While these opinions may not be popular in some quarters, I humbly apologize for any offense since my intention is never to offend but to elucidate. In a 2002 interview, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger recalled, “We were planning that very weekend for the actions in Grenada to overcome the anarchy that was down there and the potential seizure of American students, and all the memories of the Iranian hostages.”. Although others may disagree, I believe the invasion robbed Grenadians and the Caribbean of a historic opportunity to resolve a crisis by ourselves and to impose a Grenadian and Caribbean solution to our problems. Dr.Terrence Marryshow. Opportunistically, in an effort to deflect US public attention from this horrific experience, the warships that were headed to Lebanon were diverted to Grenada in a so-called rescue mission for Americans and particularly American medical students studying in Grenada. The situation was boiling, as the invasion of Grenada took place only two days after the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing which claimed the lives of 220 US Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers. Over the four and a half years of the Revolution, Grenadians rallied around the leadership and aligned themselves with the army and militia in numerous maneuvers to stave off what was perceived to be the imminent threat of invasion. A total of almost 8,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, along with 353 troops of the Caribbean Peace Forces participated in Operation Urgent Fury. No more Shortpree-Now Ayanfe and finished with competition, Written by  These students were rescued over the next two days. Just two days before the invasion of Grenada began, the October 23, 1983, terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon had taken the lives of 220 US Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers. The invasion, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Grenadians welcomed it, still represents a major aberration in Grenadian history where the potential invaders and enemy were converted by force of circumstances into heroes and rescuers. The United States’ invasion of Grenada commenced in earnest on 25 October 1983, on the orders of President Ronald Reagan. Combined Cuban and Grenadian military forces sustained 70 killed, 417 wounded, and 638 captured. Homicide 13 for Grenada- was it a justified action? Dowling, Ralph E. A study examined the Ronald Reagan Administration's rhetoric about the invasion of Grenada to determine its ethical quality and whether the American public could make a fair judgment about the incident based on this rhetoric. The U.S. contingent totaled 7,600 troops from the Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force. On October 19, 1983, an internal political struggle boiled over when another Cuban-friendly Marxist, Bernard Coard, assassinated Bishop and took control of the Grenadian government. Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, did not enjoy such success. As a strategic waterway, the Caribbean is vital to economic and military interests alike. By the end of the invasion’s first day, U.S. Army Rangers had secured both the Point Salines and Pearls airports, and rescued 140 American students from St. George’s University True Blue campus. Occupation of Haiti From 1915 to 1934, Iran Hostage Crisis: Events, Causes, and Aftermath, U.S. Policy in the Middle East: 1945 to 2008, The Iran-Contra Affair: Ronald Reagan’s Arms Sales Scandal, Biography of Douglas MacArthur, 5-Star American General, The Most Important Inventions of the Industrial Revolution, Operation Urgent Fury: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Grenada, The U.S. As a people we would have come out stronger and more united for it and the wanton loss of lives would have been avoided. On October 25, 1983, nearly 2,000 United States Marines led an invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. The Grenadan Government did not purpose to launch an invasion … The Reagan Doctrine: To Wipe Out Communism. The US justified the invasion through a series of arguments, even though the United Nations, Canada, and Great Britain saw the action as an unprecedented violation of international law. Given the codename "Operation Urgent Fury," the invasion was ordered by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to counter threats by Grenada’s Marxist governments to nearly 1,000 American nationals (including 600 medical students) living on the island at the time. A four-story cinder-block building collapsed into rubble killing 241 American servicemen, among them 220 marines, 18 navy personnel, 3 army soldiers while wounding another 60 Americans. Since the triumph of the Grenada Revolution on 13th March 1979, the impending invasion of Grenada by the US was always on the cards because our strong relations with Cuba and our developing relations with the Soviet Union at the time was perceived as a threat to the US. The political environment was highly charged and although Gairy – head of the Grenada United Labour Party – claimed victory in the general election of 1976, the opposition did not accept the result as legitimate. The U.S. Army and Marines proceeded to scour the island, arresting officers of the Grenadian military and seizing or destroying its weapons and equipment. The invading force was made up of the 1 st and 2 nd Ranger Battalions and the 82 nd Airborne Division, along with other Marines, Delta Force, and Navy SEALs, altogether numbering 7,600 troops drawn from both the U.S. and Jamaica. But then again I am only one Grenadian with one opinion that may not be a popular one but I am sure there are others who do share my opinion.............. 