Noriega and New World Order

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Noriega and New World Order"

History As It Happens with Martin Di Caro
Date: October 31, 2025
Guest: Alexander Avigna (Latin American historian, Arizona State University)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989—Operation Just Cause—against the backdrop of the Cold War’s closing chapter and emergence of a “New World Order.” Martin Di Caro and historian Alexander Avigna critically examine Manuel Noriega’s rise and fall, the shifting U.S. justifications for intervention (from anti-communism to the war on drugs and democracy promotion), and the continuity of U.S. imperial strategies from Latin America to the Middle East. They connect the Panama invasion with later episodes of U.S. intervention, uncovering persistent patterns in both policy and media conduct.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Omission of Latin America in U.S. Discourse

Timestamp: 11:53

• Both the general public and policymakers often overlook Latin America’s centrality to U.S. power projection.
• Nixon’s infamous quote: “Americans don’t give a shit about Latin America.”
  Alex Avigna notes,

  "In general, I think we overlook Latin America ... Americans don’t give a shit about Latin America. That’s like his direct quote. And I think by and large that applies to, let’s say, mainstream analytical political discussions of what’s going on in the world today and the US roles in it." (11:53)

2. From Cold War Anti-Communism to War on Drugs

Timestamp: 03:14; 15:46

• The Reagan Doctrine positioned the U.S. as a supporter of anti-communist forces globally, often backing authoritarian regimes in Latin America.
• Manuel Noriega, once a CIA asset, was useful for his intelligence and logistical role, especially regarding the Contras in Nicaragua, despite well-known criminal activities.
• As the Soviet threat faded, drug trafficking and “democracy restoration” became the new rationales for intervention.
• Avigna stresses the pattern:

  “Noriega becomes a cautionary tale for any sort of political leader that seeks to really tie their fortunes to the United States and its imperial actions.” (15:46)

3. Noriega’s Complicated Allegiances and Panama’s Unique Role

Timestamp: 24:06–30:30

• Noriega’s ascent: From Panamanian National Guard to CIA trainee and ultimately military dictator.
• His role as a double agent—working with the U.S., Sandinistas, and Cubans—made him indispensable until his usefulness expired.
• Avigna contextualizes Panama as a hub of U.S. military and intelligence operations in Latin America, with its banks serving both U.S. covert action and the Medellín cartel’s laundering needs.
• “Noriega was plugged into the illicit. In one ways, we can think about him as a hinge point between the illicit and the illicit components of the Reagan Doctrine in Central America in the 1980s.” (30:30)

4. The US Media’s Role and Manufacturing Consent

Timestamp: 48:22–50:20

• The mainstream U.S. media largely echoed government justifications for the invasion and uncritically reported military successes, creating an impression of a clean, low-cost operation.
• This established patterns later seen in Gulf War coverage.
• Avigna:

  “One of these important initial scripts is what they did to Panama in December of 1989 when President Bush 41 took Ortega out in Panama ... The US media becomes entranced with like smart bombs and smart war and smart technology that are somehow going to mitigate civilian suffering and deaths.” (48:22–50:20)

5. Civilian Cost and Lasting Trauma

Timestamp: 46:07–48:22

• The U.S. invasion resulted in the destruction of neighborhoods, particularly El Chorrillo, and unknown hundreds or thousands of Panamanian deaths—reminders that “clean” interventions often belie significant human cost.
• Panamanians continue to seek recognition and reparations from the U.S., with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights finding for Panama (ignored by the U.S.).

• “They were firebombed. We don’t know—like hundreds of people died. … There were still excavations of, of mass graves … Panamanian government asking the US for reparations for the deaths of probably over a thousand Panamanians.” (46:07)

6. Patterns of Intervention and the "New World Order"

Timestamp: 35:29–44:46

• Post-Cold War, the rationale for intervention shifted to humanitarian, democratic, or anti-drug rhetoric, setting the precedent for U.S. actions in the Gulf and Iraq Wars.
• Martin Di Caro and Avigna underscore the throughline from Panama to Iraq—both in justificatory logic and the reappearance of key policymakers.

• “It’s the same group of people with the same type of language.” (44:46)
  “These operations seem clean, but for the people who suffer them, they’re still living through what happened in December of 1980.” (48:22)

7. Critical Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy Philosophy

Timestamp: 39:57–41:24

• The definition of “democracy” pushed by the U.S. was narrow, often imposed for neoliberal economic ends rather than truly representative or social democracy.

• "It’s a very limited political and economic definition of democracy that fits neatly within certain neoliberal capitalist conceptions of how an economy, how a national economy is supposed to interface with a global economy.” (39:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On US-Ignored Latin America:

  “Americans don’t give a shit about Latin America.” – Alex Avigna quoting Nixon (11:54)

• On US-Backed Authoritarians:

  “U.S. foreign policy and empire in Latin America has always been a mix of realism and idealism. And really where we see that most plainly is throughout the 1980s with Ronald Reagan and then with George H.W. Bush.” (16:41)

• When US Interests Changed:

  “Once the Cold War is over, now he’s of no more use to the United States. Now he’s a criminal. And he fits a new justification for intervention: this time to get rid of him, his drug dealing, drug trafficking.” – Martin DeCaro (14:29)

• On Media Complicity:

  “This is what we’ll see in Iraq War number one, the US mainstream media becoming stenographers of US military officials and political figures and accepting whatever type of press briefings, reports that they were receiving from military and politicians and then just repeating that as somehow, you know, being accurate and objective reporting. That happens in Panama.” – Alex Avigna (49:28)

• On Civilian Suffering:

  “These operations seem clean, but for the people who suffer them, they’re still living through what happened in December of 1989.” – Alex Avigna (48:17)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Topic/Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------|--------------| | Opening Historical Framing | 00:36–07:14 | | Why Panama is Often Overlooked | 11:53 | | Noriega’s Background/CIA Ties | 24:06–28:11 | | Noriega’s Downfall Begins | 37:06–39:57 | | US Media and Manufacturing Consent | 48:22–50:20 | | Civilian Impact and Reparations | 46:07–48:22 | | Lessons for Future US Interventions| 43:40–46:07 |

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Flow & Utility

The episode guides listeners through the historical specifics of the U.S.-Panama relationship, the utility of Noriega to U.S. Cold War strategy, and the transition to the “New World Order” mindset that permeated future interventions. It draws connections between old and new rationales, highlights the often-hidden costs of regime change, and calls attention to patterns in media complicity and public perception.

