Surprised by Iraqi Freedom? Must have missed Panama "Just Cause" 1989.

[EFerrari]

This is what Global Security says:

Operation Just Cause

By the fall of 1989, the Noriega regime was barely clinging to power. Tensions increased when election results were voided and opposition leaders were physically beaten by Noriega's Dignity Battalions (DIGBATs). An unsuccessful PDF coup attempt in October produced bloody reprisals. Deserted by all but a small number of cronies, and distrustful of a shaken and demoralized PDF, Noriega began increasingly to rely on irregular paramilitary units called Dignity Battalions. In December 1989, the regime's paranoia made daily existence unsafe for U.S. forces and other U.S. citizens.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/just_cause.htm

Oh, really? The way I heard, Poppy creates an incident to take out the dictator Noriega (his longtime CIA asset) and return Panama to democracy? No, he needed to destroy their armed forces, expand our presence in Panama and replace his pal Noriega with someone agreeable to those plans. He didn't need to have thousands of people killed to take out Noriega. What he and or Cheney did was to have our service people become confrontational outside of their zones. Eventually, a Marine is killed and another American citizen is reportedly beaten and his wife threatened "sexually". And, we're off to the races.

NYTs, LA Times, WaHo and WSJ all endorse the move -- and they cover up the deaths of thousands of civilians, thousands of detentions, the burned down townships, the mass graves. Must see video but WARNING: graphic scenes.

(Oh, and Dick Cheney, then SecDef, named this "Operation Just Cause".)

The Panama Deception (1992) - 1:31:10
Barbara Trent, Empowerment Project - www.empowermentproject.org

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-446387292666223710

Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#Casualties

The American public is told it's a surgical strike. Here's some of our surgeons:



Panama prepares to act out trauma of U.S. invasion
December 18, 1999

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) -- Residents of a Panama City suburb set
ablaze in the December 1989 U.S. invasion to oust military strongman Gen.
Manuel Noriega are set to act out their collective trauma at a macabre
anniversary rite on Sunday.

Every year since the December 20 invasion, residents of the capital's El
Chorrillo district have built a model of one of the razed homes from their
community using tires, cardboard boxes and boards, only to torch it once
more, the rite's organiser, Hector Avila, told Reuters.

"Before we burn it, we are going to put Chinese explosives (powerful
firecrackers) inside, and throw rockets at it as if it were the U.S. attack,"
Avila said.

"When it's alight, the adults from the barrio are going to rescue the children.
We'll have black bags filled with beef to represent the bodies," he added.





http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/panama/chorrillo.htm

[soothsayer]

1. 'just cuz we feel like it,' many of us joked....

didn't realize it was that prick cheney, tho

[formercia]

2. Don't you just love those catchy names?

Makes your heart swell with patriotic pride......

[EFerrari]

8. Maybe that's why Cheney has heart disease -- from all that swelling.

[formercia]

9. Iraqi Freedom

Junior and the gang freed over a Million Iraqis from the mortal bonds of Earth.

[EFerrari]

10. I lost myself a friend by pointing that out during the invasion.

Good riddance.

[formercia]

20. Some times it takes a while to find out who your real friends are.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

24. That's very true.

:hi:

[Time for change]

3. The failure of our news media to tell the truth about the wars that we create

is its biggest failing IMO.

Hopefully, as more and more Americans get fed up with our corporate news media and turn to the Internet and articles like this for their news, things will eventually change.

A very good book on this subject (the Panama invasion) is "The Commanders", by Bob Woodward -- the good Bob Woodward, before he went over to the dark side.

[EFerrari]

7. I think the time invested in watchng this film is well spent

because you realize that Iraqi Freedom was an off the rack operation, complete with the usual benediction of the "liberal media".

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

4. I have a friend who lived through the invasion.

His two favorite stories to tell are about how a neighbor tried to rouse the locals into active resistance only to be shouted down by those who knew pitchforks were no match for tanks (his words) and how vultures took down a couple of our jets. According to him there are annual parties marking the victory of the "Panamanian Air Force" over the Americans.

[Octafish]

5. Poppy Bush wanted to silence his CIA Drug Partner Manuel Noriega

Manny got greedy and rocked the boat. Before he realized what he had done or where he was, Manny was overboard, wearing an anchor chain for a lifejacket. The guy had to hide in the Vatican Embassy in order to escape murder. In prison, he's suffered a stroke and who knows what else to keep his wug shut.