2013 © Dwayne Francique Moving Target Group of Companies. In March 1983, President Reagan revealed his so-called “Reagan Doctrine,” a policy dedicated to ending the Cold War by eradicating communism worldwide. American officials became concerned when Bishop suspended the constitution, detained a number of political prisoners, and established close relationships with communist Cuba. So it was simply about America looking after their own strategic interests, which is the pretext they use to intervene in or invade countries as they have done so many times in their history. Robert Longley is a U.S. government and history expert with over 30 years of experience in municipal government. Most Republicans, however, said Reagan's actions were justified. So,the invasion was justified in the context of the Cold War,and those who answered by poking fun at the threat that Communist rule in Grenada did or didn't pose to USA at the time - … As others have mentioned, Grenada was in Martial Law at the time, and they had implemented a 24-Hour Shoot-and-Kill Curfew for anyone that left their house. "The fact is it the government of Grenada is a Marxist military dictatorship," said Sen. John G. Tower (R-Tex. A great man once said that when a country is invaded, the philosophy of the country becomes the philosophy of the invader and to my mind there is much merit to that statement. The very opportunity that President Reagan and his administration were looking for to invade Grenada presented itself with the death of Bishop. Grenada was a sovereign state and she was of course allowed to forge close relations with whichever nation she so desired. The Rangers also learned that another 223 students were being held at the university’s Grand Anse campus. On October 23rd 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck of explosives into the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The island has functioned as a democracy ever since. In 1984, Grenada conducted free democratic elections and remains a democratic nation today. The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was an invasion of the island nation of Grenada by the United States of America and several other nations in response to an internal power struggle which ended with the deposition and execution of Grenadan Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. At the same time that all of these tragic events were taking place in Grenada when Grenadians were placed under the most draconian shoot-to -kill curfew for six days by the Coard clique, another infamous act had taken place thousands of miles from our shores, which would have a direct impact on the internal events in Grenada. I knew the invasion was never about the US ever saving Grenadians because Grenada has a population of African origins similar to the African-Americans in the United States, a black population that has suffered the brunt of US racism since slavery and who are still second-class citizens in their own country. Many of them no longer felt the desire or enthusiasm to associate with an army that had turned the guns on the masses or to support a clique that had committed the most atrocious crimes in the name of ideology. Following the tragic events of October 19th 1983, which led to the brutal assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and others at Fort Rupert at the hands of the murderous ultra-leftist clique led by Bernard Coard, Grenadians were to suffer further insult when the very country that had threatened to invade Grenada was given the opportunity on a golden platter. At any rate, Grenadians, 35 years after the invasion, rescue mission, intervasion or intervention, now have the opportunity to reflect and decide whether the events of October 25, 1983 were justified and whether we are better of as a people for it. Forgive me – the invasion of Grenada was in Hackett’s earlier, 1979 book on The Third World War. Background to Invasion: Grenada had been a colony of the United Kingdom but it was granted its independence in 1974. By October 29, military resistance to the invasion had ended. Nowadays, Grenada marks this day as a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day. In 1974, Grenada gained its independence from the United Kingdom. On November 2, 1983, the United Nations General Assembly, by a vote of 108 to 9, declared the military action “a flagrant violation of international law.” In addition, several American politicians criticized the invasion as a rash and dangerous overreaction by President Reagan to the deadly bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon that had killed over 240 U.S. troops just two days earlier. An Ethical Analysis of Reagan's Rhetoric Justifying the Invasion of Grenada. Citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation's pro-Marxist regime, on this day in 1983 President. The operation succeeded in less than a week. The invasion of Grenada in late 1983 can be seen as a small part of the rivalry between the U.S. and Cuba during the Reagan years. Please enable … The result was inevitable because Grenada could never match the military might of the US. The Relationship Between U.S. and Great Britain After World War II, The History of the U.S. War in Afghanistan, Warsaw Pact: Definition, History, and Significance, Go Back in Time With This 1980s History Timeline, The U.S. The attack was conducted on the Lebanese joint peacekeeping force and resulted in an additional death of 58 French paratroopers and six civilians. It was never about Grenada and Grenadians. The United States' invasion of Grenada commenced in earnest on 25 … It commemorates the freeing, as a result of the invasion, of several … Twenty-seven years ago, on October 25, 1983, the US invaded the tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada. U.S. forces suffered 19 killed and 116 wounded. So it is hypocritical to give the impression that they came to save Black people in Grenada while not saving their own black people in the United States. Elsewhere, at the same time, the Cold War was heating up again. With the free elections held on December 3, 1984, the New National Party won control of the once-again democratic Grenadian government. The reaction in the US was that the operation was justified… His term in office coincided with civil strife in Grenada. The United States invasion of Grenada began at dawn on 25 October 1983. The subdued post-invasion situation in Grenada left the justifications for Urgent Fury intact, and one can only surmise that the outcome emboldened those who would propose a preemptive strike in the future. Despite the criticism, the Reagan administration hailed the invasion as the first successful “rollback” reversal of communist influence since the start of the Cold War in the 1950s, and evidence of the Reagan Doctrine’s potential for success. This was emphatically borne out by a survey carried out by the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the University of the West Indies, which was headed by the late Dr. Patrick Emmanuel. The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was an invasion of the island nation of Grenada by the United States of America and several other nations in response to a coup d'état by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. It is not unreasonable to assume that a U.S. invasion of Grenada was planned at least two years prior to the revolution's self-destruction, which gave the United States the excuse it had been waiting for. Many