Unjust Aftermath: Post-Noriega Panama

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Unjust Aftermath: Post-Noriega Panama
December 19, 2013

Special Report: Twenty-four years ago, the United States invaded Panama to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega on drug charges. Operation Just Cause promised the country a new day free of dictatorship and drug-tainted corruption, but it didn’t work out that way, as Jonathan Marshall describes.

By Jonathan Marshall


Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama in December 1989, marked a critical turning point in U.S. foreign and military policy. As the first large commitment of U.S. armed forces after the Vietnam debacle, it set the stage for the massive intervention in the Persian Gulf region a year later. It also represented a dramatic escalation in Washington’s “war on drugs,” turning a mostly rhetorical metaphor into bloody reality.

Many accounts have chronicled the war of nerves leading up to the invasion. Only a handful, on the other hand, have covered the aftermath, particularly with respect to drugs. Reporters who came to Panama with the troops soon returned home when the brief excitement was over. Attention turned to Noriega’s historic trial and conviction in Miami for conspiring to aid the Medellín Cartel and its criminal allies. For much of the media, and even for most scholars, Panama without Noriega was just another Central American backwater.

But a close look at the evolution of Panama’s connection to the drug trade in the immediate years after Noriega sheds light on several important questions. Does the public rationale for the invasion hold up to historical scrutiny? Did the Bush administration’s policies in the aftermath of Noriega’s ouster comport any better than earlier U.S. support for Noriega with its expressed commitment to fighting drugs by any and all means necessary? Finally, does the militant strategy of neutralizing drug “kingpins” appreciably affect the flow of narcotics to the United States?

It will surprise few students of the drug trade that Noriega’s downfall, like that of many bigger traffickers before and after, did nothing to hold back the rising tide of cocaine that flowed north from the Andean nations. What may be more surprising was Washington’s willingness to replace Noriega with civilian leaders who had an unambiguous (if not technically criminal) record of serving Colombia’s biggest drug lords by protecting their secret financial assets in Panamanian banks. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/19/unjust-aftermath-post-noriega-panama/

[geek tragedy]

1. odd piece, it seems to have been written in 1992.

A lot has happened since Endarra was president.

Drugs will continue to flow north so long as Americans are willing to spend stupid amounts of money on them.