I was just a kid at the time, and I'm wondering about the true facts about the attack on Grenada...

[DaveinJapan]

Could any of you helpful folks give me a timeline/outline/reasoning behind it/anything else synopsis?

I honestly never understood it when it happened, and since then I've looked from time to time at history books and wiki and whatnot, but still never really got the reasonings behind the thing.

Sorry for asking what is probably an ignorant and uninformed question.

[jody]

1. Wiki is the place to start

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenada_invasion

[Possumpoint]

2. Reason For It?

Never saw this in writing but a number of pundits said that it happened because so many of the rich families had sent their under performing children to the island for a medical degree. That they were panicking when the island came under the control of a Cuban style government and there was a potential for the students to be held as hostage.

[jody]

5. St. George's University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%27s_University

[KharmaTrain]

3. A Quick Thumbnail...

I'm sure others will chip in wiht more specifics.

The premise of the invasion was to rescue Americans...primarily young medical students...who were caught up in a bloody revolution on the Island led by a "leftist" group that had recently overthrown the left-leaning government. In short, the country had erupted into a civil war and there was a legitimate threat to those students and gave Raygun the justification to launch the invasion.

The political is another story. This was right after the embarassment of the Lebanon incursion and Raygun looked inept. The Carribbean had long been a right wing boogie man...not only obsession with getting rid of Castro but to any government that had any relationship with him. This was in the wake of the Sandinista revolution in Nicauragua and the rise of left learning populist movements in Guatemala, El Salvador and in South America. This was Raygun's "stand"...showing he had "balls" to stand up to the "commies" and whip up some patriotism at home (a diversion from the ongoing economic mess that was going on).

As I say there is more to add and I'm certain other DUers were, but this was a "feel good war". At the time many commentators were claiming that the success of this mission was some kind of vindication...removing not only the stain of Lebanon but Vietnam as well.

Cheers...

[Bonobo]

4. Well done. nt

[DaveinJapan]

6. Thank you!

That's the kind of discussion (enlightenment, really), I was hoping to find!

Yes, I can read wiki or books or whatever, but for the most part I'm looking more for the feelings that people (adults, while I was a kid), had towards the event at the time.

Much like I'll have plenty to say to my Grandkids about Bush Iraq I, and Bush Iraq II, and of course Afghanistan, and what lead up to it...of course I don't know more than a history book might, but I have my viewpoint and I feel as though I lived through every minute of it, at least through the lens of the media along with first hand accounts from friends who were actually there.

[KG]

8. in other words - american weenie-waving

which pretty much sums up all american military adventures since WW2.

[FSogol]

9. Gary Trudeau called it the military's Special Olympics since an average of 7.2 medals per soldier

were given out. Bush the Elder took it up a notch with all of his "Victory Parades."

[KharmaTrain]

10. It Was An Intentional "Feel Good" War...

Yep, Poppy booosh took a page from this when he launched the Gulf Oil War I....junior tried as well. The right wing were all aflutter in the late 70s and early 80s (the Carter years) about how the US had gotten weak and we were a power in remission. They'd point out that all over the world the "Commies" were on the march...and to a degree they were right. This was at the height of Cuban adventurism in Angola and it appeared that "US Interests" were fair game. Raygun needed to put on a show to not only placate the wingnuts at home but try to put some "muscle" (or as another poster aptly puts it "weenie waving") to get some "respect".

I was working in the "media" at the time and the atmosphere the morning of the invasion was giddy. Just like in the early days of Iraq, the networks couldn't get close enough...a "real shooting war" and the U.S. military was out there showing off their stuff. It's a ratings winner...and this surely was. Just a year earlier the British had won their "weenie war" in the Fauklands, now the US had something to cheer about.

[ngant17]

11. As I recall, the airport expansion

by Grenada was considered a national security threat(20 miles wide, population 100,000) because it would allow heavier Soviet military aircraft (i.e., long range bombers) to come and go at will and that was unacceptable (among other things) to Raygun. But after the US overthrew the Marxists (Coard, who killed off Bishop), the airport was again expanded by the American-controlled regime. For exactly the same reasons as originally intended: the business of tourism.

The contrived "threat" to some medical students was the basis for the invasion. A handful of Cuban construction workers offered some rudimentary resistance against the invaders, but they were quickly neutralized by the massive invasion force.