Grenadians, however, welcomed the invasion because they saw it as a way of getting rid of Coard and his clique. The primary objectives of Operation Urgent Fury were to capture the island’s two airports, the disputed Point Salines Airport and the smaller Pearls Airport, and to rescue the American medical students trapped at St. George’s University. A majority of the members of the House delegation reported to Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. on Tuesday that the threat to roughly 1,000 United States citizens on … While historians recognize the challenges to the UN Charter posed by the US invasion of Grenada, it did not become a major international incident, nor did it pose the problems for the United States that rose in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. Does … The Rationalizations for the Invasion The U.S. invasion of Grenada was the first major U.S. military operation since the end of the Vietnam War. At the time Grenada was a commonwealth nation (Which meant that they were Britain’s problem) and they had just had a recent Communist Revolution. The newly-independent nation operated as a democracy until 1979, when the New Jewel Movement, a Marxist-Leninist faction led by Maurice Bishop overthrew the government in a violent coup. Patterson: No, I don't think that invading is ever justified but I do think that America has a right as a major power to secure islands that are vulnerable from an American point of view. He has written for ThoughtCo since 1997. Two rescue attempts ordered by the administration of President Jimmy Carter failed, and the Iranians held the American diplomats hostage for 444 days, finally releasing them at the very moment Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States on January 20, 1981. The imposition of economic sanctions as well as debarring Grenada from participating in regional and international fora would have been sufficient to oust the Coard clique from power and thus save Grenadians from the physical and psychological trauma of an invasion. The real reason for the invasion was that Grenada was a nearby country and Reagan was concerned that Cuba and the Soviet Union were establishing a military foothold there. Grenada just happened to be a pawn in their chess game at that particular point in time. When protests against Bernard Coard’s Marxist government in Grenada became violent, Reagan cited “concerns over the 600 U.S. medical students on the island” and fears of another Iran hostage crisis as justification for launching the Grenada invasion. An American invasion force of 2,000 marines and paratroopers, which landed in Grenada yesterday with 300 troops from six Caribbean countries, was … As a people we would have come out stronger and more united for it and the wanton loss of lives would have been avoided. Police officer investigated on sex related allegations, Brothers charged with 2012 murder of 72-year-old British pen…. The situation on Grenada had been of concern to American officials since 1979, when the leftist Maurice Bishop seized power and began to develop close relations with Cuba. Washington justified its use of overwhelming force against a largely unarmed civilian population with quintessential Cold War rhetoric, that Grenada's socialist government was an imminent threat to freedom and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere. It wasn’t justified, but it was necessary. First proposed in 1954, while Grenada was still a British colony, the airport included a 9,000-foot-long runway, which U.S. officials noted would accommodate the largest Soviet military aircraft. A study examined the Ronald Reagan Administration's rhetoric about the invasion of Grenada to determine its ethical quality and whether the American public could make a fair judgment about the incident based on this rhetoric. The Grenadian people eventually grew to support the invasion. While the Bishop government vowed the runway had been built to accommodate large commercial tourist aircraft, U.S. officials feared the airport would also be used to help the Soviet Union and Cuba transport arms to communist insurgents in Central America. The U.S. and a coalition of six Caribbean nations invaded the island nation of Grenada, 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela.Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, it resulted in military occupation within a few days. When protests against Bernard Coard’s Marxist government in Grenada became violent, Reagan cited “concerns over the 600 U.S. medical students on the island” and fears of another Iran hostage crisis as justification for launching the Grenada invasion. All rights reserved. The main reason for the dispute was the way the US justified their decision to invade. Did Tecumseh’s Curse Kill Seven US Presidents? While im… First, they depicted Grenada's regime as murderous, anti-American and supported by … United States invades Grenada, Oct. 25, 1983. But despite this fact, the Grenadian soldiers who valiantly fought and died against an implacable enemy gave a very good account of themselves. Ironically, the victory was a pyrrhic one because the revolution was already over by the time the marines landed and Reagan was to claim a victory over socialism, which is what Grenada represented in the geopolitical axis during the era of the Cold War. In advocating his so-called “rollback” approach to communism, Reagan emphasized the rising influence of the Soviet-Cuban alliance in Latin America and the Caribbean. The US invasion of Grenada was justified as a rather pleasant diversion from the Iran-Contra fol-de-rol surrounding President Reagan. A bloody coup in Grenada, along with a perceived threat to American students on the island provided the U.S. with an excellent excuse to eliminate a … The American students were rescued and the Marxist regime was replaced by an appointed interim government. Under the code name “Urgent Fury”, the might of the US military was unleashed on Grenada on October 25th 1983 when the country was invaded with F-16 bombers, helicopter gunships, paratroopers and ground forces. Sir Eric Gairy had led Grenada to independence from the United Kingdom in 1974. Today, the island observes October 25—the day of the invasion, as Thanksgiving, “a special day to remember how the U.S. military rescued them from a communist takeover and restored constitutional government.”. Invasion of Grenada: A Twenty Year Retrospective. Political prisoners, jailed since 1979 were released. The Grenadian military suffered a crippling loss of weapons, vehicles, and equipment. 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