Why didn't Regan do anything about the Beirtu Lebanon barracks bombing?

Question

I learned about the barracks bombing in boot camp and I always wondered what the reason was behind Regan not doing anything about it.

Couldn't his actions of slowed down the growth of Hezbollah significantly if he would of done something ?

Answer 1

He did do something. He pulled the Marines out and the terrorists didn't follow us home.

Answer 2

I was there,  I refueled helicopters for 36 hours, then volunteered to help dig out my friends. When the New Jersey came over the horizon it was the prettiest thing we ever saw. More that likely you weren't even born then. October 1983, my first daughter was born.

Answer 3

Who do you shoot when everyone was fighting?  The only people not shooting were very small children and the dead.  Well he got the a battleship to use the big guns on certain targets and then other people got a car bomb and blew up the barracks (I believe not only the U.S. barracks were hit).  The protection on the barracks was so bad, the guards were ordered not to even have ammo in their rifles.  It was part of some UN peace keeping force, but there was no force in the modern sense and no peace keeping.  It was a case of idealism vs realism and realism won so the UN forces left.  

Remember the case where people complained the troops in Iraq didn't have the gear they needed?  Well those guys sent to Lebanon didn't have much more than the guys from sent to Vietnam.  They also had no training in counter insergency and I believe the humvee wasn't even in service then let alone modern drone planes, bullet resistant armor.  There were also very few night vision goggles and nothing to protect them from RPGs and mortars.

Here are guys in full battle gear in Beruit just after the bombing.

http://www.talkingproud.us/ImagesEagle/A...

Answer 4

No, he sent the Battleship New Jersey and they hooked some fools up.

"On 28 November, the U.S. government announced that New Jersey would be retained off Beirut although her crew would be rotated. On 14 December, New Jersey fired 11 projectiles from her 16-inch guns at hostile positions inland of Beirut. This is the first 16-inch shells fired for effect anywhere in the world since New Jersey ended her time on the gunline in Vietnam in 1969.

On 8 February 1984, New Jersey fired almost 300 shells at Druze and Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley east of Beirut. Some 30 of these massive projectiles rained down on a Syrian command post, killing the general commanding Syrian forces in Lebanon and several other senior officers. This was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War."

But actually Reagan wanted to do more but SECDEF Weinberger who didn't want to get involved in Lebanon in the first place talked him out of it.

Answer 5

Marines never forget what reagan did there.