more careful about where and when we pick our battles. We need to quit being the international policeman for the world and look far ahead, at the cost in lives and the exit also, instead of only with tunnel vision towards the beginning. Don't start a fight you either can't or won't see to it's conclusion. The names on the VietNam Memorial deserve this.
It is my opinion that President Reagan committed this very mistake in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. The U.S. Marines were part of a multinational peace-keeping force and as such had many restrictive rules of engagement. Don't take sides and don't fire unless fired upon first, for example. Political considerations took precedence over military requirements. The Marines were viewed as the enemy by most of the other parties in the Arab world and the Marines were placed in an almost indefensible position between two opposing sides of an ancient conflict that is still unresolved today. Israel and the PLO and the Shiite Muslims and Druze Christians in conflict, is not a place you want to insert yourself between. We were accompanied on this peace mission by French and Italian and British allies, but as usual, you get more symbolic bang for your buck, by killing Americans. On October 23, 1983 a successful terrorist attack against the Marine barracks, as they slept, killed 241 Americans, mostly U.S. Marines and Naval Corpsman. There were also 58 French Foreign Legion Paratroopers killed in this attack. America withdrew our Marines from Lebanon on February 26, 1984. There is a very moving memorial at Camp Lejeune, N.C. to honor the men of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, the Battalion Landing Team that suffered so much, trying to maintain peace between two peoples who still fight and hate each other to this day.
Associated Press, September 8, 2007
Baghdad-- The U.S. military on Friday announced the deaths of seven more American troops in combat, including four in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold where U.S. officials say a tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq has brough dramatic improvements in security.
A U.S. statement said four Marines assigned to Multinational Force-West were killed Thursday in combat in Anbar, but gave no further details.
Three soldiers from the Army's Task Force Lightening died Thursday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in Ninevah, a northern province, the military said.
* AND THE BEAT GOES ON
"Iran Ordered To Pay For Beirut Blast"
Washington-- Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge declared Friday in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth described his ruling as the largest ever such judgement by an American court against a foreign nation.
"These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter-century for justice to be done," he said. Most of those killed were Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune.
Iran has been blamed for supporting the militant group Hezbollah, which carried out the suicide bombing in Beirut. It was the worst terrorist act against U.S. targets until the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Hundreds of people crowded into a federal courtroom to hear Friday's ruling. Parents have grown old since their children were killed. Siblings have grown into middle age. Children have married and started families of their own.
Weeping spectators stood and erupted in applause and hugs as Lamberth left the bench.
The ruling allows nearly 1,000 family members and a handful of survivors to try to collect Iranian assets from various sources around the world. Finding and seizing that money will be difficult, however, and the families are backing a law in Congress that would make it easier for terrorism victims and their families to do so.
Families were encouraged by Libya's decision to ultimately accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland. The country, once a pariah by Washington's view, agreed to compensate the families of the 270 victims. Part of the $2.7 billion has been paid. A final $2 million installment to each family is outstanding.
"This is a sense of victory, of winning a battle," said Paul Rivers, who was a 20-year-old enlisted Marine on the second floor of the barracks when it exploded. "When we win the war is when we collect, when we make them pay for what they did."
Iran has denied responsibility for the attack. The nation did not respond to the six-year-old lawsuit and was represented only by an empty table.
Family members said they hoped friday's ruling would pressure foreign governments not to sponsor terrorism. lynn Smith Derbyshire, whose brother, Vincent Smith, was killed in the attack, said countries won't stop until "it begans to actually cost them money to kill Americans."
*Some comments by me:
Since relationships have been more or less normalized with Libya, it seems that there is no longer an incentive for their leader Gaddafi, to pay the remaining money, as agreed, to the families. Maybe we should resort to what initially encouraged Gaddafi to admit guilt and offer compensation for the air disaster over Locherbie, Scotland in 1988. I believe it was an American missle attack on one of his favorite relaxation haunts in the Libyan desert. We missed him but we did get his attention and the rest is history.
It is obvious that the leadership of Iran has learned nothing from the past except that apparently, once you inflict enough casualties against American military forces, we will probably leave. Unfortunately, by all indications, they appear to be right. This is another reason why I believe the United States needs to be more careful about where and when we pick our battles. We need to quit being the international policeman for the world and look far ahead, at the cost in lives and the exit also, instead of only with tunnel vision towards the beginning. Don't start a fight you either can't or won't see to it's conclusion. The names on the VietNam Memorial deserve this.
It is my opinion that President Reagan committed this very mistake in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. The U.S. Marines were part of a multinational peace-keeping force and as such had many restrictive rules of engagement. Don't take sides and don't fire unless fired upon first, for example. Political considerations took precedence over military requirements. The Marines were viewed as the enemy by most of the other parties in the Arab world and the Marines were placed in an almost indefensible position between two opposing sides of an ancient conflict that is still unresolved today. Israel and the PLO and the Shiite Muslims and Druze Christians in conflict, is not a place you want to insert yourself between. We were accompanied on this peace mission by French and Italian and British allies, but as usual, you get more symbolic bang for your buck, by killing Americans. On October 23, 1983 a successful terrorist attack against the Marine barracks, as they slept, killed 241 Americans, mostly U.S. Marines and Naval Corpsman. There were also 58 French Foreign Legion Paratroopers killed in this attack. America withdrew our Marines from Lebanon on February 26, 1984. There is a very moving memorial at Camp Lejeune, N.C. to honor the men of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, the Battalion Landing Team that suffered so much, trying to maintain peace between two peoples who still fight and hate each other to this day.
Associated Press, September 8, 2007
Baghdad-- The U.S. military on Friday announced the deaths of seven more American troops in combat, including four in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold where U.S. officials say a tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq has brough dramatic improvements in security.
A U.S. statement said four Marines assigned to Multinational Force-West were killed Thursday in combat in Anbar, but gave no further details.
Three soldiers from the Army's Task Force Lightening died Thursday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in Ninevah, a northern province, the military said.
* AND THE BEAT GOES ON