Remembering Beirut: The Marine Barracks Bombing and the Lessons of Foreign Policy Restraint
Posted by: John Phoenix
How a 1983 bombing exposed the perils of empire...
42 years ago yesterday, on October 23, 1983, the early morning quiet at Beirut International Airport shattered when a Mercedes truck carrying 12,000 pounds of TNT crashed through flimsy barriers and detonated inside a U.S. Marine Corps barracks. The explosion killed 241 American service members, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers, making it the deadliest single day for the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima in World War II.
Almost simultaneously, another suicide bomber struck French forces two miles away, leaving 58 paratroopers dead. The twin attacks temporarily altered American perceptions about Middle Eastern intervention, though the lessons learned that day have proven frustratingly imp...