It was a needless war, based on an absolute fraud, it was an unwarranted act of international aggression. A trademark of Raygun's foreign policies. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras. It all fit the same pattern.

There is no such thing as a "feel good war" unless you were one of the government-hired serial killers who got a medal some of those mass-murders.

[CottonBear]

7. Here is a link to an excellent website: The Grenada Revolution Online

http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/


edit: As of Sept. 5, 2009, the last of the Grenada 17 political prisoners were released after 23 years in prison at Richmond Hill Prison, St. Georges, Grenada.

IMHO, the arrest, detention, torture unlawful trial (organized by the US Govt.), convictions and death sentences (later commuted after international outcry) of the Grenada 17 were precursors to the Bush era Iraqi, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo actions.

An excellent political essay by Rich Gibson: The Last Prisoners of the Cold War Are Black
http://richgibson.com/grenNYTIMES.htm

<snip>

Shortly afterward, US troops were killed in their barracks in Lebanon. President Ronald Reagan took to the TV, announcing he had discovered, through satellite photos, that the Cubans were building a secret Soviet-Cuban military airstrip in Grenada. Actually tourists were frequently taken there, US medical students jogged each day on the airstrip. The main financial support for the airport came not from the U.S.S.R. nor from Cuba, but from Margaret Thatcher's Britain. Reagan declared the US medical students to be menaced, said that the NJM was a threat to all regional security. He got other Caribbean nations to back him, and invaded a country the size of Kalamazoo with a massive military force under a precedent- setting news blackout. Though the medical students radioed out that they were in no danger, US rangers "saved" them. Remarkably, it appears that Castro was forewarned of the invasion. The Cubans at the airport, the key landing spot for the invasion, having informed the Grenadian Army that Cuba would defend the runway, allowed U.S. paratroops to land untouched. The invasion of Grenada (popular among most of the people sickened by the long collapse of the NJM) was complete in a week.

Seventeen NJM leaders were charged with the murder of Bishop and the others, though it is clear that most of them were nowhere near the incident, or could not have participated. According to affidavits filed by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, the NJM leaders were denied a fair trial. Judges were hand-picked and paid by the U.S. NJM lawyers, threatened with death, fled Grenada. Key defense witnesses were denied the right to testify. Fourteen of the NJM members were sentenced to death.

In prison, they were tortured for eight years. Torture was especially horrible for the lone woman, Phyllis Coard, who was held in isolation for years. In 1991, after their children had been introduced to the fellow who was to hang them from a prison courtyard gallows, the sentences were commuted to life. The 17 New Jewel leaders are still serving time in a prison built in the late 1700's. The last prisoners of the cold war are black. It is great political irony and moral wrong.

On October 2, 1998, Federal Judge Denise Hood, ordered that documents possessed by U.S. intelligence agencies denied the initial defense be released to me within thirty days

<snip>

[madrchsod]

12. i talked to a marine that just got back from grenada

he said where his ship was mourned they could have debarked and walked up the hill to the school. so they sat there and waited till they had orders and by then it was pretty much over.

the school radioed that they were safe and not under "attack" but no one cared about the truth. the us forces did`t have a decent map of any landing zone and maps of grenada. the cuban forces on the island were armed with obsolete weapons and construction equipment.

a shining example one fucked up mission

[CanonRay]

13. I happened to be there a few months before the attack

and saw the Cuban troops. I was told that you had to fly the "red ball" flag (looks similar to a WWII Japanese flag) or government troops would come and take you in the night. I was stopped at checkpoints and searched. It was a scary place. To this day I can't say if Saint Ronnie was right or wrong on this one. I think the Grenadan people were happy to see the Cubans go, though.

[seaglass]

14. I was there a month or 2 before the attack for a day on a cruise stopover.

We toured the island by cab and were not stopped once. Definitely saw the young guys with AK47s or some such machine guns but I've seen the same at the airport in Rome and on a beach in Zihuatenejo - not too unusual. In any case I didn't experience any fear when I was there and our only unpleasant incident was the result of the boorish American tourists we shared a cab with.

We were told that Grenada wanted to expand tourism and the US would not provide funding support for the airport so they got it from the Cubans. All the wealthy homes in the hills previously occupied by Americans were then occupied by Cubans.