SARGASSO


 Revolutionary Army] was on their side or not,
 expecting to find a Cuban under every bed. . .

And there was another kind of battle. Contrary to
tradition and practice, no reporters were allowed to
go to Grenada during the first two days of fighting,
and nearly all information about what was happening
there came from U. S. government sources. Of course,
when reporters were finally permitted onto the island,
government estimates of the kinds and amounts of arms
and munitions stored, the number of Cuban combatants,
the supposed danger to U.S. medical students, the
potential for exporting terrorist activity, and the
military strength of the Grenadian "menace," in general,
had to be drastically reduced.

 Lewis calls what followed the invasion an "Orwellian
Aftermath":

 . .a second invasion of diplomats, economic
 advisers, disaster-relief experts, journalists,
 U.S. Agency for International Development
 (USAID) officials, police training specialists,
 and most ominous of all, an Army Psychological
 Operations team whose function. .is openly
 propagandist.

In other words, the history of the Grenada Revolution
was re-written as quickly as possible, and the advances
made by the Bishop government--state enterprises,
health programs, cooperative development plans, local
fruit and vegetable processing, labor unions--were
modified or eliminated. Furthermore, along with tourism
and real estate investment, the U. S. "pre-dawn vertical
insertion"--5,000 paratroopers and air and naval
bombardment--guarantees the further militarization of the
Caribbean and the growth of U. S. trained defense forces
on other islands.

 The questions surrounding Grenada do not end in the
Caribbean. Lewis correctly asserts that "empire and
democracy are irreconcilable opposites" and asks,