Twenty-five years ago this month, George H. W. Bush, trying desperately to put the Vietnam War syndrome behind us, launched Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama. Hundreds of Panama's poorest were killed and their neighborhoods destroyed.
Manuel Noriega, the CIA's partner in thuggery -- until he was no longer tolerable -- was captured and imprisoned.
Amy Goodman's Democracy Now held a timely and worthwhile discussion of the events surrounding the invasion & the implications it held for future U.S. foreign policy adventures.
From the Democracy Now website:
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Panama. On December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush launched Operation Just Cause to execute an arrest warrant against Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, once a close U.S. ally, on charges of drug trafficking. During the attack, the United States unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft against a country with an army smaller than the New York City Police Department. We discuss the Panama invasion and how it served as a template for future U.S. military interventions with three guests: We are joined by Humberto Brown, a former Panamanian diplomat, and Greg Grandin, a professor of Latin American history at New York University and author of "The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World." His new article for TomDispatch is "The War to Start All Wars: The 25th Anniversary of the Forgotten Invasion of Panama." We also speak with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
http://www.democracynow.org/...
Worth viewing is The Panama Deception, winner of the 1993 Academy Award for best documentary feature: http://documentarystorm.com/...