The case of Grenada:

...Third, Grenada and Central America: this is the heart of the matter...

...debate, selected but substantial voices were raised against the long-term wisdom and short-term justification of the Grenada action...

...Father Michael Gilgannon, an articulate and perceptive American missionary in Latin America, uses a National Catholic Reporter essay to identify the Grenada action as a teachable moment which should be used to help U.S...

...There has been, and it cannot easily be ignored...

...The Poles are hardly Grena-dians, but the precedent for Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe - especially if invited in by key actors - has been strengthened by U.S...

...Probing the reactions to Grenada may be more important than evaluating the case...

...Consequences in this instance refer to the way various publics are reacting to the U.S...

...action in this context, linking both his policy in Lebanon and Grenada with a common theme of resisting Soviet regional aggression...

...Is there any significant dissent...

...history in Latin America have been reinforced in the minds of multitudes less likely to be as polite as their governments...

...Reagan resists and resents the analogy of Grenada and Afghanistan, but this may not be the key case...

...Again, this can be attributed to public relations technique and the failure of nerve among key congressional leaders in the face of a popular president, but that is how presidents win public opinion contests-by depriving opponents of the initiative...

...In Central and Latin America voices from across the political spectrum found the invasion and its justification - saving the continent from Communism - unacceptable...

...policy...

...Irving Kristol, neoconservative analyst writing in the Wall Street Journal, cites Grenada as an example of how the U. S. should be expected to act, politically and morally, in defense of democratic values...

...The case of Grenada is being invoked to condemn or to justify much larger political realities...

...The religious leadership of Grenada, including the Catholic bishop of the island, sent a telegram thanking the United States for its response...

...action as a rescue...

...Kristol and the New Republic to explain the Grenada action in terms of "how great powers act," i.e., by using power...

...But other conclusions are possible...

...Clearly the commentators are reaching for larger stakes than deciding about Grenada...

...From the Caribbean Council of Churches to the Organization of American States the United States faced resistance and hostility...

...The Caribbean political leadership, from the moment of the invasion through the British Commonwealth meeting in late November, consistently expressed support for U.S...

...Public opinion polls taken on the island were solidly in support of the definition of the U.S...

...More serious is the tendency of commentators like Mr...

...First, U.S.-Soviet relations: the president characteristically placed the U.S...

...the world is neither that simple nor that tightly integrated...

...actions...

...In the United States the administration won the public opinion battle decisively...

...The muted but real criticism from Latin American governments is but a symbol of how the worst aspects of U.S...

...There may be a case for administration policy in both Lebanon and Grenada, or more probably for one but not the other, but the identification of the two is propaganda not policy...

...Second, U.S.-Latin American relations: if precedents are important between superpowers, memories are important among neighbors...

...An intriguing editorial in the New Republic, in the end more favorable to the invasion than critical of it, still recognized the administration case as fragile at best and fraudulent in some key assertions...

...Was the victory a rout...

...J. BRYAN HEHIR...

...actions...

...whether one uses polling data, the media, or key voices in the Congress (including Representatives Barnes and Boland), no sustained dissent has been effective...

...The United States has clearly reinforced the convention that big powers are supreme in their own region - above the logic of the law...

...When we count the cost of the Grenada action, this too must be weighed...

...In the U.S...

...Initial responses to the invasion were mixed but decidedly more positive than critical, both here and there...

...The cosmic connections here are surely vulnerable...

...If either the public reaction to or the policy conclusions drawn from the Grenada exercise are used to move the Reagan administration even further toward direct military action against (Continued on page 698) Church/world watch (Continued from page 681) Nicaragua or in El Salvador, then Grenada will have long-term significance...

...Strikingly absent in this line of argument is any consideration that great powers also act by setting precedents for other powers...

...The decisive case for or against the Grenada policy may not be possible just now...

...All of these reactions can be skeptically examined in light of how small nations behave in the shadow of larger ones, but they cannot be lightly dismissed unless we are to conclude that the views of people in small nations do not count...

...Senator Moynihan, hardly a Soviet apologist, eloquently captured the two key objections to the invasion: democracy is not spread or saved by guns, and a nation which often appeals to international law ought to have more respect for the law in its foreign policy...

...Catholics understand the interventionist history of U.S...

...Those of us with doubts about or decisive opposition to the Grenada action should understand where the focus of attention should be: establishing a barrier against future interventions, not winning the debate about the last one...

...invasion of Grenada...

...The significance of the commentaries lies less in their substantive judgement on the past than in the way they will be invoked in the future...