For those unfamiliar with Panama’s story, the conversation presents both a concise chronology and a critical analysis of why it matters today—linking past interventions with contemporary U.S. foreign policy actions.

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Further Reading

• "Specters of Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside" by Alexander Avigna
• Simon Tisdall’s obituary of Noriega (The Guardian)
• "The Violent American Century" by John Dower
• Works by Greg Grandin on U.S.-Latin America relations

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This summary captures the major themes, historical analyses, critical perspectives, and notable exchanges that define the episode, preserving the colloquial and reflective tone of its participants.

Transcript

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[Martin DeCaro]

B R I K.com history as it happens October 31, 2025 Noriega and new.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

World Order we cannot play innocence abroad in a world that's not innocent. Nor can we be passive when freedom.

[Alex Avigna]

Is under siege, noriega said. Former National Security Advisor John Poindexter in 1985 discussed plans for a Panamanian invasion of Nicaragua.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Noriega, now an indicted drug profiteer facing increasing pressure, went on TV to lash out at his Panamanian Accus and at the United States.

[Political / News Commentator]

There has been a statement for democracy so loud and so clear that perhaps even General Noriega will listen to it.

[Alex Avigna]

Fighting is still going on in Panama City. The Americans say 19 of their soldiers have been killed and more than 100 wounded.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

The US finally got Manuel Noriega into a courtroom today. This afternoon in Miami, the man who was so often judge and jury when he ruled Panama was arraigned on a.

[Political / News Commentator]

Long list of charges should send a clear signal that the United States is serious in its determination that those those charged with promoting the distribution of drugs cannot escape the scrutiny of justice.

[Martin DeCaro]

The Gulf War to expel Saddam Hussein's armies from Kuwait in 199091 is usually remembered as the first major conflict of a post Cold War world. But it was not the first time during those heady days that the US Invaded a country to get rid of a dictator in the name of human rights or the rule of law. That was Panama in 1989, a short war that would seem relevant now as the Trump administration seeks regime change in a different Latin American country. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Alex Avigna]

In general, I think we overlook Latin America. Richard Nixon has this infamous quote, americans don't give a shit about Latin America. That's like his direct quote. And I think by and large that applies to, let's say, mainstream analytical political discussions of what's going on in the world today and the US roles in it and how the US came about as a global power.

[Martin DeCaro]

February 1985 President Ronald Reagan delivers his State of the Union address and what became known as the Reagan Doctrine, the.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Sandinista dictatorship of Nicaragua with full Cuban, Soviet Bloc support not only persecutes its people, the Church and denies a free press, but arms and provides bases for communist terrorists attacking neighboring states. Support for freedom fighters is self defense and totally consistent with the OAS and UN charters. It is essential that the Congress continue all facets of our assistance to Central America.

[Martin DeCaro]

The doctrine described policies that had been in place for years already as the US delivered aid to right wing regimes or right wing insurgencies in Latin America and to freedom fighters elsewhere. But it was in Reagan's second term when the administration's realists harnessed idealist aims or Cold War ideological rhetoric about freedom and democracy to achieve geopolitical objectives such as weakening the Soviet Union by trying to defeat Marxist insurgencies in places like El Salvador.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

President Magania is a courageous and talented leader. He's making admirable progress in the difficult task of moving El Salvador toward democracy, while at the same time coordinating a defense against Marxist led guerrillas who would turn his country into a Cuban style dictatorship.

[Martin DeCaro]

But as the Cold War thawed, beating back the Red menace didn't matter anymore. So backing anti Communist dictators like Panama's Manuel Noriega seemed passe. But there was much more to this story than Noriega's expiring Cold War usefulness.

[Alex Avigna]

At the Miami Federal courthouse late this afternoon, General Nor Noriega came to his arraignment dressed in a military uniform. He claimed he is a political prisoner and because he is chief of State.

[Martin DeCaro]

Decades before he was indicted by an American grand jury for drug trafficking. Noriega was a CIA asset and a go between in Central America's dirty wars. At one point he was being paid $10,000 a month. And Peter Kornblue at the National Security Archives discovered by studying declassified documents that sometime after the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua, Noriega offered to help U.S. officials by assassinating its leadership, training the Contra counter revolutionary fighters and letting Panama serve as a staging ground for American operations. As Kornblu put it in an interview with ABC News, Noriega played both sides. He supported revolutionary movements and supported the Sandinistas, and at times he worked with the Cubans. But because Panama was so strategically placed, he became a collaborator in the Contra war with the United States. Kornblue went on to say Reagan's team didn't really care as much about drug smuggling as they did about seeing if they could overthrow the Sandinistas.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

The other major issue of the hearings, of course, was the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras. Colonel north and Admiral Poindexter believed they were doing what I would have wanted done. Keeping the democratic resistance alive in Nicaragua. I believe then and I believe now in preventing the Soviets from establishing a beachhead in Central America. Since I have been so closely associated with the cause of the Contras, the big question during the hearings was whether I knew of the diversion. I was aware the resistance was receiving funds directly from third countries and from private efforts and I endorsed those endeavors wholeheartedly. But let me put this in capital letters. I did not know about the diversion of funds. Indeed, I didn't know there were excess funds.

