Lest we neglect. Brazenly racist former president and present Republican nominee Donald Trump shouldn’t be an anomaly. He truly represents a continuum of the insurance policies and positions of former President Ronald Reagan, who holds “Saint Ronnie” standing within the minds of far too many Individuals.
Sure, the exact same Reagan who opened his 1980 marketing campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. That’s the place civil rights staff James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman have been tortured and murdered throughout “Freedom Summer season.” The identical Reagan who now we have to thank for the meme of “welfare queens.”
Reagan’s insurance policies and positions didn’t simply form Republican home coverage. He manufactured a army push to flex his anti-communist bona fides, selecting the tiny island of Grenada to make an instance of by invading it on Oct. 25, 1983. That invasion was dubbed “Operation Pressing Fury” and despatched 7,000 U.S. troops into an island nation solely about twice the scale of Washington, D.C.
Was Grenada a menace to the U.S.? You be the choose. The previous is much too typically prologue, and the Caribbean our Caliban. But when we neglect current historical past, it might be repeated on a far bigger scale ought to Trump win one other presidency.
I’m posting a couple of video recap of the invasion’s historical past. Right here’s a fast three-minute abstract:
This 10-minute abstract takes a extra detailed and significant have a look at Reagan’s function, and consists of an interview with CIA whistleblower John Stockwell.
Tales of the American Empire video notes:
When American President Ronald Reagan entered workplace, he set a purpose of re-energizing the American empire that had misplaced momentum after its embarrassing defeat in Vietnam. Invading the tiny island nation of Grenada can be a straightforward army victory to show American imperial energy. The CIA instigated violence in Grenada and blamed communists, whereas asserting the Soviets have been constructing a army base on the island. A propaganda marketing campaign started and American army workout routines have been held to organize for this invasion.
The Zinn Schooling Undertaking gives hyperlinks to extra detailed historic sources, together with this two-part, hourlong documentary from filmmaker John Douglass titled “Grenada: The Future Coming In the direction of Us.”
The filming was accomplished shortly earlier than the tragedies of October 1983 on this colourful work produced by the Caribbean Analysis Institute. John Douglas produced, filmed and edited the full-color work, and was co-directed by Carmen Ashurst and Samori Marksman and Douglas. Vinie Burroughs is the narrator of this 55-minute movie. The movie is listed as a documentary on the Grenadian Revolution, traces Grenada’s early historical past, analyzes the impression of European colonialism and clarify the evolution of recent Grenadian society. A lot footage of Grenadians – [the executed] Maurice Bishop, Caldwell Taylor, Dessima Williams, Valerie Cornwall, Candia Alleyne, Bernard Coard, Phyllis Coard, [the murdered] Fitzroy Bain, George Nurse, Brian Beggs, Claudette Pitt, [the late] Dorcas Braveboy, amongst others.
Wendell Bell, professor emeritus of sociology at Yale College, wrote “The American invasion of Grenada: a observe on false prophecy”:
Though the invasion of tiny Grenada most likely is not going to go down in historical past as one of many extra earthshaking incidents of our troubled age, it’s nonetheless vital as a near-perfect illustration of using prophecy to justify current motion. The Reagan administration gave the American individuals – and the individuals of the world – three principal causes for motion, all of them within the type of contingent statements concerning the future, that’s, what would have occurred if there had been no invasion. First, Americans would have been taken hostage or probably killed. Second, a Soviet-Cuban army bastion would have been established for the export of communism all through the area, particularly the japanese Caribbean. And third, a contemporary army airport would have been accomplished at Level Salines that may have change into a menace to the important pursuits and the nationwide safety of the USA. Though we can not inform now who amongst American leaders – together with the president himself
– believed these prophecies in the mean time of disaster, we suspect that not one of the three was credible. That’s my topic on this essay. Earlier than continuing additional, nonetheless, I need to summarize the occasions of the invasion, since so lots of the particulars have pale from reminiscence.
It’s a lengthy learn, which I can not adequately quote right here. However he concludes:
…I’ve tried to point out that three of the key assertions concerning the future made by the Reagan administration to justify its invasion of Grenada have been false:
1. Individuals on Grenada weren’t in any actual hazard, besides from the American invaders and the combating that the invasion precipitated.
2. The militarization of Grenada was not supposed as a method to export terrorism or revolution to its Caribbean neighbors, however was primarily an effort to mobilize Grenadians as a part of a home program of revolutionary change.
3. And the worldwide airport at Level Salines was not supposed to be a Soviet-Cuban army base, however was deliberate to be a serious facility in Grenada’s financial improvement. Moreover, the administration’s use of the previous to justify current motion was as defective as its use of the longer term. The analogy between the hostages in Iran and the medical college students on Grenada was too tenuous to be a very good information to motion. And solely nationwide moods and the thread of time linked the bombing in Lebanon and occasions in Grenada. But each added tothe faulty conceptions of actuality that introduced demise, mayhem, and destruction toGrenada.
