Past US wars lack defensive reason

To the Editor:
I was surprised to read in Noah Horwitz's '16 recent op-ed ("Syria comparisons to Iraq are misinformed and incorrect," The Justice, Sept. 10) that "The Iraq War is the only time in the nation's history that we invaded an overseas sovereign state with absolutely no immediate defensive reason."
What about, in fairly recent historical memory,the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 (under President John Kennedy), the invasion of Grenada in 1983 ("Operation Urgent Fury," under President Ronald Reagan), the invasion of Panama in 1989 ("Operation Just Cause", under President George Bush the first), the previous invasion of Iraq in 1990 ("Operation Desert Storm", under President Bush the first), and the invasion of Haiti in 1994 (under President Bill Clinton)? This is only a partial list.
Then, certainly, there was the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1973, under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, which included military destruction in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. This warfare included our dropping the chemicals napalm and Agent Orange on civilians. Chemical weapons.
These were, to use the columnist's words, "invasions of overseas sovereign states"-about that there is no doubt. Was there in these cases, really, an "immediate defensive reason" other than hegemony? Who is misinformed and incorrect?

-Harry Mairson

Prof. Harry Mairson is a professor of Computer Science at Brandeis University.