Did the State Dept urge Americans to leave Lebanon before the attacks started?

Question

I have heard two stories: 1) that the State Department warned Americans to leave Lebanon BEFORE the attacks halted travel; and 2) that the State Department did not begin urging Americans to leave until AFTER the attacks started. Which is true? A friend told me that the reason there are so many Americans stranded in Lebanon was because they ignored warnings by the State Department to leave before any of this happened, but I cannot find any evidence on the internet that indicates that the State Department urged ANYONE to leave Lebanon before the attacks.

Answer 1

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c3094.htm

These are all the press releases given by the State Dept regarding Lebanon dating back to April of this year. As you can see, the State Dept did not urge citizens to leave the country until July 22, long after it was no longer possible for Americans to leave Lebanon by commercial means.

To address the person who answered before, people can go to Lebanon if they please. People can go to Israel if they please. Anyone who is going to the Middle East is not going on a pleasure jaunt, I assure you. They are going to visit family that they perhaps will never be able to see again, given the situation in the Middle East, and they have every right to do so. Perhaps the State Department does not advise going into Lebanon, but it doesn't advise against it. If the State Department feels that you will be in imminent danger if you go to a certain country, they WILL advise you not to go. For instance, travel to Iraq is expressly and strongly advised against by the State Dept - travel to Lebanon is not. They only advise that you be careful and keep a low profile.

Also, you did not acknowledge the fact that there are thousands of Americans working and LIVING in Lebanon (for the embassy, consulate, etc) that needed to be evacuated. In fact, the number of Americans that are residents of Lebanon outnumber the tourists by 20,000 (there are only an estimated 8000 tourists). Obviously, these people had a legitimate reason to be in Lebanon, and they had no other way to get out besides these cruise ships that the government chartered, etc.

Answer 2

Well, you won't find any of the older Travel Warnings because they are always replaced by updates: the new one is dated July 19, but we have been warning Americans to stay away from the Middle East for years. Look at the Country Information Sheet, which usually paints a pretty rosy picture of the host nation. Does that really read like a place you'd want to visit, and then blame someone else if you had trouble? And that CIS was issued on January 20: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_948.html

In the second place, plenty of Americans had the sense to stay out of the Middle East; why the heck can't others also take responsibility for looking out for themselves? We did not know ahead of time that Israel would attack, but anyone with any sense would NOT be anywhere in the Middle East this year. Does the US government have to tell its citizens when to wipe their noses, too?

Finally, in the very first attack, the Israelis destroyed the airport runways. So there was no getting out by air. And the US government doesn't just keep empty ships parked all around the world waiting to maybe evacuate people. And US military ships might have looked a little threatening, sailing into Beirut harbor. The ships that are being used are mostly cruise ships that had to be contracted for, for huge amounts of money, and taken out of the tourist trade at the height of the cruise season in the Mediterranean. Do you suppose that money will have to be paid out of our taxes? I suspect so. Thank your idiot fellow Americans.

Answer 3

From what I remember seeing on the news in the UK. Israel agreed to stop the bombardment for 3 days to allow the Americans, the UK and other countries to get their nationals out.

Answer 4

Take a look at the state department website for advisory postings.

Answer 5

if they leave before its begin, they'll not be on TV and fox news likes action and also kind of hard to contacts them when they r out of country