Not So Far From Libya
Echoing the words that accompanied similar U.S. military strikes a dozen years ago, President Clinton announced attacks against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan by declaring, "We have struck back."
President Reagan justified similar action against Libya by saying, "We have done what we had to do."
Thursday's strikes in many ways parallel the April 14, 1986, bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. American forces were successful in finding their primary target, the home and headquarters of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was not hurt.
But terrorist expert Brian Jenkins warns, "We have to be careful in drawing lessons from our attack on Libya, becauseÂ…although that attack may have temporarily muted Gadhafi's rhetoric and temporarily disrupted some operations of the terrorists in Libya, it was two years later that Libyan agents were involved in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 [over Locherbie, Scotland]."
In an interview with CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Jane Robelot, Jenkins also cautioned that "such attacks can temporarily disrupt terrorist operations. But, by themselves, [they] are not necessarily going to bring an end to the threat of terrorism."
The 1986 raid on Libya came in response to anti-American attacks, including the bombing a week earlier of a West Berlin nightclub that killed an American soldier. Reagan administration officials tied that attack to Gadhafi, and said the raid's purpose was to strike down terrorism.
"When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world, we will respond in self-defense," Mr. Reagan said at the time. He warned Gadhafi that, "if necessary, we will do it again."
Clinton officials echoed similar sentiments in discussing the attacks Thursday on what they described as a terrorist base in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons plant in Sudan.
The strikes were in retaliation for the Aug. 7 bombings at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and also to pre-empt future terrorist attacks, officials said. The explosions at the U.S. embassies killed 247 people in Kenya and 10 in Tanzania. More than 5,500 people were injured, mostly Kenyans.
Mr. Clinton linked the attacks to groups led by Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. officials call a major sponsor of terrorism. The president said the United States had "convincing evidence these groups played the key role in the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania."
Before this, America most often in recent years has used U.S. forces against Iraq, because of tensions still remaining from the Persian Gulf War and its aftermath.
On Sept. 3, 1996, Mr. Clinton sent cruise missiles against military targets in southern Iraq, to ensure the safety of aircraft and crew operating in the "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq and to send a message to its president, Saddam Hussein.
Before that, Mr. Clinton had U.S. forces target Iraq twice in 1993, first in January after Baghdad refused to remove surface-to-air missiles in the region.
The second attack in 1993 came in June in retaliation for an alleged Iraqi government-led plot to assassinate former President Bush. U.S. officials said the plan, uncovered several months earlier, was organized by Iraqi intelligence.