[Martin DeCaro]

Noriega stayed in Reagan's good graces even after he committed fraud in Panama's 1984 election. But eventually the Military Dictator Drug Traffickers act became too much to tolerate along with the embarrassment caused in Washington by revelations that this man had been on the CIA payroll. And as Simon Tisdall wrote in his obituary for Noriega in the Guardian eight years ago, Reagan's successor, George H.W. bush had plenty of personal reasons for wanting Noriega out of the way as CIA director and two term vice president to Reagan. Prior to 88, Bush was implicated by association in often illegal covert interventions in the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. And there is a black and white photo from 1983 you can find online of Vice President Bush sitting with Noriega.

[Alex Avigna]

Noriega faces 12 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and drug charges. He is accused of protecting large.

[Martin DeCaro]

In 1988, Noriega was indicted by federal grand juries in Tampa and Miami on drug smuggling and money laundering charges. The following year he canceled presidential election results.

[Political / News Commentator]

Despite massive irregularities at the polls, the opposition has won a clear cut overwhelming victory. The Panamanian people have spoken and I call on General Noriega to respect the voice of the people.

[Martin DeCaro]

He verbally threatened American forces in the Panama Canal Zone and he declared a state of war with the United states. So on December 20, 1989 the US invaded and within days crushed the Panamanian Defense Forces.

[Political / News Commentator]

Well, on Wednesday, December 20th, I ordered US troops to Panama with four objectives. To safeguard the lives of American citizens. Citizens to help restore democracy, to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaties and to bring General Manuel Noriega to justice. All of these objectives have now been achieved.

[Martin DeCaro]

On January 3rd, 1990, Noriega surrendered. So when you reflect on the post Cold War world that was coming into view back then and the United States dominant position unipolarity in the early 1990s and contrast that with today's reality where US Russia relations are in ruins, where the consequences of disastrous American wars in the greater Middle east continue to ripple. It is easy to overlook Latin America, where the Cold War ended at the same time it ended in Europe. Otherwise freedom and democracy wouldn't have mattered much in Panama, where the war on drugs eventually superseded anti communism as a foreign policy priority in Washington. Alexander Avigna teaches Latin American history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He's the author of Specters of Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside. Our conversation next. But remember, you can skip ads and listen to bonus content and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes by subscribing to History As It Happens for five bucks a month, you can support the important work we're doing here. You know, there are a lot of podcasts that'll waste your time with nonsense talk. History, as It Happens is an exception. Just tap subscribe now in the show notes or go to historyasithappens.supercast.com AI agents.

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[Martin DeCaro]

See mintmobile.com Alex Avigna, welcome back.

[Alex Avigna]

Thanks for having me back, Martin.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, we just spoke a couple of weeks ago about Venezuela, US Foreign policy in Latin America and the move by the Trump administration to affect, if not regime change, regime collapse in Venezuela. This is a related subject. You know, I've been thinking about Manuel Noriega recently because we're living at a time right now, and you know this as a historian, where we're reassessing the meaning of the end of the Cold War, the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and this new world order that was supposedly emerging in the early 1990s. And I tend to look back as a frame of reference. You know, the seminal moment was Saddam and Kuwait and the United States expelling Iraq. After invaded Kuwait. We kind of overlook what happened in 1989 when the United States invaded a different country. Do you agree that we overlook Panama Noriega? And why is that important?

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, I do think we overlook Panama Noriega, but in general, I think we overlook Latin America. Richard Nixon has this infamous quote, Americans don't give a shit about Latin America. That's like his direct quote. And I think by and large that applies to, let's say, mainstream analytical political discussions of what's going on in the world today and the US roles in it and how the US came about as a global power. You know, within people who do focus on Latin America, a lot of this stuff is kind of, we take it for granted, like, duh, of course, the, you. You know, Latin America has been the US's Imperial Workshop. But beyond, like specialized corners, like, I think Richard Nixon's dictum kind of applies. I think Kissinger had another one where he basically said, history doesn't occur in the global South. It occurs on this axis that goes from Tokyo, Bonn, Moscow, Berlin, and, and into Washington, dc. And obviously Latin America gets left out of that. But in general, Latin America, as historians like Greg Grandin have shown, has served as an imperial workshop for the United States. And this moment in 1980, really interesting. I mean, we could even go back to like 1983 and the invasion of Grenada, which is almost like a rehearsal for what ends up happening in 1989. But I think you're right, it's a really pivotal moment when we move away from Cold War logics and justifying frameworks to one that looks more like the type of framework that we see today being espoused by the Trump administration.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. You know, the invasion of 1989 can be considered one of, if not the first post Cold War conflict the US was involved in. But at the same time, it. It marks a continuity, a pattern that we discussed earlier of intervention in Latin America.

[Alex Avigna]

You know, there's a lot of ways to look at it this. Because actually, during the Cold War, we had very few direct over US military interventions in Latin America.

[Martin DeCaro]

Mostly covert.

[Alex Avigna]

Mostly covert. Mostly training National Guards intelligence agencies. I mean, there's one really important Panama connection to what we'll talk about today. Right. The School of the Americas was housed in the Panama canal zone from 1946 up until the late 80s if I remember correctly. So within even the history of Latin America, at least since the end of World War II, the invasion of Panama stands out as one of these exceptional moments where you had 26,000 U.S. troops and air power and naval power being sent in to overthrow General Manuel Noriega. And I think you're right, Martin, in thinking about how this is really the first war that marks that transition away from the Cold War. What happens in Panama in December of 1989 really sets the path, really sets the US on the path to what happens during the first Iraq war. And it's put us on a very interesting path since then.

[Martin DeCaro]

You mentioned Kissinger before he issued a report in January of 1984. At this point he's a private sector consultant, former Secretary of State that had domino theory rhetoric all throughout this report about why the United States needs to continue to intervene in Central America on behalf of either right wing governments or on behalf of right wing insurgencies that were trying to topple left wing governments. But the funny thing about this is Noriega went from being a US ally, if you will, a pillar of anti communist stability in a very important country to the US historically because of the Canal. But once the Cold War is over, now he's of no more use to the United States. Now he's a criminal. And he fits a new justification for intervention this time to get rid of him, his drug dealing, drug trafficking. I mean, he was not a good guy. I think I mentioned this when we talked about Venezuela a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't about defending Maduro. I'm not defending Noriega. But now the United States is using his presence there after supporting him. Now this is counter to our new goals, our new foreign policy goals. Cold War is over. But now we have this other problem, the war on drugs. Right, which is another linkage to today. Sorry, it was a long question.

