The death of George H.W. Bush has dominated the U.S. news for days, but little attention has been paid to the defining event of Bush鈥檚 first year in office: the invasion of Panama. On December 19, 1989, Bush Sr. sent tens of thousands of troops into Panama, ostensibly to execute an arrest warrant against its leader, Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking. General Noriega was once a close ally to Washington and on the聽CIA payroll.
In a nationally televised address, Bush claimed the invasion was needed to defend democracy in Panama. During the attack, the U.S. unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft against a country with an army smaller than the New York City Police Department. An estimated 3,000 Panamanians died in the attack.
in the video below, speaks with historian Greg Grandin, prize-winning author and professor of Latin American history at New York University, on the lasting impact of the Panama invasion. The full transcript is below the video.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽We begin today鈥檚 show by continuing to look back at the legacy of George H.W. Bush, the nation鈥檚 41st president, who died on Friday at the age of 94. His body is now lying in rest at the Capitol. A funeral service will be held at Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday. Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Bush鈥檚 son, George W. Bush, will attend, as will President Trump鈥攚ho was not invited to speak. A second funeral will be held Thursday in Houston, where George H.W. Bush will be buried.
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:聽While President Bush鈥檚 death has dominated the news for days, little attention has been paid to the defining event of Bush鈥檚 first year in office: the invasion of Panama. On December 19, 1989, President Bush sent tens of thousands of troops into Panama, ostensibly to execute an arrest warrant against its leader, Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking. General Noriega was once a close ally of Washington and on the聽CIA聽payroll. In a nationally televised address, Bush claimed the invasion was needed to defend democracy in Panama.
笔搁贰厂滨顿贰狈罢听骋贰翱搁骋贰听贬.奥.听叠鲍厂贬:聽Last night I ordered U.S. military forces to Panama. No president takes such action lightly. This morning, I want to tell you what I did and why I did it. For nearly two years, the United States and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean have worked together to resolve the crisis in Panama. The goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽During the attack, the U.S. unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft against a country with an army smaller than the New York City Police Department. An estimated 3,000 Panamanians died in the attack. But the war was highly sanitized in the U.S. media. This is part of the trailer for the Oscar-winning documentary聽Panama Deception.
笔搁贰厂滨顿贰狈罢听骋贰翱搁骋贰听贬.奥.听叠鲍厂贬:聽One year ago, the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today, democracy is restored. Panama is free.
JOS脡 DE JES脷S MART脥NEZ:聽We are to say we invaded Panama because Noriega. I don鈥檛 know how Americans can be so stupid to believe this. I mean, how can you be so stupid?
惭滨颁贬础贰尝听笔础搁贰狈罢滨:聽The performance of the mainstream news media in the coverage of Panama has been just about total collaboration with the administration. Not a critical perspective. Not a second thought.
笔贰罢贰听奥滨尝尝滨础惭厂:聽Our regret is that we were not able to use the media pool more effectively.
搁贰笔.听颁贬础搁尝贰厂听搁础狈骋贰尝:聽You would think, from the video clips that we had seen, that this whole thing was just a Mardi Gras, that the people in Panama were just jumping up and down with glee.
痴础尝贰搁滨贰听痴础狈听滨厂尝贰搁:聽They focused on Noriega, to the exclusion of what was happening to the Panamanian people, to the exclusion of the bodies in the street, to the exclusion of the number dead.
搁贰笔.听颁贬础搁尝贰厂听搁础狈骋贰尝:聽The truth of the matter is that we don鈥檛 even know how many Panamanians we have killed.
笔贰罢贰搁听碍翱搁狈叠尝鲍贬:聽Panama is another example of destroying a country to save it. And the United States has exercised a might-makes-right doctrine among smaller countries of the Third World, to invade these countries, get what we want, and leave the people that live there to kind of rot.
搁翱叠贰搁罢听碍狈滨骋贬罢:聽The invasion sets the stage for the wars of the 21st century.
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:聽That, the trailer for聽The Panama Deception, directed by Barbara Trent, which won the Oscar.
Last month, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Washington to pay reparations to Panama over what was widely seen as an illegal invasion.
For more on George H.W. Bush鈥檚 legacy and the lasting impact of the Panama invasion, we鈥檙e joined here in New York by Greg Grandin, prize-winning author, professor of Latin American history at New York University, his forthcoming book titled聽The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. His previous books include聽Kissinger鈥檚 Shadow: The Long Reach of America鈥檚 Most Controversial Statesman听补苍诲听Empire鈥檚 Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. His latest聽听蹿辞谤听The Nationheadlined 鈥淕eorge H.W. Bush: Icon of the聽WASP聽Establishment鈥攁nd of Brutal US Repression in the Third World.鈥
Professor Grandin, welcome back to聽Democracy Now!聽Tell us about the Panama invasion.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽Well, it was consequential in that it was the major deployment of U.S. troops since Vietnam War and it was done in a spectacular fashion. It was calculated to overturn what Bush said, clearly, was the Vietnam syndrome. It was a turning point in international law, in the sense that it overthrew the doctrine of sovereignty, which had been the bedrock of the international system since at least the 1930s, 1940s, the idea that countries can鈥檛 invade or intervene in another country鈥檚 politics without multilateral consent. The聽OAS聽condemned the invasion. The U.N. didn鈥檛 support the invasion.
It was carried out, as George H.W. Bush said, in the name of democracy, which is another important significant motive. It came just a couple of weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And U.S.鈥攖he United States had justified its previous interventions either in the name of anti-communism or national security or hemispheric security. This was a return to a certain kind of moralism to justify U.S. militarism.
