NewsMax Wires
Monday, June 7, 2004

Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air raid in response to a discotheque bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gadhafi that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people.

"I express my deep regret because Reagan died before facing justice for his ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the Libyan children," Libya's official JANA news agency quoted Gadhafi as saying.

JANA, in reporting Reagan's death Saturday at age 93, described former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a partner in the strikes because some of the warplanes took off from the United Kingdom.

"Ronald Reagan, Thatcher's partner in the failed American-Atlantic aggression against the house of the brother leader of the revolution, in Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, died," JANA reported.

The United States branded Libya a rogue state in the 1980s, alleging state-sponsored support of terrorism and imposing trade sanctions on the country in 1986.

Only in the last year have relations warmed substantially, with Libya meeting U.S. demands stemming from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. A Libyan agent was convicted of involvement in the bombing and Libya agreed to pay compensation to the families of the 270 victims.

Gadhafi agreed in December to dismantle Libya's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, and in February, Washington lifted a ban on use of American passports to travel to Libya. In April, President Bush took steps toward restoring trade and investment ties with Libya, allowing the resumption of oil imports and most commercial and financial activities.

But the United States continues to list Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism, which prohibits U.S. aid or arms sales to the country, and hundreds of millions of dollars of Libyan assets remain frozen in American banks. These restrictions are seen as an inducement for Libya to resolve its remaining differences with Washington.

Gadhafi isn't alone in looking back on Reagan's administration as a dark period. The Reagan years marked the beginning of what Lebanon's culture minister, Ghazi Aridi, called a "bad era" of American Mideast policy that continues to this day.

Speaking to The Associated Press in Beirut, Aridi noted the Reagan administration's support of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which ended in May 2000, and that current U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also served under Reagan.

"Rumsfeld was part of Reagan's administration, this means that his policy is still going on," said Aridi, who is with the Druse Progressive Socialist Party. Areas controlled by the party came under heavy American shelling by the U.S. destroyer New Jersey in 1983.

"In Reagan's days, the destroyer New Jersey bombed (shelled) poor areas of Mount Lebanon, the Americans protected Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and joined the Israelis in imposing the May 17 agreements," Aridi said referring to a failed deal to withdraw Israeli troops criticized - particularly by Lebanon's powerful neighbor, Syria - as only in U.S. and Israeli interests. "Every time I see Rumsfeld, I remember Reagan."

During Reagan's administration, American interests were hit hard in Lebanon. Suicide attacks against the U.S. embassy in 1983 killed 63 people, and the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut six months later killed 241 American servicemen. Dozens of Westerners were taken hostage during that period.

In Syria, which has had tense relations with the U.S. for decades, political analyst and former Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Haitham al-Kilani said "Reagan's role was bad for the Arab-Israeli conflict and was specifically against Syria. He was the victim of the Israeli right wing that was, and still is, dominating the White House."

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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