[Alex Avigna]

Noriega becomes a cautionary tale for any sort of political leader that seeks to really tie their fortunes to the United States and its imperial actions. Right? Because that's essentially what happens, what, a year or two later to Saddam Hussein, who was also had been a longtime CIA asset and stalwart US ally as it tried to enforce the various manifestations of the Eisenhower Doctrine throughout West Asia. But Noriega is actually really the first one, right. In that pivotal moment, once the Berlin Wall falls and we start to see the decline and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Noriega was not a good guy. Right. And I think this is part of the issue when we think about the long scope of US empire in Latin America and whether you use realist or idealist justifications from a US perspective, US foreign policy ends up supporting individuals and regimes like Noriega's while masking it through using very idealistic rhetoric. U.S. foreign policy and empire in Latin America has always been a mix of realism and idealism. And really where we see that most plainly is throughout the 1980s with Ronald Reagan and then with George H.W. bush. And then that kind of mix goes global after the end of the Cold War, particularly after the invasion of Panama. And then we get Iraq war number.

[Martin DeCaro]

One, Jean Kirkpatrick, she wrote, and this is to your point about whether this was realism or idealism. I'll let you define what she said here. Jeane Kirkpatrick, in a 1979 essay titled Dictatorships and Double Standards, a realistic policy which aims at protecting our own interest and assisting the capacities for self determination of less developed nations will need to face the unpleasant fact that if victorious violent insurgency headed by Marxist revolutionaries is unlikely to lead to anything but totalitarian tyranny.

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, that is an infamous, a really infamous paper among certain groups of Latin Americans, right? Because in that paper, Jeannie Kirkpatrick, who once was a Democrat, a very, you know, militarist Democrat, and then goes to work for the Reagan administration, what she essentially says in that paper, especially when she talks about a place like El Salvador, she makes a distinction between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. And she says, look, these Marxist rebels in El Salvador, if they take power, they're going to be a totalitarian group. They're going to institute a totalitarian government that will prevent or suffocate any sort of democratic development of a civil society that could challenge it. She says, so we can't support that, but what we can support is a right wing authoritarian death squad regime. Because it's not totalitarian, it is authoritarian, it looks ugly, it uses death squads. But the possibility of what she defines as democracy emerging in Salvador is greater through a death squad regime than through a left wing insurgency, as we talked last time, was, yes, its leaders were Marxist, but its grassroots base were really fueled by liberation theology and really interesting popular reinterpretations of Catholicism that led these people to think about why they were poor to begin with and using materialist historical reasons to explain that. Kirkpatrick. It's a really, in my view, it's a really disgusting distinction that she draws. And it's also very obviously it becomes very self serving right because then it will justify Reagan's support for groups like the Contras, for constellation of death squad groups in El Salvador and a military dictatorship in Honduras, as they sought to push back against Cuba and as they sought to push back against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

[Martin DeCaro]

And there was a Cold War aspect to this, of course, to roll back communism or what Reagan viewed as Soviet influence or infiltration of Latin America. But these were also local conflicts. And some of these groups would seek maybe assistance from the Soviet Union or Cuba, but these were local indigenous movements. And in the case of El Salvador, as you said, the US starting under Jimmy Carter, supported the right wing junta there, the death squad regime. And then when there was a left wing government in power in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, the infamous Iran Contra affair where the United States was funneling money to the Contras in violation of federal law. Right. So after the Cold War ends and George H.W. bush, the president, Christmas Day 1991, he gives a speech on television. His words that day were echoed by US leaders for a long time afterward. The US prevailed in the Cold War because we stuck to our principles. We fought for free freedom.

[Political / News Commentator]

Eastern Europe is free. The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It's a victory for the moral force of our values. Every American can take pride in this victory, from the millions of men and women who've served our country in uniform to millions of Americans who supported their country and a strong defense under nine presidents.

[Martin DeCaro]

But that's not what was happening in the 1980s in Latin America. The United States wasn't trying to defend freedom.

[Alex Avigna]

No, absolutely.

[Martin DeCaro]

Or democracy either. Yeah, again.

[Alex Avigna]

And this is where we get that mixture of like realism and idealism. So any sort of Cuban or Soviet assistance to places like Nicaragua or left wing or revolutionary movements throughout Latin America on such a minimal scale in relation to how the US propped up a series of military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. Like, it's not even, you can't compare the two, but ideologically it served the presence of the Soviet Union and then the presence of revolutionary Cuba after 1959, like served a particular political function for the US to kind of sell to its own domestic populations what it was doing to Latin Americans under the threat of, you know, the Soviets have penetrated into Latin America and if we don't pay attention, then we're going to have a domino theory. But then this time applied to Latin America. And you have, you had people in the Reagan administration talk about how if we don't stop Nicaragua after their revolution in 1979. Then the rest of Central America is going to go quote, unquote, communist and Bolshevik. And then Mexico is going to fall and then the US is going to have a land border with Bolshevik Cuban inspired countries. And this idea filters into the Mainstream in the 1980s United States. Right. Movies like Red dawn really capture this idea.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah.

[Alex Avigna]

That the US was threatened by Soviet penetration.

[Martin DeCaro]

I love that movie. When I was a kid. It's still a good movie. Of course.

[Alex Avigna]

I mean, how can you not, how can you root against the Wolverines? It's such a weird inversion. Right. That movie is really instructive. I use it in my classes. Right. Because the Wolverines become a stand in for all these other quote, unquote freedom fighters that the US is supporting throughout the world, not just Latin America. So the Contras in Nicaragua, Jonas Savimbi in Angola, who's a horrific character. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

[Martin DeCaro]

Amazing.

