'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY!
Howe, Irving
One thing is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt: the United States has the military strength to defeat Grenada. Everything else being said in defense of the invasion last fall is, at best,...
...The argument that the invasion was designed to bring democracy to Grenada by removing a gang 7 of what Reagan called "left-wing thugs" can best be answered with a Bronx cheer...
...Put aside selfesteem and consider the once-lovely American sense of humor...
...Clearly, the Reagan administration had no interest in pursuing peaceful alternatives to its "rescue...
...I think one can/should argue that any intervention in the affairs of another country is inherently a violation of democratic norms, yet that such an act can, in extreme cases, be justified by overriding security and/or humane concerns...
...This is not a man we can trust to choose our enemies...
...Shortly before the coup that deposed him, Bishop made overtures to Washington in the hope of improving relations...
...Yes, we can...
...That a military superpower can take over a hapless Caribbean island...
...But the Reagan regime turned a cold shoulder to Bishop, thereby weakening his position at home and enabling the takeover by the CoardAustin gang...
...But that's not the way the Reagan people think...
...Had the students been in real danger, an Entebbe-style landing and pickup would have been sufficient...
...were safe...
...but a lean, mean, right-wing fightin' machine...
...Everything else being said in defense of the invasion last fall is, at best, dubious...
...Order and democracy in Grenada, like disorder and dictatorship in Nicaragua and Guatemala, are incidental to the Administration's main purpose, which manifestly is to reassure itself and to show the world, especially the Cubans and the Russians, that the U.S...
...That the CoardAustin group, which killed Prime Minister Bishop, was a gang of thugs I don't doubt...
...But if he'd hit a good guy, I suspect he'd blow the smoke from his six-gun with the same satisfied smile...
...What sense does it make to speak of Grenada as a "major" bastion of the Cubans...
...Sheriff Reagan whirled and fired to his left, and this time he got lucky...
...Senator Daniel Moynihan, not exactly a dove, said: "Nothing has been discovered so far that would show with any certainty that Cuba was planning to take over Grenada...
...There remains the absurdity—perhaps one should say the obscenity—about all the talk that Grenada has shown "American will," "American firmness," etc...
...q 8...
...But suppose the Cubans were putting arms on Grenada...
...Nor has anything been discovered since Moynihan's statement...
...Politically, the most disastrous consequences of the Grenada episode will be felt in South and Central America...
...But you go into Grenada because Cuba is there...
...For instance, intervention in a country where genocide is taking place (Cambodia under Pol Pot...
...Even those Latin American countries that are friendly to the United States have condemned the invasion...
...See how far Grenada is from America, then look how close Cuba is to the United States...
...This makes a modicum of sense only if you see Grenada as a rehearsal for other, larger invasions...
...The United States has found it possible to live on friendly terms with such vicious right-wing dictators and juntas as Duvalier in Haiti, Pinochet in Chile, the military murderers in Argentina, El Salvador, and Guatemala...
...You don't go into Cuba because you don't like Cuban attitudes...
...saying that our citizens...
...It's not an inevitable sequence, but the possibility increases...
...What in fact did we show the world...
...Just imagine what Mark Twain would have said about pouring all those troops and planes onto Grenada...
...basically phony too...
...Let me make clear that I do not write as a pacifist or isolationist...
...In this wretchedly polarized world we must accept—at least until negotiations can change this—the fact that both sides maintain scattered bases as close as possible to the other side...
...Unilateral actions by either superpower can be dangerous, though of course in some circumstances, such as during the Cuban missile crisis in the early '60s, action may be necessary—and even then President Kennedy negotiated first, achieving his purpose without the use of military force...
...We find support for our skepticism in an unlikely source, Prime Minister Thatcher of England: You may say that the Americans should not have this in their backyard...
...But there is a profound hypocrisy in American statements on this score...
...There was talk that the deal might include a turn to "pluralism" within Grenada...
...he hit a bad guy...
...For that matter, what he would have said about so many other events in the time of Reagan...
...We know, as Anthony Lewis has written in the New York Times (11 11 /83), that "Grenada and Cuba both sent urgent messages to the U.S...
...Grenada today, Nicaragua tomorrow...
...More important—if you remember the dismal history of U.S...
...Is American self-esteem so low that it requires this sort of reinforcement...
...By the logic used to justify the Grenada invasion, would not the Soviet Union also be justified in "taking out" American bases in Greece or Turkey that, from its standpoint, are at least as great a "threat" as any bases on Grenada would be to the U.S...
...What was found on Grenada was a good number of obsolete rifles plus some up-to-date (but by no means "major") military equipment...
...There are some—extremecircumstances when intervention in the affairs of another nation can be justified, morally and politically...
...The next justification was, in Reagan's words, that Grenada was becoming "a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion to export terror...
...The claim that the invasion was a rescue operation to save American students is no longer taken seriously by anyone...
...In what way would a base in Grenada help the Cuban-Soviet bloc more than a base in Cuba itself...
...nor would I put forward Bishop as an exemplar of democracy...
...The whole world is ringed with military bases set up by the two superpowers...
...Is that in itself a sufficient reason for invading Grenada...
...Had Washington responded to Bishop, it's at least possible that both the CoardAustin coup and the American invasion might have been averted...
...There is the further danger that the Grenadan "success" will inflame the White House roughriders who propose direct and indirect military intervention in Central America...
...They wanted a quick kill...
...intervention in that area, usually in behalf of thuggish military regimes and sometimes the United Fruit Company, you can readily see how Grenada will prove a propaganda advantage for all those in South and Central America—not only on the left—who wish to paint the United States as simply an imperialist overlord...
...Can you not see the point...
...Well, Cuba is a much bigger danger, isn't it...
...is not a pitiful helpless giant...
...We know that the [Grenada] airport was open and that Americans flew out the day before the invasion...
...That Grenada constituted such an instance seems highly implausible...
...But look at the map...
...Here, too, there is no sufficient evidence to support this claim...
...Very much to the point are some remarks by Hendrik Hertzberg, editor of the New Republic: The claim that the invasion's purpose was to restore order and promote democracy is...
Vol. 31 • January 1984 • No. 1
