The Staton Jones Report

So, what was going wrong in Grenada that made it a compelling case for the application of military force?

Well, after being granted independence by Britain, Grenada experience a military coup, in which a pro-Castro government took over.  Naturally, a military build-up followed, including ominous plans for a new airport that could accommodate Soviet Long-Range Bombers.  Of course, a country whose largest source of revenue is tourism could greatly benefit from an airport accessible to large passenger jets, but well... Soviet Long-Range Bombers! 

Since this spooky state of affairs had been in place since 1979, it didn't really work as a reason to divert resources from dealing with Beirut.  Luckily, there was a development: another military coup.  Despite the fact that this happened on October 12^th — just two weeks before the American invasion — Reagan confidently described the new regime as:

[The new government is], if anything, more radical and more devoted to Castro's Cuba than [the previous one] had been.

The violence of the coup gave rise to the ultimate justification for the assault on Grenada: the safety of 1,000 medical students — 80% of them American citizens — studying at the University of I-Couldn't-Get-In-Anywhere-Else School of Medicine.  Reagan emphasized the need to do this, by invoking the specter of the Iranian hostages — who, we would learn later, were held longer than necessary as a result of a deal Reagan's campaign made with Iran.

I believe our government has a responsibility to go to the aid of its citizens, if their right to life and liberty is threatened. The nightmare of our hostages in Iran must never be repeated.

This somewhat reasonable motivation was undermined when interviews with students arriving home showed them to be genuinely puzzled by the U.S. rescue; none of them reported having been threatened at all by the new government.

Nevertheless, Reagan dispatched 1,200 elite military troops — mostly Army Rangers and Navy SEALs — to topple the new government of Grenada and save the students from whatever it was that they were in danger of.  The initial force encountered a little more resistance than expected, in the form of Cuban troops:

We had to assume that several hundred Cubans working on the airport could be military reserves. Well, as it turned out, the number was much larger, and they were a military force.

The presence of a substantial number of Cuban soldiers forced the U.S. to increase its troop strength to 7,000 meaning that there was about one U.S. soldier for every 15 people in Grenada.  Surprise, surprise, we won.

Whether or not we knew about the Cuban presence before the invasion, Reagan played it for more than it was worth:

Grenada, we were told, was a friendly island paradise for tourism. Well, it wasn't. It was a Soviet-Cuban colony, being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy. We got there just in time.

Terrorism?  What's terrorism got to do with Grenada?  Reagan clarifies:

The events in Lebanon and Grenada, though oceans apart, are closely related. Not only has Moscow assisted and encouraged the violence in both countries, but it provides direct support through a network of surrogates and terrorists.

It should be clear implication that the Soviets were a significant force behind world terrorism was absurd.  Long after the demise of the Soviet Union, we are still dealing with terrorism is the same places we found it in 1983.  Reagan's bizarre conflation of communism with terrorism provided more than a rationale for invading Grenada in the wake of Beirut, it provided an excuse for the Reagan Administration to maniacally focus on the one conflict they understood — the Cold War — while ignoring the complex politics underlying terrorism.

In his speech, Reagan asked this important question:

If we were to leave Lebanon now, what message would that send to those who foment instability and terrorism?

After dealing his blow to terrorism by invading Grenada, Reagan did exactly that; he picked up and left Lebanon, and it would be another 10 years before the U.S. government — under new management — finally addressed the issue of terrorism seriously.

So here we are, again under Republican rule, and guess what?  We we attacked by terrorists and responded by attacking an unrelated country.  The terrorist attack was bigger, as was the country we invaded.  It would have been nice if Bush had learned from Reagan's cautionary example, not to address terrorist threats with black-and-white ideology.  Having failed to absorb that lesson, at least he could have learned something else from Reagan: when you invade the unrelated country, win.