[Alex Avigna]

The Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Right. What Reagan does is try to recast these horrific revanchist right wing forces as freedom fighters against Soviet totalitarianism.

[Martin DeCaro]

Didn't he compare the Contras to the Founding Fathers?

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, he said they're the moral equivalent to our Founding Fathers, which as I tell my students, there's a way to read that where we might agree with him, you know, if you want to be like super ironic. But yeah, he in a sense speech, he compared the Contras as the moral equivalents to our Founding Fathers.

[Martin DeCaro]

I refer to the heroes in the movie Red dawn as the American Mujahideen.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

They were in the mountains fighting an insurgency against communist invaders, like the people who would eventually become our enemies.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

The support that the United States has been providing, the resistance will be strengthened rather than diminished so that it can continue to fight effectively for freedom. A just struggle against foreign tyranny can count upon worldwide support. Both political and material. Goal of the United States remains a.

[Martin DeCaro]

Genuinely independent Afghanistan, which is a recurring story across this. And this is where Noriega comes in, Alex. Yes, because during the Cold War he was seen as an anti communist military strongman who could help bring stability to this region. Of course, the US's intervention in this area was destabilizing. So why don't we start diving into that history here?

[Alex Avigna]

I can start by saying something about Noriega and then maybe something about Panama, because Panama also has a really unique history within Latin America in relation to United States because of the Panama Canal. Right, but we can talk about that as well.

[Libsyn Ads Host]

Go ahead.

[Alex Avigna]

Based on the information that we have, Manuel Noriega enters the Panamanian military, the National Guard, at that moment in the 1960s, and really quickly thereafter becomes engaged in a relationship with US military intelligence agencies and eventually the CIA. So he's going to be a CIA asset for decades. There's a really seminal moment in Panamanian history in 1964 when LBJ and the then current president of Panama agree that the Panamanian flag should fly alongside the American flag in the US Panama Canal Zone. Local American officials refused to implement that agreement. And Panamanian high school university students launched these protests that eventually turned violent because of the response of Panamanian and US military security services. That was really influential for a group of Panamanian nationalist military officers who by the late 60s would overthrow the government and take power under the leadership of Omar Torrijos, who becomes the leader behind the scenes, the de facto ruler of Panama from the late 60s until the early 1980s. And he's anti communist, he's explicitly anti communist, but he is a nationalist. So. And he talked about how what really formed his political consciousness was being forced to beat up on these high school students in those 1964 rebellion that caused the deaths of dozens of Panamanian young people. Behind the scenes, Noriega is rising through the ranks as well. But he's getting training at the School of the Americas in the US Panama Canal Zone, and he's also getting training in places like Fort Bragg. So he's already early on, since the 60s, cultivating really dynamic, close, intimate ties with US military intelligent agencies.

[Martin DeCaro]

That's amazing. I didn't know he was at Fort Bragg, because in 1990, Bernard Aronson, who's the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter American affairs, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said the US is no longer embroiled in an adversarial relationship with a corrupt and lawless regime.

[Bernard Aronson]

And I think Panama is faces an opportunity few individuals and few nations face. And that's a chance to begin again and to start with a clean slate. They want to build a democracy. They intend to do away with the military force that oppressed them for 20 years and to reconstruct the new police force that is strictly under civilian rule. And they want to begin to rebuild their economy, which suffered so greatly under Norega's dictatorship.

[Martin DeCaro]

Just a few years ago, he was seen Noriega was as a very valuable partner in Central American policy. So he was on the CIA payroll. In 1977, however, he was removed from the CIA payroll. Why? What happened there?

[Alex Avigna]

So there's disputes over whether this actually happened. Right. So the official story is that Jimmy Carter enters the presidency. He nominates a new CIA director, Stansfield Turner, who replaced the outgoing CIA director who was good old George H.W. bush, who had a close relationship with Noriega. And there's a really infamous picture of them two hanging out from like the early 80s. Stansfield Turner has given differing accounts. His original account was to say, when I entered the CIA, I booted Noriega off the payroll. But then in the context of the 1988 presidential election, Dukakis versus George H.W. bush, he took that back and he said, well, I didn't do that. It might have been some lower level CIA functionaries, but it wasn't me. And whether or not he got kicked off the CIA payroll in 1977, I think that doesn't matter because we know that he continued to have a relationship with Army Intelligence and he got put.

[Martin DeCaro]

Back on it too, in 1981.

[Alex Avigna]

And then he got put back on it, right?

[Martin DeCaro]

If he had ever been on.

[Alex Avigna]

It really doesn't matter. He never really got. Let's just say he really wasn't disconnected from that type of relationship that was politically and economically very productive for him because it positioned him to become the next de facto authoritarian leader of Panama in the early 80s after Omar Torrijo suffered death because of a mysterious plane crash. And by 83, Noriega becomes the military strongman of the country, ruling from behind the scenes.

[Martin DeCaro]

So as you mentioned, the former leader, he was integral in getting the Panama Canal back in the possession of Panama itself, dies in a plane crash. Noriega becomes military dictator in 1983. Under what circumstances did this happen? I mean, within Panama, was there any move toward maybe having elections instead? I don't want to ask a 17 part question here. Under what circumstances does Noriega become military dictator? I mean, there were no elections.

[Alex Avigna]

So there's a dual political structure in Panama around these decades where you have elections, but you know, the actual power is a military leader like Omar Torrijos, or By the early 80s, the Manuel Noriega who had risen to the top of his own country's military intelligence services and eventually becomes the head of the Panamanian Defense Forces, which then positions him in the early 80s to do things like discount the 1983, 1984 presidential election. So by 84, he intervenes directly in presidential elections to more or less pick the candidate that he wants to serve as a puppet leader of the country. But there is a meaningful political opposition in the country that's trying to push back against Noriega's. Authoritarianism. And there's a really key moment in 1985 when Dr. Hugo Espafadora, he's a leading political opposition figure who's picked up, detained by Noriega's forces on his way back into Panama. And he suffers a horrific death. He's tortured, eventually he's decapitated. And that's really one of the initial moments from the US perspective that something's a little off with Noriega. And Papadora has an interesting history of his own. He fought in the Guinea Bissau War of National liberation. He fought in the Sandinista revolution. He also an anti communist like Omar Torrijo, but a nationalist, a democratic nationalist who Noriega's forces killed in a really grisly way.

