Former CNN host Roland Martin wants Americans to “shut the hell up” about Russia’s invasion of Crimea because, among other incidents, Ronald Reagan once sent troops to the island nation of Grenada.
On his TV One program, Martin attacked Americans criticizing Russia’s forceful annexation of Crimea, saying, “Who the hell is America fooling to tell somebody else in another country who you can invade and cannot invade?” His reason: in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada. “Yet, here we are telling another sovereign nation what countries you can’t invade. It’s called being hypocritical. It is called being shameless, and frankly, we look silly,” he said.
“So Americans, can you please stop with the hypocritical nature of your criticism?… The fact of the matter is America has always invaded other countries.”
Martin seems uninformed about Reagan’s 1983 military assistance to Grenada. Not only was the U.S. invited to help the nation win its independence from a military coup, but Reagan also went in to the nation in order to protect a school full of American medical students. Further, the U.S. never intended to hold Grenada and didn’t, despite its easy military success. And after the dust settled a democratic government took power. The two situations couldn’t be more different.
In fact, the US assistance and the nation’s revolution is so loved by the inhabitants of the island that the date of the invasion is celebrated as its own “Thanksgiving Day” holiday.
Martin went on to accuse the United States of further hypocrisy:
We overthrew Hawaii. That’s how it became a state. We overthrew a dictator, Allende – no, we actually overthrew Allende – democratically elected in Chile – and we put in the dictator, Pinochet. We overthrew Mossadegh in Iran – democratically elected – and that’s one reason why the Iranians are still pissed with us today, because we overthrew what happened there. And so, who are we to think that we somehow can tell the rest of the world, “how dare you?”… overthrow countries? We’ve gotten so good at it over the past 100 years – and actually, since our existence. So, I would say to the critics, please, for the sake of everybody else, shut the hell up, because frankly, overthrowing countries is what America has been really, really, really good at.
Martin then blamed Bush, as liberals are wont to do.
You may recall that Roland Martin was fired from CNN in 2012 for what many felt were homophobic tweets about soccer star David Beckham’s underwear ads.
Newsbusters has a full transcript of Martin’s comments.
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