Is it an excessive amount of to hope that subsequent time round earlier than we begin doing violence to individuals, we are able to ask what violence we’re doing to reality? Can’t we protest when our leaders distort goal realities and ship the reality down the reminiscence gap?
Curiously sufficient, right-wing Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton made a speech about Grenada final yr, celebrating Reagan’s “victory.”
In the present day marks the fortieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. This quick and largely missed battle is likely one of the most profitable American army interventions in historical past.
In simply 4 days, President Ronald Reagan toppled an anti-American regime, rolled again communism within the hemisphere, and saved American lives. Within the years that adopted we constructed a robust, real, and enduring partnership with the individuals of Grenada. However this success was removed from sure. It was solely doable due to President Reagan’s decisive and overwhelming army response to a disaster on the island.
The seeds of this disaster have been sown—like many others—throughout Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency. Underneath President Carter, communism started to metastasize in Latin America and within the particularly pivotal yr of 1979, each Nicaragua and Grenada fell to communists. As he returned from Managua, Fidel Castro boasted, “now there are three of us.” And the Cuban dictator had large plans so as to add extra captive nations to his anti-American axis within the hemisphere.
Listed below are just a few segments from an in depth 2021 Twitter thread:
In 1983, Congress despatched a delegation to tour Grenada, examine, and report again. Ron Dellums and Louis Stokes, members of the group who have been additionally members of the Congressional Black Caucus, dissented from the bulk opinion, as reported by UPI.
WASHINGTON — Two of the Home members who toured Grenada are dissenting from the vast majority of the delegation, saying the U.S. invasion was unlawful and that President Reagan used American college students as a handy excuse for his invasion.
Reps. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, and Ronald Dellums, D-Calif., mentioned the Congressional Black Caucus voted to assist their place. The 2, the one blacks within the 14-member Grenada delegation, had withheld their public judgments till Wednesday.
[…]
The 2 males mentioned there was no authorized or constitutional foundation for the invasion as a result of a authorities truly was in impact on Grenada. The Grenadians would have settled their very own issues, they mentioned.Dellums, a pal of assassinated Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, referred to as the invasion ‘an undeclared act of warfare in violation of the Structure, the U.N. and OAS (Group of American States) charters.’
They mentioned Reagan’s primary concern was to not shield Individuals. ‘The proof is that not a single American baby and never a single American nationwide was positioned in jeopardy or made a hostage at any level previous to that invasion,’ Dellums mentioned. He referred to as the invasion ‘a thinly veiled effort to take advantage of and use a tiny Caribbean nation’ to develop U.S. militarism.
On a associated observe, The Washington Publish has been investigating what occurred to the physique of executed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Right here is the most recent replace:
Washington Publish video notes:
Earlier this yr, the U.S. Military launched an inner assessment of information associated to the restoration of stays in Grenada in 1983, and efforts to find Maurice Bishop’s physique.“That is the primary critical effort by the Pentagon in many years to handle the function the US performed within the disappearance of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s stays,” mentioned Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who pushed for the Military to analyze.On this new replace to the sequence, The Washington Publish’s Martine Powers unpacks the findings of the Military’s investigation, the information and occasions that it outlines, and the questions it stops in need of answering.
In Grenada, the day Bishop and others have been killed was named Nationwide Heroes Day:
In October 2022, the federal government of Grenada declared October nineteenth as a public vacation from 2023, commemorating the killings of former prime minister Maurice Bishop and several other members of his cupboard in 1983.
Bishop, together with a number of civilians, was killed following a palace coup orchestrated by his deputy, Bernard Coard, at Fort Rupert which was renamed Fort George.
Grenada authorities officers just lately introduced that they’re constructing a shrine to honor these killed on Oct. 19, 1983.
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has introduced that Authorities intends to construct a shrine at Fort George to honour deceased revolutionary chief, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, and others who misplaced their lives on 19 October 1983 on account of inner conflicts between completely different factions of the Peoples’ Revolutionary Authorities.
[…]
Chatting with tons of who had gathered at Progress Park and people watching the dwell broadcast on tv and radio for the Nationwide Heroes Day celebrations, the Prime Minister mentioned, “We’re absolutely conscious that for the final 40 years, you may go to what was then Fort Rupert and see nearly no signal, no acknowledgment of the tragedy that occurred.”
“However as we reclaim our historical past, as we reclaim and are available to phrases with our previous, we are going to do what is true in guaranteeing that the mandatory shrine to commemorate the tragic lack of our prime minister, members of the cupboard, and different residents of Grenada is correctly erected on that website, to make sure that our youngsters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren respect the sacrifice made by our forebears,” he mentioned.
Given the dearth of present and historic protection of the Caribbean and the continuing racist propaganda spewed by Trump and his MAGA acolytes, I fear that ought to he regain energy, a number of Caribbean nations may change into simple targets for an additional U.S. army journey.
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