Iran's Bluff Humbles Britain

Greece, Rome, Spain, France, and now Great Britain.

Great powers do not last forever.

Iran’s action did not cause the end of Great Britain, it pulled back the covers to expose the decaying corpse.

I have a theory that a person (or a nation or a culture) must stuggle a bit each day to stay healthy. Once life gets too easy we get fat, flabby and lazy; we begin to die.

It is the constant fight that keeps us alive.

Will the U.S. follow Great Britain into history? I don’t know, but I fear we are soft.

Appeasement offers no pride in the appeaser, only shame!

Will the U.S. follow Great Britain into history?

Will? With or without amnesty, this country has irrevocably changed.

Riddle me this: to which country have a lot of soccer holligans (ie British brawlers) relocated?

Australia will be the shining star in future centuries. Completely empty, completely protected, 10,000+ miles of coastline.

And it's genetic stock was built upon, and will be restocked by, fighters.

The US Navy would have stood by and allowed US Marines to be captured when ordered by the politicians in central command or the White House to stand down.

The fact that Sadr is alive today and calling on the Iraqi military and police to turn against us shows the limits place on our soldiers by the PC politicians. If you go to war you have to take it to the enemy if he is in Tehran, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Limiting the exercise of our power to Iraq and Afghanistan has created a mess where the enemies are free to act outside the borders we define.

15 hard-boiled football yobs who hadn’t got the Blair memo about not escalating the situation.

I doubt the yobs would have heeded the Blair memo. ;)

Na, just Oprah, don’t get angry and cause an international incident, just light a candle!

I agree with you about the politicians. When the trouble occurred in Fallujah, followed by the emergence of the Mahdi Army, Bush was unwilling to allow our troops to take decisive action. That lack of action may have lost us Iraq, and by extension, peace in the Middle East.

I would like to ask, seriously, if the result would have been any different had the sailors been American.

First of all, our ROE not only allow self-defense, but our doctrine requires it. "Don't give up the ship." still means something in the USN.

National power is more than just military power. Its national resolve. If that's gone, all the ships, tanks, guns and men will be just so much a collection of ceremonial parade accessories but not a serious military. If you don't have the will to to use it, having it is entirely beside the point. That's the principal lesson of the UK-Iran showdown. It wasn't much of a showdown and what Islamic radicals have seen is the West has the military strength but inside to put it in Osama Bin Laden's now famous words, "they are as weak as a spider's web." The Muslim radicals may not have much in the way of an army but they have the will to die for their beliefs. They have that resolve that has completely disappeared in the UK.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

How do you compromise with Islamofascism? The Left thinks given the right body language and a few concessions, they will give up their 1400 old jihad that easily. If you're willing to submit to dhimmitude, I suspect a swift accomodation with them can indeed be reached.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

I've never forgiven Reagan for not dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran after our hostages were released. That would meant 9/11 would have never happened and we would all be living in a much safer world today. The Iranians have gotten away with torturing and killing Americans and breaking all the rules of civilization and they've never paid a real price for their thuggish behavior.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

Let me help you out with that Pierre. For the record, the Beirut barracks bombing took place in October '83, and our Marines were still in Lebanon in early '84, that ain't 'scooting out of Lebanon' pal.

Well gee aren't you mister helpful. Fact is the Marines suffered the worst loss of life since Iwo Jima and Casper Weinberg Defense Sec for Reagan called off a strike against the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon because he was afraid our Arab "friends" might be a little upset with our avenging our soldiers murder at the hands of the very same folks who took the British cowards. He further showed his Arabist colors when he was still denying that the Iranians had anything to do with the bombing years later. And you are treading further into disinformation land when you say "eventually" they weren't eventually withdrawn they were withdrawn in Feb 84. Which was exactly like scooting out with your ass or tail between your legs.

Furthermore the only people who actually retaliated for that attack were the French who did indeed have the balls to bomb the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Barracks. Reagan for all of his tough talk had an administration filled to the top with Arabists.

The major point being that the US Government under Reagan, a man I consider to perhaps be the greatest modern US President, did in fact allow the Iranians to get away with murdering us in record numbers..often...since we best not forget the embassy bombing prior to the Marine Barracks.

