I remember it like it was yesterday. I received a call from a friend. He was born in Panama of Panamanian parents like I was. We went to school together, and both came to America. He joined the military. I went to the University of Texas at Austin. We both became naturalized citizens. Most of us expats believe he is now was a “U.S. spy,” we think. After all, he never told us what he did for the government. But he was all over Latin America, and other places. That day he called me. It was just a few days before Christmas.
“Egberto, it is going down today,” my friend said. “You did not hear it from me.”
By then I had already known something was going down. Folks in Panama were calling their relatives in the U.S. asking if they knew anything. They said planes (likely C-5s and C-130s) were landing at the U.S. Air Force Bases in the Canal Zone in Panama every few minutes, one after another.
We knew it was coming. The United States military never allowed anything to get out of hand from its point of view in its “colony,” the Canal Zone in Colombia. Oops, I mean the US-instigated-country-to-build-a-canal, Panama. What we did not know is how ferocious it would be.
Sometime after 12:00 AM on December 20th, 1989 all hell broke loose in the cities of Colon, Panama City, and David. The American military targeted the three main Panamanian Cuarteles in the provinces of Colon, Panama, and Chiriqui respectively.
The Cuarteles in Colon and Panama City are in densely populated areas. Missiles from many understood-to-be the-test-run of the stealth fighter along with helicopters and C-130 gunships decimated the Cuarteles and the surrounding buildings and tenements. Thousands of poor people live nearby, and the bombing and missile attacks decimated them. There was no way to get an accurate count of the dead nor was there any interest in doing so. They were just hauled off and dumped like debris.
During the hours of hell, my dad, rest his soul, was running around in his house in Arc Iris scared to death, less than three miles from the concentrated bombings and missile attacks. Then there was one tall building, a 15 story building that the military claim had snipers aiming at their flying assets. They sent missiles into that building where civilians lived.
During the occupation portion of the invasion, the military blocked the movement of people from Arco Iris to Colon. Unable to speak Spanish they opened fire on a Panamanian attempting to go into Colon to get insulin to his wife. Many atrocities were committed throughout the country.
George Herbert Walker Bush did a few good things. He signed laws to assert the rights of the disabled. Bush signed environmental laws. He may have even been instrumental in managing the demise of the Soviet Union with his controlled non-gloating demeanor. But make no mistake, a saint Bush was not.
George Herbert Walker Bush is like every other U.S. President sans Trump who believes in the phrase, America first. The blood and life of Americans are more valuable to this sect than anyone else from anywhere else. When they invade rightfully or wrongfully, they do it to inflict maximum destruction even if it includes civilians to ensure their soldiers are protected, not for the sake of the soldiers, but to save face for the Commander-in-Chief.
Manuel Antonio Noriega, Panama’s dictator, was a CIA stooge for decades. When he became expedient and a potential embarrassment to America’s “war on drugs,” he was taken out. How could one justify that the Reagan and Bush administration were aware of Noriega’s drug money laundering for years while doing nothing about it?
There are many figures out there about how many Panamanians died during the invasion, 500, 1,000, 3,000, 4,000, 10,000. Who knows what the real number is. Suffice it to say, George Herbert Walker Bush decided to kill hundreds if not thousands of Panamanians to capture a Panamanian capitalist. America had a strong demand for drugs, and he facilitated its delivery.
Instead of invading Panama, we would have been much better served to solve our problems at the source. Eliminate the demand in America then who cares what Noriega does. Should other countries invade us for selling their citizens American made cigarettes or pesticides that kill?
It does not go over well when one sees the canonization of a president that inflicted much harm on them. Worse is the fact that they all died in vain. The point is that nothing changed. America still has a drug problem.
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So tell us oh thee of perfect thought, how do you solve the drug problem? I mean the best minds on the planet have worked on this. You OBVIOUSLY have the answer in your hip pocket. You are OBVIOUSLY the smartest man in the room. Or maybe you dont know the answer to anything and you just want to blame America for all of the world’s problems? But that cannot be. So tell us right here right now how we can slove the drug issue that has plagued humanity for all of recorded history? We wait your answer with baited breath…
You missed the point and it shows a certain degree of our arrogance. America has a serious drug problem. Blowing up a country killing thousands of innocent civilians under the pretext that one man is responsible for our problem is simply wrong, immoral, and worse!!!
No Sir, you missed my point. If we are still around in 2038, I would defend YOUR actions and thought circa 2018. I believe with all my heart that you are doing the best that you can do with the knowledge, information, wisdom you have at your disposal circa 2018. I will not now nor then grossly assume that whatever you did in 2018 that we can now see with 20:20 hindsight in 2038 was done for evil purposes. Same with Bush41. I never supported him. Not once did I vote for him. I really do not care for any of the Bushs. They are probably likeable enough people but I do not see their perspective as superior to any other of a 1000 other politicians and therefore not worthy of supporting especially for the office of President. In all actuality, I think they come with inferior ideas for the most part in regards to Civil Rights, Domestic Policy Etc. Having said all that, Bush41 was following what was at the time considered to be ‘good to better’ international drug policy. One of my best friends was wounded in Panama on a drug raid and is now living with 80% disability from the US Govt. The policy did indeed fail. Kudos for seeing and admitting the obvious. The US has altered and is now at least heading toward a far more rational and hopefully more sane, fair, and successful drug policy. I wish we could wave a magic wand and undo the horrors that took place back then on all 47 sides of the ‘then used’ drug policy. Time has marched on and we are doing better. That will never recover the lives of those lost in the process. It was horrific and it was not fair, nor even “justifiable.” It was flawed people doing the best they knew to do back then. I can assure you being part of the military myself and from my own friend’s anecdotes, the US tried as best they could to limit casualties, even to the drug dealers and drug lords themselves, believe it or not. The US policy got my friend a permanent disability due to what can only be called mind numbingly arcane, near ludicrous silly, engagement rules that left our own forces cosmically exposed to fire from the truly bad guys.
Egberto, I am truly sorry for your losses and the losses of the Panamanian people. Sometimes the best decisions made at one time look so bad over time. Taking out Noriega, a monster the US created, finally had to be done. It was messy and ugly and yes it engineered to be that way by MN and his people so as to stop the US from removing him by giving the US a huge PR problem when civilians got killed. But even my disdain for Bush41 cannot allow me to question that 1) MN had to be removed. 2) It was the US fault he was in power in the first place and our responsibility to remove him 3) We used arcane, near ludicrous rules of engagement to limit the suffering of the Panamanian People in the process. On the blood of one of my best friends, I know these things to be true.