And in all of those ways, it set the stage for the wars to come鈥攖he legal doctrine, the way it was executed, the spectacular nature of shock and awe, the sending 30,000 troops into Panama, and being covered. Just think of it. Just compare it to maybe Kissinger鈥檚 secret bombing of Cambodia for years. That had to be done off the books because the U.S. public was opposed to鈥攐pposed to war, for the most part. And so, this was a real turning point in the public鈥檚 acceptance of war, in the executive branch鈥檚 ability to justify and wage war. It was consequential in numerous ways, that led directly to the catastrophe that we鈥檙e in today.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽And, Greg, in terms of the historical significance, there had been a prior, even smaller invasion, when Bush was vice president and Reagan was president, of Grenada鈥
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:听驰别补丑.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽鈥攁 country of less than 100,000 people.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:听搁颈驳丑迟.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽But this was actually a more substantial nation. Panama at that time had about 2.4 million people. And it also, I think, set a lot of the direction in terms of how media covered the war, because I remember there was a big uproar among the press in the United States because initially the government wasn鈥檛 allowing any press to cover the war.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:听驰别补丑.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽Then, after much protest, they agreed to send one plane of reporters on the second day. And I was reporting for the聽Daily News聽back then and participated in that plane flight. We were held. The press was actually held by the military on one of the military bases, until several of us protested and were able to actually break free. We had to escape the American military base to actually be able to go out and cover the war. But most of the press treated this, as you say, illegal invasion as a liberation effort.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:听驰别补丑. Well, part of the remedy to overcome the Vietnam syndrome was figuring out how to control the press. There was an analysis that the press had gone off reservation in Vietnam, that they had developed their independent sources, that they weren鈥檛 listening to the Pentagon, that they were critically analyzing the war, that a whole generation, a whole cohort, of investigative journalists鈥擲y Hersh, Michael Herr鈥攃ut their teeth in Vietnam and were critical of U.S. foreign policy. That was a problem that needed to be solved. And Panama allowed them to try out different ways. And you experienced it directly when you covered Panama. And they just got better at it, until they got to鈥攗ntil they got to the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War, where the press were kept in embedded coverage and all of that.
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:聽Juan, explain what it was like to be on that plane. And who was holding you on the military base?
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽Well, it was actually the鈥攂ecause, you have to understand, Panama was already occupied by the United States. There were several military bases in the Canal Zone, because the Canal Zone had not yet been returned to Panama. So the U.S. military was already there. But then, once the plane of the press landed on the second day, December 20th, we were basically held on the base. And they would bring out prisoners for press to interview, that they had captured鈥攄etainees, they called them, that they had captured鈥攂ut they were not allowing the press to go out and actually cover the attacks on Panama City. And there was almost a near-rebellion of the reporters saying, 鈥淣o, we鈥檝e got to go out and see what鈥檚 going on.鈥 So they finally allowed some people to go out in buses, all with鈥攄riven by the military, with military escorts. And then a handful of us managed to actually escape the buses. We demanded that we be let out and let out into the city, so that we could go out and actually cover what was going on.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽Yeah, I mean, in Panama, in 1989, and through the early 1980s, the U.S. was watching a generation of reporters that had honed their skills and critical thinking in Vietnam applied to Central America鈥擱ay Bonner鈥檚 coverage of El Mozote. And so, all of that鈥
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:聽Ray Bonner who was writing for聽The New York Times.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽Right, who was writing for鈥攁nd lost his鈥攁nd was reassigned because he was too close to the story.
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:聽El Mozote being a massacre in El Salvador.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽Massacre in 1981 in El Salvador. And there was also ways in which reporters were just developing their own independent sources. They were too autonomous. They were too critical. And all of that had to be controlled, and they had to be brought back in and re-established as a pillar of the national security state, whether as cheerleaders or as just uncritical commentators and catalogers of what was happening.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽And the issue of Noriega鈥檚 prior relationship to the聽CIA, and George Bush, having been a聽CIA聽director at one time, was well aware of Noriega鈥檚 role?
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽Yeah, he was our man in Panama. He was a key asset in Iran-Contra, and Iran-Contra being not just one scandal but a broad policy of cultivating anti-communist allies within the region, whether they be drug runners, whether they be dictators, anybody who they can use to create this logistic network to support the Contras and anti-communist force. And Noriega was a key ally.
That changes in 1986, ironically. Sy Hersh publishes a story in聽The New York Timesthat details all of his connections with drug running and his deep involvement in narcotrafficking, and so he became too much of a liability. But he wasn鈥檛 high on the agenda of removal in the last years of the Reagan administration, or even in the first years of the Bush administration. The Bush administration kind of fell into the invasion of Panama鈥
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:听贬辞飞?
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽鈥攊n some ways. Well, pushed domestically. There were social movements in Panama for democracy that had been repressed. And domestic politics within the United States was pressing the White House to do something, do whatever. And Dick Cheney appeared on聽MacNeil/Lehrer聽and said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not in the business of democracy promotion.鈥 Dick Cheney being鈥擨 can鈥檛 remember What was he in Bush? He was the secretary of defense under Bush, right?
础惭驰听骋翱翱顿惭础狈:听驰别蝉.
闯鲍础狈听骋翱狈窜脕尝贰窜:聽Secretary of defense, right.
骋搁贰骋听骋搁础狈顿滨狈:聽And he said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not in the business of democracy promotion. We鈥檙e going to let this play out.鈥 And he got criticized. So, the Bush administration saw an opportunity to鈥攁nd so it immediately escalates. And then it moves quickly from an effort to stop drug trafficking to鈥攖he democracy promotion justification moves high up on the justification within a couple of days, until Bush appears on TV and says that鈥檚 the reason why we鈥檙e invading Panama.