THE LEBANON TRAGEDY
In September 1983, Lebanon began a rapid and uncontrollable descent into hell.
Carl Stiner was present during the worst days of it. "What came to pass in Lebanon defies logic and morality," he says, "but it clearly exemplifies what can happen when ethnic biases, religious differences, and security interests are used as a catalyst by outside powers for achieving political gain."
In August of that year, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jack Vessey, sent Brigadier General Carl Stiner to Lebanon as his man on the scene and to help implement the U.S. military assistance program (Stiner's experience as a military adviser in Saudi Arabia and Yemen surely was a big factor in generating this assignment). In that capacity, Stiner worked with Lebanese authorities to try to stop the nation's descent. They did not succeed, but not for want of skill, intelligence, and goodwill. The forces of chaos simply overwhelmed everyone else.
Though Stiner's assignment to Lebanon was not specifically a Special Forces mission, it shared many characteristics of such missions — including military advice at the tactical level, political management (both military and diplomatic) at the strategic levels, and the need for cultural sensitivity.
ROOTS
The tragedy of Lebanon was the result of forces long at work:
Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey's defeat in World War 1, the League of Nations put Lebanon under temporary French control. France promised Lebanon complete independence in 1941, but was not able to grant it until 1943, and French troops did not leave the country until 1946.
Lebanon has a complex ethnic mix. At the time of its independence, the country was more or less evenly divided between Muslims and Maronite Christians, and the Muslims were divided between Sunnis and Shiites — the Sunnis were more moderate and prosperous, while the Shiites tended to be more radical and politically volatile. There was also a large, similarly volatile sect called the Druze, whose beliefs combine Christian and Muslim teachings; about 400,000 Druze now inhabit the mountainous area of Lebanon and Syria. Add these all together, with long-simmering feuds of every kind, and it was a recipe for trouble.
In establishing the Lebanese government in 1943, the French tried to stave off ethnic conflict by setting up a power-sharing arrangement that favored the Sunnis and the Maronite Christians — the most conservative and "stable" of the Lebanese factions. The National Pact of 1943 used a 1932 census (probably the last census to reflect a near-even mix between Christians and Muslims) to determine the ethnic and religious makeup of the government. Key positions were filled by applying a formula derived from that census. The presidency was reserved for Maronite Christians, the prime minister position for the Sunni Muslims, and so on. The Shiite Muslims and Druze were left out of any position of meaningful responsibility.
By the time the government was established, the changing demographics — the sharp rise in Shiites, for instance — had already rendered the formula obsolete.
Despite the potentially unstable ethnic situation, Lebanon quickly flourished as a nation. With its two major seaports and its strategic location at the eastern end of the Mediterranean astride traditional trade routes, it soon became known as the gateway to the orient — and Beirut as "the Paris of the Middle East." Trading was the main engine of its economy. Major companies established offices, and Beirut soon became the banking center of the Middle East, with approximately eighty-five commercial banks.
In 1970, however, another chaotic element was added — the Palestinians.
In 1947, the United Nations divided Palestine in two: Part would become the home for the Jews displaced as a result of World War II; the other part would continue as the Palestinian homeland. The Jews accepted the UN decision; the Arabs rejected it.
On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent state of Israel, and the next day neighboring Arab nations invaded it. The invasion failed, and when the fighting ended, Israel held territory beyond the original UN boundaries, while Egypt and Jordan held the rest of Palestine. More than 600,000 Palestinians who had lived within Israel's new borders fled the Jewish state and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries, mainly Syria and Jordan.
The Palestinians, now a people without a homeland, continued their armed resistance from bases in those countries, but their presence and their military activities against Israel became a major political problem, particularly for Jordan. By 1970, the problem had gotten out of control, and the Jordanian government dealt with it violently, by forcibly expelling the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
The approximately 10,000 PLO fighters, the fedayeen, initially settled in the southern part of Lebanon, bringing thousands of Palestinian refugees with them, exacerbating a situation which had already been particularly volatile for over a decade. In 1958, Arab nationalists (mostly Shiites, though some Druze also participated) had rebelled against the pro-Western government of Christian President Camille Chamoun. Chamoun asked the United States for help, and about 10,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers landed on Lebanon's beaches. This show of force helped the government restore order, and the troops were withdrawn.
After the 1958 crisis, the next Lebanese president, Fouad Chehab, made a serious effort to mend fences with the Arabs: He gave Muslims more jobs in the government, established friendly relations with Egypt, and worked to raise living standards.
Although the Lebanese government had always sympathized with the Palestinian cause, their sympathy never translated into strong support; nor did they welcome the new Palestinian presence — they were simply too weak to keep them out. Soon the PLO began launching attacks against the settlements of northern Israel from their base in southern Lebanon. As the Israelis retaliated against PLO strikes, the Shiites in southern Lebanon suffered greatly, aggravating the hatred that already existed.
By 1975, much of the PLO had migrated to West Beirut, where they established their main base of operations, with its own system of law and order and its own taxes. This did not sit well with many Lebanese, but especially with the Christian militia (the Phalange), and soon a full-scale civil war broke out between the Palestinians and the Phalange.
An estimated 40,000 people, mostly civilians both Lebanese and Palestinian, perished during the bitter fighting, and the Lebanese Army fell apart. It virtually ceased being an effective fighting force.
At this point, the Syrians became involved.
The Syrians had had designs on Lebanon as far back as recorded history, and they entered the fray twice, first on the side of the Palestinians and then on the side of the Christian militias. Their switch was all in the interest of their larger aim — the control of Lebanon. Their participation resulted in the Syrian occupation of the Bekaa Valley, a strategic area located between Lebanon's mountain spine and the Syrian border; they have remained there ever since, orchestrating to their advantage the large number of Shiites who migrated to that area as a result of the civil war and subsequent conflicts.
By 1978, Lebanon had become the main base of operations for the PLO. In that year, the Israelis launched a large-scale sweep of southern Lebanon against the Palestinian bases. Approximately 100,000 refugees, mainly Palestinians and Shiites, were sent fleeing to civil-war-ravaged West Beirut. By now, most of Lebanon had become a battleground, but where before it had been primarily Christian militias against the PLO, now it was just about everybody against everybody else. Long-standing hatreds, feuds, memories of atrocities, as well as ethnic and religious differences, were unleashed; each faction had its own militia — well-armed and deadly; and the various factional militias and clans began fighting each other.