The Origin of the War on Terror?

The Sunday Essay ☕️

It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

On the morning of October 23, 1983, as the sun began to rise over Lebanon, a Mercedes-Benz water delivery truck approached a US military compound located at Beirut International Airport. 

Lebanon was in the throws of a civil war, and the US military had just arrived as part of a multinational peacekeeping mission alongside France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Their mission was to assist a ceasefire between the Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Druze, and Christians who had been jostling in a complex web of violence.

The water delivery truck arrived at the US military base on schedule, as expected. But instead of stopping at the entrance checkpoint, the driver hit the gas, smashed through the chainlink fence and drove straight into the military barracks, where 12,000 pounds of explosives lifted the four-story building completely off of the ground before collapsing in a ball of fire.

It was the largest single-day loss of life in the Marine Corps since the Second World War.

The group behind the attack was a small, relatively unknown Shia resistance group called Hezbollah. It was asymmetric warfare on a scale the world had never seen.

The American withdrawal from Lebanon shortly thereafter gained Hezbollah international notoriety alongside regional political influence. 

When the Saudis eventually brokered the Lebanese ceasefire in 1990, all militant groups, aside from Hezbollah, were ordered to disarm. 

Last week, I interviewed former Navy Seal Sniper and Special Teams Operator Jack Carr. After retiring from the military, Carr has become a six-time New York Times Best-Selling Author. 

Applying the experience and emotions from real-world combat to the pages of his novels, his books have been turned into the #1 thriller series on Amazon Prime, The Terminal List, starring Chris Pratt. 

On September 24, 2024, Carr will release his first non-fiction book, Targeted: Beirut, The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and The Untold Story of the Origin of the War on Terror.

Carr joined me on the podcast last week. Watch the full episode here:

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Let me know what you think in the comments.

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That’s all for today. Go do some push-ups.

Jay