[Martin DeCaro]

I did misspeak there about the elections. I guess in my mind, if the election's not free, it's not a real election. But as you said, he did intervene. He committed fraud. Noriega did in 1984, in favor of Nicolas Ardito Barletta, who becomes a puppet president. And Noriega continues to enjoy the support of the Reagan administration anyway because it valued his aid in the administration's efforts to overthrow the Sandinistas. So I guess we've kind of answered this question already, but I do want to return to it now. How does Noriega fit into the Reagan Doctrine?

[Alex Avigna]

A way to understand this in connected faction is like what role does the country of Panama fit within the Reagan Doctrine? Without giving you a whole long 20th century history of Panama to say that the Panama canal zone hosted 12 US military bases throughout the 20th century, and it served as a military outpost to try to control, particularly during the Cold War, try to control political development or influence political developments in Latin America. It was also integral as an intelligence and communications hub in the 1970s for something called Operation Condor, where you had all these right wing military dictatorships in Latin America, South America, working together and coordinating each other's efforts to pick up militants, labor unions, guerrillas, and to torture and to disappear them. This was a transnational network of repression that was started by Pinochet, Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile. But Panamas and the US basis served as a communication and intelligence hub for these operations. By the time we get to the 80s in the Reagan Doctrine. The other component of this is that Noriega is going to play a really interesting role in the war on drugs and in the Iran Contra. Noriega's banks, this financial network in Panama that had been set up with extreme privacy Laws, Right. So you could send your money into Panamanian banks. They're not going to ask any questions. These banks became really important to laundering some of the illicit drug proceeds or other illicit proceeds that the US was using to fund the Contras in their counter revolutionary war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Panama and Noriega were a key financial hub financial dimension to the US's covert war against Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s. The side gig for Noriega is that he was also developing a really strong relationship with a group of young entrepreneurial Colombian smugglers that came up in this Colombian city of Medellin, who later would go on to found the Medellin cartel. To the point where in 1984, when Pablo Escobar had to flee Colombia because he killed a Colombian politician, he sought safe haven in Panama and was granted that safe haven because he was using Panamanian banks to launder his illicit gains from the cocaine industry. So Noriega was plugged into the illicit. In one ways, we can think about him as a hinge point between the illicit and the illicit components of the Reagan Doctrine in Central America in the 1980s.

[Martin DeCaro]

Reagan Doctrine announced in 1985 State of the Union address. Reagan said the U.S. must stand by all our democratic allies, we must stand.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

By all our democratic allies, and we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives on every continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua to defy Soviet supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, Noriega was not a Democrat. He reiterated this message to Congress the following year, revealing that growing resistance movements now challenge communist regimes installed or maintained by the military power, the Soviet Union and its colonial agents. So this was a, a justification to continue sending aid. These projects were already underway, though I think the Nicaraguan stuff began in 1982. So this is our justification for policy that had already been in effect for, for some years.

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, it's such a complicated story, Martin. Like we did spend like 10 episodes just talking about the Iran Contra. But fundamentally, one way to think about this, related to what we discussed earlier, is you have the Wolverines from Red dawn going global. They're trying to posit these right wing forces as the true revolutionaries, quote, unquote, democratic revolutionaries against Soviet totalitarian supported governments in places like Angola or Nicaragua. This leads to horrific consequences for people on the ground. I mean, it leads to Iran Contra, which to my mind is one of the most corrupt, illegal instances and excesses of US presidential power.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Right.

[Alex Avigna]

On the one hand, the idea that you have people like Colonel Oliver north secretly negotiating through Egyptian, Lebanese and Israeli middlemen secret arms deals with Iran, which was publicly being stated as being an existential threat to United States. While the US is helping Iraq fight its horrific war against Iran and then using the proceeds of those weapons sales with Iran to fund these Contras, the group of just horrifically violent counter revolutionaries in Nicaragua to hit back at the Sandinista government. That's even without bringing in like the narcotics aspect to it as well. This was all done, it was all flagrantly illegal because US Congress had told Reagan that they could not fund the Contras. There was a series of amendments, the Bolan Amendments, that prevented the Reagan administration from funding the Contras, a group that committed numerous horrific human rights violations in Nicaragua.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon. Those charges are utterly false. We did not, repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.

[Martin DeCaro]

The conversation continues. Next. So I mentioned early in our conversation in a rather long question, sorry, Alex, but what I was trying to get to was U.S. foreign policy, its causes, its focus change. But we can also see the same pattern of intervention. So during the Cold War, we understand the reasons for US interventionism in Latin America and why the US supported somebody like Noriega. He was an anti communist. But when the Cold War is winding down, US policy is changing towards some of these regimes in Latin America. Noriega is not useful anymore. Now he's actually part of the problem. You know, I interpret George Bush's New World Order as if a Tinpox pot dictator anywhere. If one of them can get away with doing what he wants, well then tin pot dictators everywhere can do what they wish. And that causes instability. You know, George Bush's vision was a world where everyone would have to play by the rules, the rule of law, not the rule of the jungle, as he said.

[Political / News Commentator]

A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace while a thousand wars raged across the Spanish of human endeavor. And today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.

[Martin DeCaro]

So what I'm getting at is in the late 1980s, Noriega does fall out of favor with the United States and they disown him because of the revelations that he was a drug trafficker, money laundering, a CIA employee. He was acting as a double agent as well for Cuba's intelligence agency and the Sandinistas. So he falls out of favor with the United States. I mean, was this out of embarrassment? I mean, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, I think the Cuban revelations did not help. The fact that he prevented Panama from being a physical staging ground for anti Sandinista activities also probably didn't help Noriega. The, the, definitely the drug revelations, despite the fact it was being done with a tolerance or the wink, wink, nod from the CIA, but whatever.

