Word: gunboat
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...committed its troops to a combat attack. The abrupt use of force immediately drew a worldwide chorus of protest. U.S. allies, including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, deplored the violation of Grenada's sovereignty. Many Latin American nations saw the invasion as a revival of the type of gunboat diplomacy that has haunted them for more than a century. At home, members of Congress and ordinary citizens alike wondered what had prompted President Reagan to take such drastic action against a tiny island. Coming only two days after the death of at least 229 Marines in Beirut, the move...
...outraged group of over 30 Harvard law students yesterday charged that Tuesday's U.S. invasion of Grenada is an example of "gunboat democracy." Students gathered to discuss and condemn what they perceive as the Reagan Administration's "calculated and brutal subversion" in the small Caribbean nation...
...exercises at sea look like old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy on a far grander scale. The U.S. aircraft carrier Ranger had been diverted from a scheduled tour of the western Pacific and was heading from San Diego into Pacific waters off Honduras and Nicaragua. It carries more than 70 aircraft. Its battle group includes seven other ships: a cruiser, a guided-missile destroyer, two standard destroyers, a frigate, an oiler and a fast support ship. The battleship New Jersey, now off Southeast Asia, may join the Ranger in about three weeks...
When the flamethrower on the Navy gunboat burned off foliage along the riverbank of the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam in 1967, recalls Robert Sutton, a ship's gunner, "I inhaled the fumes of the foliage that had been killed by Agent Orange." Before long, he says, he began suffering from diarrhea, vomiting and headaches, and in 1969 was given an honorable discharge. Back in West Babylon, N.Y., the veteran's health deteriorated rapidly; today the unemployed steam fitter's ailments include brain lesions and degenerative joint disease...
Despite the complexities caused by both U.S. and Soviet interests in the outcome, the Falklands showdown remained the oddity it has been from the beginning: a case of 19th century gunboat confrontation in the late 20th century. The last-minute oscillations between peace and war were a product of the very nature of the face-off. Britain's firm conviction throughout has been that only by means of the steady escalation of both military and diplomatic pressure could Argentina be forced to relinquish a prize that it had taken by an illegal armed invasion. As Prime Minister Thatcher...