Malcom Lagauche
July 8, 2006

"Where the hell is Grenada?" many Americans asked in October 1983 when they read or heard that the United States had invaded that Caribbean military powerhouse. When most tried to find out where the country is, or why the U.S. invaded, they were left without answers. For a few days, we saw the country’s name in the newspapers, then it quickly departed.

The one consistent, yet vague, answer given to the American public was that the invasion was necessary to stop the Reds (Moscow, not Cincinnati) from encroaching on U.S. territory. That was good enough for the American public. No more questions were asked.

Despite the small size of Grenada and the limited discussion about the invasion, the implications are staggering. They were the beginning of a U.S. foreign policy of aggression that is strongly in place today.

Experiments were attempted by the U.S. government in deception and they worked. For instance, the press was not allowed to cover events, under the excuse of "national security." The media grumbled, but the incident was soon forgotten. This test was to see if there would be outrage from the media, but none came.

Another test was that of regime change. Grenada’s government was imprisoned and were not allowed to be interviewed for years after.

The use of overwhelming force came into play. Much more military might was thrust on Grenada than was necessary to do the job. This set the stage for future invasions by using old stocks of weapons so manufacturers of military equipment could fill their order books with the next generation of armaments, greatly enhancing the military-industrial complex and its foothold on the American economy.

Government lies abounded. The public was told that the island of Grenada was about to be used by Soviet communists to invade other countries in the Western Hemisphere, and, eventually, the U.S. itself. For an excuse, the U.S. government pointed to Cuban troops on the island and the construction of an airport. In reality, there were about 50 Cuban engineering advisers in Grenada who were helping the country build an airport for tourists.

Another excuse for the invasion was the safety of a few hundred American students who were attending university in Grenada. This flimsy notion was dispelled when the first planeload of students returned to the U.S. The press was well-represented at the airport and, when the first person left the plane, he was quickly asked, "Did you think your life was in danger?" The reporter inferred that the government of Grenada was about to harm its foreign students. A befuddled student answered, "The only time I felt my life was in danger was when the American bombs started dropping." That interview was never again shown.

The similarities of the invasions of Grenada and Iraq are alarming. One was a dress rehearsal for the other. Jonathan Steele covered the Grenada invasion once the press was allowed to enter the country after being shut out for five days. The October 11, 2003 edition of the British newspaper The Guardian ran an article by Steele in which he reminisced about his Grenada experience and he put it into context with post-2003 invasion Iraq. According to Steele:

Reporters who covered Grenada in that distant autumn of 1983 saw the same abuse of human rights, the same postwar incompetence, and same primitive failure to understand a foreign culture which the U.S. "war on terror" was later to produce.

None of us was allowed into Point Salines, the airport which the U.S. took over as its occupation headquarters. But looking across rows of barbed wire we caught glimpses of detainees being heralded into wooden crates … A single tiny window in each crate gave the luckless prisoners a view of armed guards in sandbagged watchtowers. It was the prototype of Guantanamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray.

The aspect of dehumanization by U.S. imperialistic soldiers never changes. In Fallujah, Iraq, long before the city became famous for its resistance to the U.S. occupation, incidents occurred to set the stage for the now-famous defense of the city. Shortly after the U.S. invasion of March 2003, a schoolhouse was trashed by U.S. troops. When Iraqis entered the school after is debasement, they saw racist and bigoted messages written on blackboards. The statements included, "We love pork," and "Baghdad Taxi Company" (with a drawing of a camel). The door of the principal’s office was adorned with a drawing of a penis and a scrotum. When he went into the school after the raid, the headmaster cried.

Grenada was no different. After the invasion, the Cuban Embassy’s door was adorned with the enlightened statement, "Eat shit, Commie faggot." The initials AA were left under the statement as a signature. This autograph stands for "All American" and it was commonly used in graffiti messages left by the 82nd Airborne Division. That is the same outfit that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Grenada by killing three Iraqis near Fallujah while shooting up a farmhouse and calling in airstrikes to destroy the building.

Shortly after the Grenada invasion, a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) moderator asked an African journalist what he thought of the invasion. The reporter answered, "If killing an ant with a sledgehammer is honorable, so be it." Those few words were more ominous than the originator could have dreamed. Since he uttered them, the United States has brutally attacked various other "Third World" countries in its quest for world domination — Libya, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia and Afghanistan. In addition, it has come close to using its military might against the countries of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Haiti, Syria and Sudan.

The rules have changed. No longer is the United States the self-imposed world moralist that will take on the big bullies. It has become bully number one that uses coercion to make small countries fall in line.

Iraq, a country of about 20 million at the time, fell into the American crosshairs and was destroyed in 1991. The problem with that progressive Arab country was that it did not adhere to the wishes of the United States. It paid a high price in 1991 and a still-higher price in 2003. Despite the twice-over destruction of Iraq, many of its citizens remained proud and steadfast. Prior to the 2003 invasion, U.S. administration officials stated that the Iraqi people would welcome American troops with flowers and candy. The Iraqis did not hear George Bush II’s prediction and they greeted the soldiers with bullets and RPGs instead.