[Martin DeCaro]

But the war on drugs was big for Reagan. But go ahead.

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The war on drugs is huge. And we can, we can come back to that. And we kind of talked about it last time. But something that resonates with what we're witnessing today is the importance of domestic US Politics and how. And considerations and how then that shapes U.S. policy toward Latin American countries. And I think the 1988 presidential elections are really important because that's when a lot of the revelations came out that George H.W. bush had had some sort of relationship with Noriega and that made them look bad. During the presidential debates, there was a lot of coverage. This was also in the context of congressional investigation of Iran Contra. The fact that domestically this was making the Republican Party look really bad and their presidential candidate look bad, I think played an important role. And just to step back and think more broadly, again, the role of US Domestic politics, how that shapes or leads policy toward the region, is something that we continue to see to this very day. The war on drugs becomes, throughout the 80s, becomes slowly a justifying framework for how the US is going to justify what it does to Latin America and then eventually globally. And this becomes the staging ground for that type of rhetoric. So when George H.W. bush goes before the nation, December of 1989, he lists, I think drug trafficking was reason number two that justified the U.S. sending 26,000 troops to overthrow and capture Noriega. And again, they don't talk about regime change. They talk about going after him because he's a criminal. Right. Almost the same language they're using today with Maduro in Venezuela. But the number one reason he cites is to bring democracy and human rights to Panama.

[Political / News Commentator]

Many attempts have been made to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and negotiations. All were rejected by the dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, and indicted drug traffickers.

[Alex Avigna]

It's become the, I think Grandin called it the war to begin all wars. I mean, because that becomes the humanitarian democracy, human Rights justification becomes a premise, and it continues to be the premise for so many U. S. Military interventions ever since.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, that wasn't important for decades. Right. And now it is. All right, better late than never. But we got to see through the hypocrisy here, because for decades, the United States did not support democracy and human rights in Panama. It supported Noriega and the others. So.

[Alex Avigna]

Right. And it's also a very particular understanding of democracy. Right. It's a very limited political and economic definition of democracy that fits neatly within certain neoliberal capitalist conceptions of how an economy, how a national economy is supposed to interface with a global economy. Right. It's not a social definition of democracy that Latin Americans had fought for throughout the cold War and in most instances were defeated because of US Intervention to undermine these efforts to socialize Latin American democracy. Part of the New World Order is that Francis Fukayaman idea of the end of history, liberal capitalism, liberalism and capitalism as one. So how can we reorganize the global framework geographically, politically and juridically to allow for the free flow of capital and commodities across the world? That's also an important component of the New World Order that gets left out of this origin story. And that idea begins in Latin America, particularly after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. And we have there the first application of what we now referred to as neoliberal capitalism on top of tanks. Right. Reagan more or less adopts that neoliberal capitalist idea toward Latin America, but he mixes it with this very idealistic conception of this is freedom. Right. Like liberal capitalism is freedom. If we can achieve some sort of a particular form of capitalist framework in these Latin American countries, that will then lead to democracy and that will allow us to defeat the Soviet Union. Soviet Union's gone. And this becomes a global framework.

[Martin DeCaro]

Right.

[Alex Avigna]

To the point whereby by the time we get to 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, I think there's US military operations being named after Adam Smith. That component has been there for a while, but it's really Panama where all these things come together, I think.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. I mean, the timing here is so important. The United States would not have done this in the early 1980s, but in 1989, December of 1989, the Berlin Wall had fallen the month before. You know, the global context is so important here. So just to recap, it was in 1988 when Noriega was indicted by federal grand juries in Tampa and Miami. Drug smuggling, money laundering charges. In 89, Noriega annulled a presidential election that would have made Guillermo Andara President. President George Bush orders additional troops to the Panama Canal zone. And on December 16, an off duty US Marine was shot to death at a Panamanian roadblock in the United States. Alex, was there any opposition to invading Panama?

[Alex Avigna]

Well, we see that the opposition is obviously in Latin America. We see the opposition in the UN General Assembly. They decried the 1983 US invasion of Grenada as flagrantly illegal. They did the same thing with 89. They said this was an illegal act that the US unilaterally engaged in and they violated all sorts of international law. Right. So this is another moment where this international framework that took so much work to create in the aftermath of World War II, it's systematically being cut down by the US throughout the Cold War. And some of its final moments of existence are because of US efforts in Latin America against Nicaragua and against Panama in the 80s. That then I think is eventual death knell of international law.

[Martin DeCaro]

December 20th, the invasion begins. There's scattered resistance to the US invasion. It's over pretty much by December 24th, as the US is holding most of the country by then. Andara is made president by the US invaders. He orders the Panamanian Defense Forces to be dissolved. Noriega is arrested on January 3rd, and that is it for him. And those objectives you mentioned listed by George H.W. bush, these are now the new focus of American foreign policy. With the Cold War out of the way, it actually matters now that this guy's an anti democratic authoritarian. Another linkage, global war on terrorism.

[Alex Avigna]

The linkage is having a justifying framework that goes beyond what was used during the Cold War. So if the war on drugs served as a potent justifying framework for US military intervention, plus democracy, human rights, all that kind of language, what we see after 9, 11, 2001 is we see those frameworks, they go on steroids. By adding the global war on terror to it, the war on drugs kind of drops off and you start to see, particularly with George W. Bush, it's that same idealistic rhetoric that we saw with his father in 1989, we're going to bring democracy, we're going to spread human rights, we're going to do a revolution in liberty, and we're going to spread democracy and engage in this process of like nation building in the countries that we invade, whether it's Afghanistan or Iraq. And again, this is what we see in Latin America in the 1980s, particularly in Central America. And you see the recycling of some of the same neocon political and Intellectual figures who were so influential in the 80s, they will reappear in the George W. Bush administration, completely impacted and influenced by their activities in 1980s Central America. It's the same group of people with the same type of language.

