We are still furious at Hezbollah for the Marine Base attack in Lebanon in 1983 in which over 300 US Marines died and for the execution of a US CIA agent in Beirut a few years later. However, Hezbollah didn’t even do that Marine Base attack, even though 99% of Americas think they did. And the CIA agent got what he deserved if you ask me.
The reason that they did not do it is because at the time of the Marine base attack, there was no such thing as Hezbollah. The truth is that at that time, there were all sorts of Shia militant groups running about in Lebanon along with other groups such as the SSNP or Syrian Socialist National Party. The SSNP, a Greek Orthodox Christian organization, actually organized most of the suicide bombings in Lebanon during this period.
Anyway, among this proliferation of little-known Shia armed groups at this time was a group called Islamic Jihad. It was this small group of radical Shia that pulled off the Marine Base attack. Hezbollah was not actually formed until about a year later when about 10 or 15 of these small organizations got together to form a larger group called Hezbollah. It is true that Islamic Jihad was one of the groups that later merged with other groups to form the new Hezbollah. Now does that mean that Hezbollah did the attack? I would say no, but maybe you can make a case that, as Islamic Jihad later joined Hezbollah, Hezbollah in effect did the bombing.
That attack launched a massive US intervention where we waged war on Hezbollah and basically intervened in Lebanon on the side of Israel and attacked everyone who was fighting the Israelis.
After several years of attacking everyone who was against Israel, Hezbollah seized a CIA agent in Beirut. About a year later, he was executed, and video was distributed of his body hanging on a the rope that was used to hang him. As far as I am concerned, he got what he deserved.
First because I am mostly pretty happy to see CIA agents or even employees get killed because no one deserves it more than they do.
Also because shortly after the Marine Base bombing and after the formation of Hezbollah, the CIA tried to kill the spiritual leader of Hezbollah by setting off a car bomb in front of a mosque he was preaching at in Beirut. That attack, which could be described as a terrorist attack, killed over 80 innocent civilians in the mosque at the time and wounded many others. And I do not believe that the target was even hurt.
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