The rescue mission: Assigning guilt to a chaotic scene

Examining the presidential discourse justifying the 1958 Lebanon intervention, the 1965 Dominican intervention, and the 1983 intervention into Grenada, this essay seeks to identify the rhetorical distinctiveness of the rescue mission as a form of belligerency. This essay argues that the distinction is in the scope of guilt assigned by presidential rhetors. In the rescue mission, presidents assign guilt narrowly to a chaotic scene and concomitantly call for limited military intervention as the agency to restore polluted American ideals. The component parts of a chaotic scene are explored as well as the implications of the rhetorical choices made by Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Reagan in justifying the rescue mission.