Grenada and Lebanon: 20 years on

While I have a few sparse shady memories of Vietnam and yellow ribbons, Grenada was my first "war" and Lebanon my first encounter with Islamists. Someone was threatening American students and we put an end to it. I remember liberals deriding Reagan for picking on a small country. That the only reason Reagan went in was to make America feel better and the students, runway, communist coupe that assassinated the previous "moderate" Marxist leader had nothing to do with it. My whole life the left as lived in a lala land where the only reason we go to war is cause conservatives are either feeling sad or greedy. Meanwhile in the Middle East 241 US Marines lay dead, buried alive in rubble, crushed to death or blow to bits by Islamic terrorists in Lebanon. And why did they attack us? Cause we where standing on the line and making it hard for Hez'bollah to attack into Israel.

The hawks at NRO are taking a moment to remember the 20th anniversary of Grenada with an article by Lawrence W. Reed:

It's hard to imagine that, if Jimmy Carter had been president, there would have been any American response other than sweet talk, vacillation, and appeasement. Washington would not have considered military action unless the students had been rounded up and taken hostage. But Reagan was made of much sterner stuff. In his first year as president, he told an audience at Notre Dame University, "The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it; we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." Ronald Reagan understood the enormous geopolitical significance of rolling back the Evil Empire.

No mention of Lebanon...

So while we should fondly remember it was 10/25/1983 that Reagan's swift dealings with the reds in Grenada started a ball rolling that eventually smashed down the Kremlin walls and ended the era of the "Soviet experiment" we must not forget that while troops were landing in the Caribbean the US was tucking it's tail between it's legs and running away. If only he had dealt as decisively with Islamic terrorism when he had the chance we could have tuagh the Ismalists a different message about attacking the US.

Imperical evidence shows that we live in a world that is more Hobbsian that any of us wish and in this world safety can only be (at best) partially ensured be constanly making examples of those who would be want to disturb the peace.