This video is more than a historical document concerning US relations with Panama. It is probably the main document in public circulation covering the December 20th 1989 invasion of Panama by US forces to overthrow General Manuel Noriega for being a “drug runner”. In it you will be reminded many times over of more recent crimes committed by the US government. Washington's methods of war in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Honduras and other countries will come to mind.
The media was closely controlled by the US military during the invasion but what is certain is that hundreds of crimes against humanity were carried out by US troops under orders from George Herbert Walker Bush. The crimes were all convincingly denied by smooth-talking Pentagon Spokesman Pete Williams. Former US Attorney general, Ramsey Clark and others lay bare the war crimes committed by during the invasion:
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Excessive force
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Extra judicial executions
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Illegal arrests
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Arms of war used against unarmed civilians
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Wanton destruction and burning of property
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Internment camps
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Arbitrary imprisonment with no charges
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Persecution of political opponents
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Mass graves – all 50 of them dug by the US military
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Destruction of state instiutions
In other words this invasion has all the hallmarks of US imperialist expertise designed to liberate a country and install democracy by destroying it.
The killing of some 4.000 innocent Panamanians in order to oust General Noriega "was worth it" – fabled words of President George H.W. Bush who obsessed with doubts about his masculinity and bent on abrogating the Panama Canal Treaty scheduled to expire on December 31, 1989. Noriega was installed as a U.S. puppet in Panama but fell out of favor with Washington when he later refused to obey orders. And, yes, you dear reader have guessed it - it was all done with the connivance of the corporate media with the Washington Post, NYT, LA Times and Wall Street Journal supporting the invasion.
The UN voted 78 – 21 with some 40 abstentions to condemn the invasion as a “flagrant violation of international law”. With the human rights abuses abounding, why has not General Maxwell Thurman at least, as the then Commander of Southcom, been charged with crimes against humanity. I see little difference between what he ordered and what Milosevic and others did in Kosovo and Bosnia in the 1990’s.
I would also recommend that any of the crazed Venezuelan opposition who regularly wish for US marines to invade Venezuela to save them from the “Chávez regime” watch this video. They obviously have no idea what it would mean for them and their families, except of course the few who wish to represent the U.S. in puppet regime here and care nothing for their own country's sovereignty or welfare.
When you watch the slaughter and aftermath which occurred in Panama in that fateful 1989 invasion, you can perhaps understand why so many people in Arab and Muslim nations still call the US the Great Satan.