Thank you please play again.

Yep. A nuclear bomb in 1981 would have permanently solved our present predicament. To me, wiping such a hateful regime off the face of the earth would have been worth the price.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

Pierre, you should try reading it exactly as Reagan wrote it down instead of putting your own spin on it:

"As 1984 began, it was becoming clearer that the Lebanese army was either unwilling or unable to end the civil war into which we had been dragged reluctantly. It was clear that the war was likely to go on for an extended period of time. As the sniping and shelling of their camp continued, I gave an order to evacuate all the marines to anchored off Lebanon. At the end of March, the ships of the Sixth Fleet and the marines who had fought to keep peace in Lebanon moved on to other assignments. We had to pull out. By then, there was no question about it: Our policy wasn't working. We couldn't stay there and run the risk of another suicide attack on the marines. No one wanted to commit our troops to a full-scale war in the middle East. But we couldn't remain in Lebanon and be in the war on a halfway basis, leaving our men vulnerable to terrorists with one hand tied behind their backs. We hadn't committed the marines to Beirut in a snap decision, and we weren't alone. France, Italy, and Britain were also part of the multinational force, and we all thought it was a good plan. And for a while, as I've said, it had been working."

The major point being that the US Government under Reagan, a man I consider to perhaps be the greatest modern US President, did in fact allow the Iranians to get away with murdering us in record numbers..often...since we best not forget the embassy bombing prior to the Marine Barracks.

You conveniently overlook the fact that had Reagan engaged in a full scale military conflict in the Middle East that he would very likely have been dealing with an equal and equivalent intervention by the Soviets who were very much still in business in '84.

And to put your criticism of Cap Weinberger into perspective, Reagan had this to say about that:

"Although there was some resistance from Cap and the Joint Chiefs over whether we should retaliate, I told him to give the order for an air strike against the offending antiaircraft batteries. We had previously let the Syrians know that our reconnaissance operations in support of the marines were only defensive in nature. Our marines were not adversaries in the conflict, and any offensive act directed against them would be replied to. The following morning, more than two dozen navy aircraft carried out the mission. One crewman was killed and another captured by the Syrians. Our planes subsequently took out almost a dozen Syrian antiaircraft and missile-launching sites, a radar installation, and an ammo dump. When the Syrians fired again at one of our reconnaissance aircraft, I gave the order to fire the sixteen-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey on them. Two days later, we had a new cease-fire in Lebanon, a result, I'm sure, of the pressure of the long guns of the New Jersey - but, like almost all the other cease-fires in Beirut, it didn't last long."

Neither Cap Weinberger, nor Reagan were running away with their 'ass tucked between their legs'.

Thank you please play again.

Sure Pierre, I like a good game of Whack-A-Mole, I'll bet waiting to see which hole you pop up out of next time.

Happy Easter.

I've never forgiven Reagan for not dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran after our hostages were released.

I am, and have been as much in favor of nuking the mullahs in Tehran as anyone, but if Reagan had taken such an action in '81, an actual nuclear response to Iran, the Soviets (you remember them I'm sure), bordering Iran would not have taken kindly to the radiation and fallout, and there is always the possibility that an American nuke release that close to the old USSR could have triggered a Soviet nuclear response on the United States.

There is a time and place for the use of nuclear weapons. That was not it.

Now it is.

The Iranian lunatic was allowed to humiliate Britain. He pissed right in their teeth and the whole world knows it. It’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t do it again, real soon.

“I would like to ask, seriously, if the result would have been any different had the sailors been American.

Personally, I have been convinced for quite some time that we no longer have the stomach for a fight - and that our divided status as a nation has allowed patriotism, nationalism and jingoism to become dirty words.”

The result would have been the same. The treasonous left has already said in writing they will not support war against Iran. Their are two groups of people on both sides of the pond. Those whom know we are fighting for our lives and everything we have worked hard for and our forefathers paid for in blood. The other group wants to ignore the threats, not just simply hoping it goes away but being treasonous, supporting the enemy by purposely holding back our military might to deal with the problem while it is small. It is human nature to not want peace over war, but the countries we are dealing with want war, these include Russia, China, Syria, Iran & North Korea. Our oil producing allies are changing their tune of support because of our recent weakness. Iran will now feel emboldened to attack the West & Israel with nukes to usher in the 12th Imam. We will suffer greatly and fully unite but such a shame it will cost the earth billions of lives, instead of a recession and probably 100k total dead now.

