Twenty-five years ago this month, early on the morning of December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush launched Operation Just Cause, sending tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of aircraft into Panama to execute a warrant of arrest against its leader, Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking. ... Sandwiched between the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the commencement of the first Gulf War on January 17, 1991, Operation Just Cause might seem a curio from a nearly forgotten era, its anniversary hardly worth a mention. So many earth-shattering events have happened since. But the invasion of Panama should be remembered in a big way. After all, it helps explain many of those events. In fact, you cant begin to fully grasp the slippery slope of American militarism in the post-9/11 era—how unilateral, preemptory regime change became an acceptable foreign policy option, how democracy promotion became a staple of defense strategy, and how war became a branded public spectacle—without understanding Panama. ... In the mythology of American militarism that has taken hold since George W. Bushs disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his father, George H.W. Bush, is often held up as a paragon of prudence—especially when compared to the later reckless lunacy of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. After all, their agenda held that it was the messianic duty of the United States to rid the world not just of evil-doers but evil itself. In contrast, Bush Senior, we are told, recognized the limits of American power. He was a realist and his circumscribed Gulf War was a war of necessity where his sons 2003 invasion of Iraq was a catastrophic war of choice. But it was H.W. who first rolled out a freedom agenda to legitimize the illegal invasion of Panama. The road to Baghdad, in other words, ran through Panama City. It was George H.W. Bushs invasion of that small, poor country 25 years ago that inaugurated the age of preemptive unilateralism, using democracy and freedom as both justifications for war and a branding opportunity. Later, after 9/11, when George W. insisted that the ideal of national sovereignty was a thing of the past, when he said nothing—certainly not the opinion of the international community—could stand in the way of the great mission of the United States to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe, all he was doing was throwing more fuel on the wildfire sparked by his father. A wildfire some in Panama likened to a little Hiroshima.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 08:15:46 +0000
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