THE CAR BOMB ATTACK ON THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

THE CAR BOMB ATTACK ON THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

November 23, 1991

On Friday, November 8, 1991, a massive car bomb went off on the campus of the American University of Beirut (A.U.B.) totally destroying the administration building and damaging many of the surrounding structures, elevating the anti-American terror campaign to a new level. The significance of that act was completely overlooked by the media.

The AUB, chartered by New York in 1863, opened its doors in October 1866. It was in fact the first fixed U.S. presence in the Middle East. The destroyed building was the first structure built on that campus. The "Clock tower" rising above it, which came crashing down in the explosion, has since 1866 stood as a symbol of Lebanese-American relations and goodwill.

Furthermore, adjacent to the administration building, and also damaged by the blast, stood the first Protestant (Western) Church in the Middle East. It was this significance of the location that was overlooked by the news media. The bomb was intended to do a lot more than material damage. Its aim was to sever the cultural and historic ties between Lebanon and the U.S., by destroying the symbol of such ties.

As important, however, is the timing of the attack. The AUB was planning a celebration of its 125th birthday. The celebration was promptly aborted. To those familiar with the Middle East, the message is clear. American and Western institutions are unwelcome in the Middle East. The NALA condemns such attempts at severing U.S. ties to the Middle East, and the brutal means through which they are perpetrated.

Ironically, this message comes from the same people, which the U.S. Government helped bring to power in Lebanon only last year. The Syrian-Iranian strangle hold over the "Lebanese Government" is quickly incorporating Lebanon into their anti-Western anti-American domain, relentlessly and brutally reversing centuries of constructive Lebanese-Western relations, which are primordial to the broader U.S.-Middle Eastern relations. Ultimately the professed goal is to drive the U.S. out of the whole region.

The drive to "cleanse the world from the foul Western presence..." continues. Their enemy was never Lebanon, it has always been the West, specifically the U.S. Lebanon was merely the eastern limit of the Western world, and hence became the first target. But it certainly will not be the last.

In the words of President Reagan: "If we allow terrorism to succeed anywhere in the world, it will spread like a cancer, ... gradually destroying the civilized world ..." It was a dark day in our modern history, when the U.S. Government allowed terrorists to gain control of Lebanon, a once thriving Democracy.

We are certain that the U.S. never intended to inflict such damage to its interests in the Middle East or the civilized world. It is this conviction that sustains NALA,s unwavering demands that all occupations of Lebanon come to an immediate and unconditional end, along with the dismantling or removal of all militias and armed groups operating on Lebanese territory. Furthermore, NALA calls on the U.S. and the Western world to support U.N. sponsored Lebanese elections, which would re-establish democracy and freedom and bring Lebanon back into the realm of the civilized world.

Otherwise the terror will continue. Lebanon would have been only the Beginning.