“Let me help you out with that Pierre. For the record, the Beirut barracks bombing took place in October ‘83, and our Marines were still in Lebanon in early ‘84, that ain’t ‘scooting out of Lebanon’ pal. Reagan did eventually order the evacuation of Marines in Beirut to Navy ships anchored offshore, but that was in consultation with our allies who were also attempting to stabilize that region.”

Don’t forget that Reagan rebuilt our military and sent 1/3 of Iran’s fleet to the bottom of the ocean in 87 or 88. HE didn’t forget :) Note how we saw Iran doing nothing after that for quite some time. How about Libya? A bloody nose by Reagan and another balsey POTUS was enough for him to figure out he had enough of the ‘attack the great satan’ foolishness.

You conveniently overlook the fact that had Reagan engaged in a full scale military conflict in the Middle East that he would very likely have been dealing with an equal and equivalent intervention by the Soviets who were very much still in business in '84.

You must be a leftist you distort reality so well...try this little refresher course on what happened and then get back to me.

REAGAN: Those who directed this atrocity must be dealt justice and they will be.
ROBERTS: He rejected a Marine withdrawal.
REAGAN: If we were to leave Lebanon now, what message would that send to those who foment instability and terrorism.
ROBERTS: His words became empty promises, abandoned within months.
MCFARLANE: Well, I wrote that language, and I took it seriously at the time, and intended and believed that he intended to fulfill it.
ROBERTS: At the end of the week, the first caskets began coming home. The next week, on a damp and dreary day, Ronald and Nancy Reagan went to the Marine base at Camp LeJuene to mourn, along with a grieving nation.
MCFARLANE: He always took very personal the loss of life of any American, especially servicemen.
ROBERTS: By now, American intelligence had traced the seeds of the attack to a barracks in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah was holed up. The Navy was ready to strike back.
LYONS: We went ahead and made up the plans. We had the photography. It was a great radar target. There's nothing else around. And we were going to take out all 250 of them.
MCFARLANE: The president called the National Security Council together. He was convinced himself that the target was responsible in the Bekaa Valley, that Hezbollah had done the deed, and that's where they trained and were armed.
There were arguments, disagreements. Weinberger disagreed, thought it would have a very negative impact on our relations in the Arab states. The president said, "Well, I believe we have to do this."
LYONS: We had the planes loaded. It would have been a minute and a half strike, in and out in a minute and a half, and we would have sent the message that everybody was waiting for us to send. We never got the orders to launch.
MCFARLANE: I was awakened at home by the situation room, with the word that the attack had been aborted. I was speechless. I said, "By whom?" and I was told the Secretary of Defense. I was thunderstruck. I went down to the office and called Cap right away and asked him, what in the world happened? He said, "Well, Bud, I believed it was a bad idea, and it would have done us great harm." and I said, "Cap, the president of the United States approved this."
ROBERTS: When McFarlane told Reagan, he said the president was at a loss for words. That Cap Weinberger, now deceased, had been a close friend and ally of Reagan since their California days. Reagan would forgive and forget.
MCFARLANE: At the end of the day, the president was so captive really to his feelings of loyalty for Secretary Weinberger that he let it cloud his judgment.
ROBERTS: The terrorist attacks continued. Soon, new truck bomb attempts at the French and American embassies in Kuwait. In Beirut, the Marines were hunkered down behind new defensive barriers, doing little or nothing. The White House seemed paralyzed.
MCFARLANE: And Cap said we simply ought to withdraw.
ROBERTS: While the fighting in Lebanon grew worse, Reagan was talking tough, right up until the end. In a radio address early in February, he called the situation in Lebanon "difficult."
REAGAN: But that is no reason to turn our backs on friends and to cut and run. If we do, we'll be sending one signal to terrorists everywhere. They can gain by waging war against innocent people.
ROBERTS: Yet only three days later, the president would order the Marines out. No speeches this time. The announcement was handed out, as Reagan landed in California, to go on vacation at his ranch.
