Fred Quimby

Let's recount some highlights of the last half-century of terror in light of U.S. foreign policy:

November 1, 1950 : Puerto Rican nationalists attempt to assassinate President Truman. In 1954, the House of Representatives would be sprayed with gunfire, wounding five congressmen. In 1973 and again in 1974, bombs would be set off in New York City . In 1975, the FALN would plant bombs in New York , Chicago and Washington , D.C. , killing several people and wounding dozens.
June 5, 1968 : Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who regarded RFK as a collaborator with Israel .
March 1971: The U.S. Senate is bombed again. Suspected this time are opponents of the Vietnam fiasco.
November 4, 1979 : Supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini storm the U.S. embassy in Teheran in anger at the longtime U.S. support for the Shah's despotic regime. It would not be until two years later that the hostages would be freed.
December 1979: A mob of Iranians burns down the U.S. embassy in Tripoli , Libya . Iranian-sponsored terrorism against the United States is promoted as a just cause in retaliation for U.S. support for the Shah and Israel .
April 8, 1983 : The Iranian-backed Hezbollah bombs the U.S. embassy in Beirut , Lebanon . The attack kills 17 Americans. All attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon around this time are in retaliation for the U.S. openly choosing sides, supporting the Christian government against the Muslim militias by training and arming the Lebanese National Army (the LNA). U.S. Marines even began patrolling with the LNA, and the U.S. Navy and Marines began shelling the Muslims to support the LNA.
October 23, 1983 : A suicide truck-bomber from Hezbollah attacks the U.S. embassy and destroys the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 290 people and wounding 200 more. The U.S. Marines soon withdraw from Beirut . A Hezbollah spokesman brags that it took only two "martyrs" to force the Marines out of Lebanon : one who blew up the embassy, and the other who drove the truck that destroyed the Marine barracks. In September 1984, Hezbollah would bomb the U.S. embassy annex in East Beirut, killing 23 people and wounding four Marine guards. During the 1980s, Hezbollah would kidnap 19 American diplomats, educators, businessmen, clergy, journalists, and military personnel, and kill at least four.
March 1986: The largest peacetime American naval armada ever assembled sails across the "line of death," which, according to Khadafy, marks Libyan territorial waters in the Gulf of Sidra . Fulfilling the predictions of U.S. defense analysts, he shoots off missiles at the fleet. U.S. forces then destroy a missile site and three Libyan naval craft. In retaliation, Khadafy sponsors the bombing on April 5, 1986, of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin , which killed an American soldier and a Turkish woman. On April 15, 1986 (two weeks after the "line of death" incident in late March), the U.S. retaliates for the La Belle bombing with air strikes against Libya .
According to the Defense Science Board (and contrary to neocon belief), these air strikes did not cause Khadafy to abandon terrorism. In fact, he expanded his terrorist campaign against Western Europe to the United States. (See the next eight entries.) Beginning in April 1986, State Department analysts began to link Libyan terrorist agents to an average of one attack per month against U.S. targets. Some examples of these are:

April 1986: An American hostage in Lebanon is sold to Libya and executed.
1986: Libyans attempt to blow up the U.S. embassy in Lomé , Togo .
September 1987: Abu Nidal, working for Libya , hijacks Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi , Pakistan . Several Americans are killed during the hijacking.
April 12, 1988 : A Japanese Red Army operative with three bombs is arrested in New Jersey with a plan to attack a military base in the United States . The attack has been timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the U.S. air strikes on Libya .
April 14, 1988 : The Japanese Red Army, under contract from Abu Nidal, plants a bomb at the USO military club in Naples , Italy , to coincide with the anniversary. Five people are killed.
December 1988: Two Libyan intelligence agents allegedly bomb Pan Am Flight 103. The bomb kills 270 people, 200 of whom were Americans.
1988: Libyan agents bomb U.S. library facilities in Peru , Colombia , and Costa Rica .
September 1989: Libyan agents recruit a Chicago gang to shoot down U.S. airliners with shoulder-fired missiles, the same type so generously given to the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the late '70s and the '80s. The plot, fortunately, is foiled.
March 10, 1989 : The wife of the commander of the U.S.S. Vincennes is pipe-bombed in retaliation for the July 3, 1988 , shooting down of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf that killed 290 civilians.

__________________