All over the news today that the USS Cole (that's the same USS Cole that was ripped open by a suicide boat several years ago in the harbor at Aden) is now posted offshore the coast near Beirut, to show the US's "displeasure" with the political impasse in Lebanon and perhaps apply a little not-so-subtle pressure on Hizbollah. This certainly has to put some Lebanese in mind of other "interventions" by the US Navy, some of which have been nicely chronicled by Roger Morris in a piece posted on the War in Context website.
By the way, another vessel is steaming there as I write, evidently to accompany or replace the Cole. It's an amphibious assault vessel. Shades of 1958, when the Marines went ashore to bolster the Maronite-dominated Chamoun regime against "radical" Nasserists nationalists.
Comments and Analysis from John Robertson on the Middle East, Central Asia, and U.S. Policy
No comments:
Post a Comment