AMERICAN CAPITALISM BEGAN TO FAIL IN ABOUT 1973---Episode 17

REAGAN'S RIDICULOUS FOREIGN POLICY IN EARLY 1980s ---a continuation 

Bogged down in protracted proxy wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, Reagan hungered for an easy military victory that would restore Americans' self-confidence and get the Vietnam monkey off America's back. His opportunity came in 1983 when a radical faction overthrew the revolutionary government of Maurice Bishop in Grenada, a tiny Caribbean island with 100,000 inhabitants, murdering its leaders. Before his death, Bishop had alleged that a campaign was under way to destabilize his nation by "the vicious beasts of imperialism" ---- the United States. Using the resulting instability as a pretext for action, U.S. officials decided to invade and topple the new government, despite clear opposition from the United Nations, the Organization of American States [OAS] , and even British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. U.S. officials pressured reluctant Caribbean nations to call for U.S. intervention. 

The timing proved fortunate for the administration. While preparing the invasion, the United States suffered a humiliating setback when a powerful truck bomb blew up a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon, leaving 241 dead. Desperate for a distraction, Reagan announced the invasion of Grenada was needed to rescue endangered American medical students on the island. The students, however, were in no immediate danger.  When the dean of the medical school polled them, 90 percent said they wanted to stay. To avoid even the minimalist kind of scrutiny the United States had recieved in Vietnam, U.S. officials banned media from accompanying invading forces for their own "safety" and offered government footage. The 7,000 U.S. invaders encountered more resistance than they had bargained for from a small force of poorly armed Cubans. The entire operation was logistically bungled from the start. Twenty-nine U.S. soldiers died, and more than 100 were wounded. Nine helicopters were lost. Most troops were quickly withdrawn.

Congressman Dick Cheney of Wyoming participated in the first post-invasion congressional delegation and applauded the United States' new can-do image around the world. When another delegation member, Representative Don Bonker of Washington, derided claims that the students had been at risk, Cheney blasted him in a Washington Post op-ed. As if in a dress rehearsal for lying about Iraq two decades later, Cheney claimed that "the Americans were in imminent danger," every effort was made to secure their evacuation by diplomatic means," and the new Grenadan government posed "a threat to the security of the entire region." Fellow delegation member Representative Ron Dellums of California challenged Cheney's distortions, calling the invasion "a thinly veiled effort to use American students and a tiny black Caribbean country to mask the further militarization of American foreign policy." Dellums also dismissed the claim of protecting students, noting "our delegation could not find one confirmed instance in which an American was threatened or endangered before the invasion. In fact, the . . . campus was a mere 20 meters from an unprotected beach. If the safety of the students was the primary goal, why did it take the U.S. forces three days to reach it?" By a ten-to-one margin, the UN General Assembly "deeply deplored " the "armed intervention in Grenada," which it called " flagrant violation of international law." 

Among the casualties were at least twenty-one mental patients killed in a misguided bombing attack on their hospital. General Edward Trobaugh , commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, told reporters that the Grenadan People's Revolutionary Army had been inept but the small contingent of Cubans on the island, many of whom were there to build an airstrip, had fought well. He informed visiting congressmen that there was no indication that the medical students had ever been threatened. Reagan criticized the press for labeling the action "an invasion" when it was really a "rescue mission." 

In his address to the American people, Reagan emphasized the threat to U.S. security, pointing to "a warehouse of military equipment that contained weapons and ammunition stacked almost to the ceiling, enough to supply thousands of terrorists." Reagan dispelled the notion that Grenada was an idyllic tropical escape : "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," he asserted, just one step ahead of catastrophe.