by Mickey Z.
 Close your eyes. Try to visualize a nation whose people are ruled by a
despot, a tyrant allied with none other than the U.S. government. Keep your
eyes closed and now imagine that same autocrat falling out of favor with his
American patrons. Picture him demonized in the press. Envision his country
invaded. In your mind's eye, you can see him arrested and forced to stand
trial. Finally, conjure up an image of the man behind all this... a man named
Bush.
Open your eyes. If you thought you were dreaming of Saddam and Iraq and
Dubya, think again because we're coming up on the seventeenth anniversary of
another American intervention in a little place David Lee Roth likes to call
Panama.
On December 20, 1989 - just two weeks after the fall of the Berlin
Wall - President George H.W. Bush ushered in the post-Cold War era by sending
25,000 troops into Noriega's Panama. Called Operation Just Cause (sic), the
foray would have been deemed a "surprise attack" if any other nation had
initiated it.
"That invasion, less than eight months before Iraq invaded Kuwait, was
condemned by the UN General Assembly," explains former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark. "No action was taken, although the United States violated all
the international laws later violated by Iraq when it invaded Kuwait, plus a
number of Western Hemisphere conventions and the Panama Canal Treaties."
Utilizing a classic spin technique, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Thomas
Pickering defended the invasion by claiming that Article 51 of the UN
Charter "provides for the use of armed force to defend a country, to defend
our interests and our people." Pickering argued that Bush was compelled to
invade because Panama was "being used as a base for smuggling drugs into the
United States." Since such durable disinformation tactics never seem to
fail, the long reliable CIA asset General Manuel Noriega fell from grace in
record time.
Estimates range from 500 to 3000 dead Panamanian civilians killed during the
invasion and the fighting afterwards. Bush the Elder was later asked if
getting Noriega was worth all those deaths. As if to confirm the unspoken
tenet that some lives count more than others, the president replied: "Every
human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth
it."
Can you visualize that?
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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