[Martin DeCaro]

Some of them are still around today advising. I have John Dower's book here, the Violent American Century about continuities and linkages. He says when the administration of George W. Bush responded to the 911 attacks by declaring a global war on terror and launching the disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it was not really deviating from the thrust of existing policy as so many have argued. Dauer says the excessive response to the Al Qaeda attacks essentially involved unleashing a war fighting machine already primed and experienced in overseas interventions, including intensive bombing, covert operations and practices on the dark side, meaning torture and things like that. You know, another lesson here though is the low cost. Just think about this. United States invades another country, arrests its leaders, loses very few people. Now that's not supposed to just be so easy, Right? And maybe that creates in the mind of the US that war can be done, invasions can be done at low cost. After all, getting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, relatively low cost to the US not to the Iraqis and the decade of sanctions that followed were disastrous. Right. But that, that was a really bad idea that. See that got planted because we saw what happened in 2003. It did not go smoothly for the US was not easy.

[Alex Avigna]

Yeah, I think that's a really important point to highlight. And I think the other point you highlighted, Martin, is really important, is that this was never an easy operation for the Iraqis or in 1989 for the Panamanians. You know, you have this infamous incident during Operation Just Cause where the US firebombed a working class neighborhood called El Chorrillo that now is referred to as Guernica or Little Hiroshima by the community, working class communities, inhabitants and residents. We still don't know how many people died in the U S bombing of the civilian population. This community that provided the labor for the US Panama Canal Zone, it was a mostly mixed race and black neighborhood that provided a lot of the labor that allowed for the US Panama Canal Zone to even exist as a, as an entity. And they were firebombed. We don't know like hundreds of people died. There's still, as of right before the pandemic began in 2020, there were still excavations of, of mass graves that were being undertaken by Panamanian authorities. They were finding mass graves of Panamanians in green bags that were buried by US military officials during their operation against Noriega. And we, since 2016, we've had the Panamanian government asking the US for reparations for the deaths of probably over a thousand Panamanians, and most of whom were killed in the aerial bombing and the fire that ensued in El Chorrio neighborhood. They actually won before the Inter American Court of Human Rights. The Panamanian government won this case. The US as the US does, has the power, the might and the imperial power to just disregard such judicial findings. It seems like an easy operation from the United States. I think we see the effects and consequences of UN Empire much later on, to a certain extent. I think that's what we're living through right now, like Trump, is a consequence of the global war on terror. But then when you look at what the global war on terror has done on a global scale, millions of people killed, destroyed, displaced at similar tragedy in horror is what happens to Latin America as a consequence of US Empire, just to limit it during the Cold War. And Panamanians to this day are still fighting, organizing, demanding for the US Government to recognize that they executed hundreds, if not thousands of Panamanian civilians and that they should pay for that, at the very least be held to account in some way, shape or form, even if it's just economic. Yeah, these operations seem clean, but for the people who suffer them, they're still living through what happened in December of 1980.

[Martin DeCaro]

I wonder how many Americans today know that about 15,000 Panamanians lost their homes and businesses.

[Alex Avigna]

The University of Panama, they have a seismograph, and they recorded 442 large ground movements as a consequence of the bombs that were the US bombs that were dropping on the country. Right. So they weren't just bombing Panamanian Defense Force installations, they were bombing the entire country. You know, I think about this in relation to Venezuela today and. And in a way, Panama gives us a small taste of what could happen if the US decides to engage Venezuela in an overt military intervention. The sad thing is you have U.S. politicians, and this is why I think this historical episode is important, I'm glad you asked me to talk about it, is that you have US politicians like Lindsey Graham making the direct comparison between what they did to Noriega to what they want to do to Venezuela. Except he didn't say Noriega, he said Ortega. That says a little bit about the intellectual quality of these politicians that are. That determines so much of our lives and the lives of others throughout the world. Another thing I really wanted to mention is the role of US Mainstream media in really manufacturing consent for the intervention in Panama. And then once the intervention happens, how they just became stenographers for U.S. military reports and accounts and framing of what actually happened on the ground in Panama. And this is what we'll see in Iraq War, number one, the US Mainstream media becoming stenographers of US Military officials and political figures and accepting whatever type of press briefings, reports that they were receiving from military and politicians and then just repeating that as somehow, you know, being accurate and objective reporting that happens in Panama. That's really the one of the first places where the US Media becomes entranced with like smart bombs and smart war and smart technology that are somehow going to mitigate civilian suffering and deaths. And then on a much larger scale, we see it in, in the first invasion of Iraq in, in 1991, if I remember correctly.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, it was 1999.

[Alex Avigna]

So the role of the media, I don't know if you've caught it, but like the, the 60 minute segment that just ran on Venezuela, it's manufacturing consent for US Military operations against Venezuela. It's the script that the US Always falls back upon. And one of these important initial scripts is what they did to Panama In December of 1989 when President Bush 41.

[Political / News Commentator]

Took Ortega out in Panama.

[Alex Avigna]

Reagan went into Grenada to deal with the Cuban influence from Grenada in our backyard.

[Political / News Commentator]

He has all the authority in the world.

[Alex Avigna]

This is not murder.

[Political / News Commentator]

This is protecting America from being poisoned.

[Alex Avigna]

By narco terrorists coming from Venezuela and Colombia.

[Martin DeCaro]

And that was the aforementioned Lindsey Graham on CBS's Face the Nation. As our guest in this episode, Alex Avigna, mentioned he confused Ortega with Noriega. How much dishonesty can one person fit in one sentence? He may have set a record there. On the next episode of History As It Happens, we're going back to the movies. History on the big screen. Remember the 1989 film Glory with Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington? We're going to revisit it with Civil War historian Kevin Levin. That's next. As we report History as it Happens. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter. It is free. Go to Substack and search for History as it Happens.

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