PANAMA: THE RESUMÉ OF MANUEL NORIEGA,THE MOST FAMOUS GRADUATE OF THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

Thank you for a most important thread, EFerrari. Excellent articles and resources. The late Elizabeth Montgomery's "The Panama Deception" is a must-view for those interested in how America has been run as a private army for a certain class. Of criminal.

[EFerrari]

6. Is there any RW dictator - stooge for the BFEE that WASN'T laundering drug money

for CIA? I still remember exactly what the film says, that Noriega was villified in the media in EXACTLY the same way Saddam was.

ETA: The film shows a map of the countries where the "wars of the 21st Century" will occur in South America: Colombia (they control it), Peru, (ditto), Bolivia. The BFEE has been trying to destabilize Bolivia. Evo Morales better watch his back because there's a big red X on it. :grr:

[Echo In Light]

11. K&R Thanks for posting. Can't believe how many times I've referred people to the 80s...

...to better understand the current phony "war."

[EFerrari]

12. I've never studied propaganda but it seems to me that one of the ways

we are manipulated isn't by the content of propaganda but by the framing. And in particular, in the way our memory or sense of continuity -- of story -- is disrupted, then manipulated. It's not possible to watch this film and not realize Iraq came from the same template but was framed as a one off event. Just like the Bush torture stories keep being reported over and over as if they are new. It's important to hang onto what we know and to build on it. Propaganda tries to disrupt that process, imho.

[Echo In Light]

13. Well, propaganda does embody the strategic framing of info to support one specific viewpoint...

...generally the one that favors the organizations and goals of the ones espousing it i.e. illegally invading and occupying Iraq, murdering millions of people, etc isn't really what it is, it's "spreading democracy."

[EFerrari]

14. Right -- something like rebranding. But it also seems to have an element

of manipulating memory. And when you think about it, the main thing that distinguishes us from our ape compadres is our ability to tell stories. Propaganda manipulates our ability to hang onto a story, which in turn disrupts our ability to communicate with each other by hijacking our narrative process.

I have no idea if that makes any sense at all. :silly:

[Echo In Light]

16. Sure. And I agree. If the incident is too big to "disappear," the propaganda effort will be enormous

Otherwise, in re to how our media work hand in hand with the shadow govt, such unsavory incidents simply go the way of "the memory hole."

Why am I reminded of Winston Smith in 1984?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. "The World's Mightiest Military" protecting us from....uh...something.

Communism? Drugs? Dictators? Socialism? Falling Dominoes? Acne?

Or, the horrors of:

Universal health care?

Decent schools?

Clean Water?

Green energy?

Poverty?

Homelessness?

Hunger?

By wasting 100s of Billions of dollars on an ineffective, unnecessary, and corrupt military machine and it's suppliers.

[Echo In Light]

18. A damn fine post, that

:applause:

[bleever]

17. I remember how it was touted as a "clean" victory.

We never heard about the couple of thousand innocent people killed by our need to show "overwhelming force" (how hard is it to overwhelm a shantytown?), or the true backstory of Noriega's association with U.S. intelligence.

Remember how the "cocaine" in Noriega's fridge turned out to be masa, or something like that?

Thank you for reprising this.

[EFerrari]

19. I never knew that this happened. Bought the official story, hook line and sinker.

They didn't need to burn those towns down. He wasn't there. There was nobody there but poor people. We went to war with the Panamanian Defense Forces in the slums and then tried to hide the bodies. You're going to love the DOD spokesliar in this film. He makes Ari look like an incompetent idiot.

And this one guy in the film points out that the whole discovery of his desk with the porn and the cocaine is exactly like the desk they "found" in Allende's offices -- right down to the details. :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

21. We were so completely fooled, misled about G.H.W. Bush's attack on Panamanians.

I have seen the video you linked, The Panama Deception which was given an Academy Award for documentaries, narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery. It should not be missed if anyone can POSSIBLY take the time to listen, watch. It's all new material to probably almost everyone, and for reasons which become clear in the film.
It wasn't something ANY President should want to admit.

Thank you so much for the links, and the images are worth keeping themselves as a reminder of what happens when Republicans get the controls and operate behind everyones' backs.

Unforgettable.

[EFerrari]

23. I only saw it for the first time last night.

I'd known the piece about Bush pretending his asset was suddenly a danger to our national security but not the piece where four thousand innocent civilians were basically murdered in an effort to draw out the Panamanian Defense Forces and destroy them.

[Solly Mack]

22. Yep Yep

K&R