By February 26th, just four months after the bombing, the Marines had retreated from Beirut, back to ships offshore. Survivor Jack Anderson was glad to see his fellow Marines heading for home, yet was disappointed.
JACK ANDERSON, FMR. U.S. MARINE: I really wanted to see us do something to the people responsible for the car bombing. You know, hopefully in the end, they get theirs, but not at the hand of the Marine Corps this time.
ROBERTS: Coming up, Beirut's deadly lesson for today's war on terror.
LYONS: As soon as we suffer casualties, we will cut and run. We are a paper tiger.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: U.S. Marines approaching sacred ground, Beirut, Lebanon, where 23 years ago they lost so many of their own. But for these Marines, touching ground has even more meaning, because so many belong to the same unit attacked in 1983.
Like their comrades before them, these Marines have come in peace. Their mission? To evacuate Americans. Still, the lore of Lebanon is not forgotten. It is here where the Marines paid the ultimate price.
PERRY: Would you think that over a period of 23 years that the United States military, the memory of the barracks bombing would have faded. It hasn't. When Secretary Rice talks about perhaps a peacekeeping force, the first question in a U.S. officer's mind is, does that mean us? No one in the military wants a replay of 1983.
ROBERTS: Retired Lieutenant General Lawrence Snowden called the barracks bombing an act of war.
SNOWDEN: We wanted to strike attention in the hearts of the Defense Department, and others, that this is a way of warfare that we've got to face in the future and we're ill-prepared at this moment to deal with it.
REAGAN: I received the report of the Long Commission last night --
ROBERTS: President Reagan a day before the report went public.
REGAN: The report draws the conclusion that the United States and its military institutions are by tradition and training, inadequately equipped to deal with the fundamentally new phenomenon of state-supported terrorism. I whole-heartedly agree.
ROBERTS: Again, Reagan promised to stand firm.
REAGAN: Now, one fact, though it's already obvious, the problem of terrorism will not disappear if we run from it.
ROBERTS: But that's what the U.S. did. Four months after the bombing, the Marines left Lebanon.
MCFARLANE: I think he understood very well the withdrawal of American forces, anywhere, at any time, is a negative signal, a sign of weakness. Shortly thereafter he acknowledged that we're going to pay a price for this downstream.
ROBERTS: At a price that, many believe, the U.S. is paying for today.
SNOWDEN: I think the terrorists had good memories, and they remember that, when we were pushed up against the wall, and they successfully attacked us like that, there was a demand for the troops to come home, and they did.
MCFARLANE: To absorb such a horrific loss as the Marines suffered in Beirut, without reacting, implies that you can attack the United States and not pay a price for it. That we're too weak, irresolute, politically paralyzed, and that is intolerable for a great power.
ROBERTS: Somalia, 1993, a Blackhawk down, 18 soldiers killed after a fire fight with local militia. This picture of a soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu had an enormous impact on public opinion. Six months later, President Clinton pulled the troops out. A decision that Osama bin Laden later claimed emboldened him to strike out at America. OSAMA BIN LADEN, FOUNDER, AL QAEDA (through translator): After a little resistance, the Americans left after achieving nothing. They left after claiming they were the largest power on earth. They left after some resistance from the powerless, poor, unarmed people whose only weapon it s their belief in Allah, the Almighty.

You must be a leftist you distort reality so well...try this little refresher course on what happened and then get back to me.

Oh my ribs, you call me a *leftist*, but you're quoting CNN, with the abysmal John Roberts of the whistling dentures, who also editorialized in that 'special' report,

"That same week, the U.S. invaded the small Caribbean nation of Grenada, a minor crises now largely forgotten."

A MINOR CRISIS?

The Soviets and Castro were establishing a new beachhead in the Carribean and it was a 'minor crisis'?!?

Gosh Pierre, you don't think John Roberts and CNN had an agenda do you? You don't think they might have had a vested interest in using Bud McFarlane to trash Reagan do you?

Ye gawds man, you call me a leftist and then cite a leftist cable network to try and prove your point?

Thanks for the laugh! LOL