Author: Ronald Tracy Boyd Publisher: ISBN: Category : Libya Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
On Tuesday morning, 11 September 2001, the United States was attacked by a small terrorist cell from a group called al-Qaeda. On that day, the United States was at war with terror. However, this was not the first time the United States dealt with terrorism. Thomas Jefferson sent a fleet of warships from the fledgling US Navy and a contingent of US Marines to deal with the Barbary Pirates operating on the "shores of Tripoli," the terrorists of the day. It is interesting that another president, Ronald Reagan, also sent a contingent of US Air Force and US Navy aircraft to deal with terrorists sheltering in Tripoli and Benghazi in response to a Libyan-sponsored attack on a West Berlin disco. This dissertation will answer several questions. How effective was the bombing in deterring Libyan support of terrorism? What led to US retaliation? What were the three pillars of US counterterrorism policy? The second pillar of US counterterrorism policy will be spotlighted throughout this dissertation. This dissertation will argue that the 1986 American bombing of Libya was effective in deterring the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi's support for terrorism for the short term. This dissertation will argue that the 1986 bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado Canyon) was a coercive diplomacy exercise, which is designed to persuade the target to abide by the rules. Two policy options will be discussed: coercive diplomacy and decapitation operations. Decapitation operations is a very new concept within academia. It is essentially an operation to eliminate the leader of a state or an organization such as a terrorist or insurgent group. Decapitation operations are meant to disrupt the activities of such groups or cause their disintegration. Operation El Dorado Canyon failed as a decapitation operation because Qadhafi survived the airstrikes. However, the US government had banned assassination since the Ford administration and Reagan continued that ban; therefore, Operation El Dorado Canyon was not a decapitation operation.
Author: Joseph T Stanik Publisher: Naval Institute Press ISBN: 1612515800 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
Long before the overt war in Afghanistan and the covert war against al-Qaida, U.S. forces struck at one of the world’s hotbeds of terrorism. On 15 April 1986, in the dead of night, American strike aircraft roared into the heart of Muammar Qaddafi's Libya, attacking carefully selected targets and nearly killing the “brother leader” himself. Codenamed Operation El Dorado Canyon, the raid was in direct response to Qaddafi's support of a terrorist act against U.S. service personnel stationed in Europe and was a result of President Ronald Reagan's pledge to respond to terrorism with “swift and effective retribution.” Stanik, a retired naval officer and Middle East scholar, provides a detailed account of the raid as well as an in-depth analysis of its causes and effects. He also describes three other hostile encounters between U.S. and Libyan forces during Reagan's presidency and details U.S. covert operations. From a bombing in West Berlin, to terrorism in the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, and from the halls of power in Washington to airbases in England and on the decks of American warships in the Mediterranean, Stanik weaves an international thriller that is relevant to current events.
Author: Jim Rotramel Publisher: ISBN: 9781950394128 Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
In the early 1980s, after a series of terrorist attacks resulted in American Americans, the United States struck back. Operation Eldorado Canyon is usually remembered as a long-range mission by F-111s. However, it involved many other participants.
Author: Lawrence A. Grannis Publisher: ISBN: Category : Libya Languages : en Pages : 80
Book Description
Colonel Muammar Qadhafi, as a key practitioner of state-sponsored terrorism targeted against the United States, has become a focus of US national security concerns. US passive, defensive measures complicated Qadhafi's operations, but did little curb his determination. With the EL Dorado Canyon operation, the US moved toward a more offensive policy against terrorism. However, the operation did not support the proper national objectives, did not apply force to Libya's center of gravity, and hence, did not deter future Libyan sponsored terrorism. Libya's center of gravity is evaluated is evaluated in the context of US national policy and objectives, characteristics of the Libyan theater of operations, and the nature of the threat. Libya is found to have two strategic centers of gravity: Qadhafi and Libya's overdependence on petroleum revenues. Its operational center of gravity is the pipeline network that transport the oil to shipping terminals.
Author: Nicholas Laham Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 0786431857 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 237
Book Description
This book argues that the 1986 American bombing of Libya represented an act of desperation by then-president Ronald Reagan in order to salvage American credibility in the Arab world. The author asserts that such credibility had been severely undermined by Reagan's earlier decision to enhance the strategic alliance between the U.S. and Israel, and that the 1986 bombing specifically targeted Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as one of the foremost Middle Eastern threats to American security. Finally, the author asserts that the Libyan bombings served as a significant foreshadowing of the current Iraq War and as a powerful illustration of the United States' historical willingness to use military power in order to preserve American economic and strategic interests in the Middle East.
Author: Ronald Tracy Boyd
Author: Joseph T Stanik
Author: Henry W. Prunckun
Author: Jim Rotramel![Operation El Dorado Canyon [manuscript] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/kd7Z0AEACAAJ?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Hank Prunckun
Author: United States. Defense Logistics Studies Information Exchange
Author: Lawrence A. Grannis
Author: 
Author: Nicholas Laham
Author: Julian W. Witherell