In 1983, US President Ronald Reagan decided to completely get rid of the Vietnamese complex, whose bitterness is still stuck in the throat of Washington, and chose Grenada, the smallest island in the Caribbean, for this purpose.
Reagan, who pursued a hardline and aggressive policy that manifested itself in the fictional Star Wars project against the Soviet Union, found his way into the airport project in Grenada by his leftist communist government and close relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Ronald Reagan began to beat the drums of war and announced in a speech that the Cubans were working to build a 3-kilometer airstrip in the southern Caribbean Sea with funds from the Soviet Union, considering this move a threat to American interests and the airport as a base for the expansion of communism in the Caribbean. basin and to receive Soviet and Cuban cargo aircraft.
The government of Grenada, a small island located 90 miles off the coast of Venezuela, which established relations with the eastern camp and at the same time maintained relations with the United States, confirmed that the airport was built solely to attract tourists. to the island, and that the project involved financiers from 17 countries, including the UK and Finland, and the island government invited international journalists to visit and inspect the airport project!
Prior to this, Grenada had been under the rule of a bloody dictatorship with a democratic façade led by Eric Geary for about 30 years, but left-wing army and police officers of the island overthrew him on March 13, 1979 and installed a revolutionary government and a socialist state led by Maurice Bishop.
Bishop tried to maintain good relations with the administration of US President Jimmy Carter despite close relations with the Eastern Bloc, and this situation did not stop 800 American students from studying at St. George’s University on the island, while the US administration continued to claim that their lives were in danger!
When Reagan arrived at the White House, he changed his country’s policy on how to treat “red” Hispanics and refused to accept the credentials of the Grenada ambassador while American students continued to study on the island.
The first signs of an impending invasion appeared in March 1983, when Reagan announced a boycott of Grenada and urged American tourists not to visit the island while the US Navy was conducting exercises near Grenada’s territorial waters.
Grenada prepared for an invasion and put its small army on alert on March 26, 1983, but the country’s leader, Bishop, tried to avert disaster and traveled to Washington in July, where he met with William Clark, the presidential assistant for national affairs. security, discussed the possibility of improving relations, and even promised to reconsider relations with Cuba.
The bishop’s comrades from the “revolutionary” generals did not like his behavior, so they arrested him and put him under house arrest, but his supporters went to mass demonstrations in the capital and secured his release, but the rebellious generals sent reinforcements there and Maurice Bishop was killed in a shootout, and the commander of the army of Grenada, General Austin, seized power.
Thus, favorable conditions were created for “riding the US Army” from the Vietnamese complex by invading the island, whose population at that time did not exceed 100,000 people.
In October 1983, Reagan secured the support of seven members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, then ordered the formation of an American fleet, which was tasked with ferrying a new batch of Marines to Lebanon, changing course and going to Grenada, and then “if necessary, evacuate American students from there.”
The invasion began and 1900 US Marines, escorted by 300 soldiers from the Caribbean, landed on the morning of October 25, 1983 in the capital of St. Petersburg on the roof of the Fripp Psychiatric Hospital, and that is why the American bombs fell on this place!
After three days of fighting involving jets, helicopters and warships, the Americans completely took over this unfortunate island, killing 19 soldiers and wounding 150, and the Cubans who participated in repelling the invasion killed 25 people, and thus the United States began to withdraw from the complex ” Vietnam” to continue their next bacchanalia along and across the earth.
Source: RT