James (4:51)

Oh, wow.

Andrew Sage (4:52)

But in power publicly, he styled his military rule as reformist. He pushed through land reforms that opened up estates long monopolized by elites and promised change for rural Panama. But although these reforms were popular, very few poor Panamanians actually benefited. Meanwhile, he overhauled the banking laws in the country so such that Panama quickly became a hub for offshore banking and money laundering. But it can't be said that he didn't do anything positive for the country because he was the one who managed to establish a new treaty with the us. The US was facing international pressure at this point for their continued ownership of the Canal, especially Thanks to a 1973 United Nations Security Council session hosted by Torrijos in Panama City. In 1977, Torrijos negotiated with Jimmy Carter and secured the treaties that promised the Canal's return to Panamanian control. The Torrijos Carta Treaties, which agreed to transfer the Canal from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999, with the surrounding territory of the Canal Zone, returned first in 1979 and the US military being allowed to remain in the country until 1999. But despite this major win, Torrijos knew his rule was under pressure. So he announced a controlled return to civilian government. He created a political party dominated by the National Guard. He stepped back from the presidency. He installed a civilian figurehead named Aristides Royo, and he promised elections by 1984. But then his private plane crashed in 1981. It's just. It's funny how frequently that happened back in those days, you know?

James (6:33)

Yeah, small aircraft, just randomly.

Andrew Sage (6:35)

These political leaders are constantly dying in plane crashes.

James (6:38)

Yeah, very sad.

Andrew Sage (6:40)

And so the democratic reforms didn't happen. Instead, Torrijos, intelligence chief, emerged as the new military dictator of Panama. His name was Manuel Noriega. Now, as Lindsay Poland talks about in the book, Noriega was another informant for the US in the mid-1950s. But his career in the military wasn't going anywhere because he had a history of alcoholism and beaten woman. Until Torrijos hand picked him as his intelligence chief. Manuel Noriega came up inside a Panamanian National Guard that had been shaped, trained, and closely supervised by the US during the Cold War. He was educated at Peru's National Military Academy, trained at the School of the Americas, took courses in intelligence and counterintelligence in 1967, and trained in psychological warfare at Fort Benning. By the late 1960s, he had also become a regular informant for US intelligence. You know, he took more than just a few courses. He was very much embedded with the Americans. And so with Torrijos dead, Noriega seized the opportunity to take power. Initially, the US Was pretty much okay with this. Noriega had previously been a CIA asset, providing intelligence on governments and militaries across the region, including Cuba. He had helped suppress leftist movements, facilitated US Regional operations, and maintained stability around the Canal. And for that, he was well compensated. More than $1 million from the CIA.

James (8:16)

Wow.

Andrew Sage (8:17)

Plus at least another $162,000 from the US army and the Defense Intelligence Agency. By the early 1970s, US agencies already knew that Noriega was deeply involved in drug trafficking. In 1972, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs even considered assassinating him. But he was just too useful for him to go so soon. So throughout the Carter years, evidence of his criminal activity was building up and was also suppressed because Washington needed Panamanian corporation to secure ratification of the Canal treaties. But under Reagan, the evidence became impossible to ignore, as intelligence reports from 1983 and 1985 documented meetings between Noriega and cartel figures. Permissions to manufacture cocaine in Panama and offers to mediate disputes between the traffickers.

James (9:12)

I love the mediation part the best.

Andrew Sage (9:15)

Yeah, yeah. He was like, hey guys, this isn't you.

James (9:18)

Let's not resort to violence. This isn't you.

Andrew Sage (9:20)

Come on, let's. Let's have a sit down and talk about.

James (9:24)

He was committed to like a non carceral solution, you know. Great to see.

Andrew Sage (9:31)

Yeah. And they continue to protect him even with that smoking gun. They were like, yeah, Noriega is still our guy. They had hoped that he would cooperate with Contra operations against Nicaragua's Sandinista government, though. But in what was, I suppose, his first strike, he refused to cooperate with them on that operation. He also maintained relations with both Nicaragua and Cuba. And meanwhile, under his leadership, the Panamanian Defence Forces expanded their role in both arms and drug smuggling networks, much of it feeding directly into the US drug market. So Noriega and the US had to break up in the mid to late 80s. And this was also thanks to US domestic politics. You see, in 1986, the Iran Contra scandal saw key figures who had shielded Norieka previously be removed from their positions. At the same time, the crack cocaine panic took over US politics again. A very racialized situation. Yeah. Congress had passed sweeping anti drug laws with mandatory minimum sentences, and the media was framing this whole drug problem as a foreign reshow black threat.

James (10:46)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (10:47)

Noriega being a Panamanian dictator, ended up being a very useful prop villain of sorts for the burgeoning war on drugs. So in February 1988, US grand juries in Miami and Tampa indicted Noriega for drug trafficking linked to activities from 1982 to 1984. Sanctions followed within weeks, supposedly to force him out. But they didn't. The sanctions caused shortages, economic collapse and suffering among ordinary Panamanians. Yet Noriega stayed in power. He used the crisis to justify emergency measures and nationalist rhetoric, as is usually the response. I realize with US inflicted sanctions, they end up creating almost a support base.

James (11:36)

Right.

Andrew Sage (11:37)

For the administration in power because, you know, you try to make the people suffer and instead people end up standing with their government, even if they have critiques of that government.

James (11:47)

Yeah, right. Because they don't want to become another, like, vassal state. And especially in Panama. Right. Like they've, they've already been that once. Or like, look at what's happening right now in Iran. Right.

Andrew Sage (11:57)

Like, yeah.

James (11:57)

Hamilton is literally, like, he's literally tweeting that the people protesting are Donald Trump supporters.

Andrew Sage (12:03)

Yeah, yeah. The thing is, there are always going to be all types of people in any protest. And I wish more people realize that.

James (12:09)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (12:10)

You know, people tend to take like one or two figures or one or two pictures in any particular protest and say, oh, look, they are doing this. That means the entire protest is like this. It's like. No. Protests tend to, I think, invite a variety of positions, perspectives, actors into the free. Yeah.

James (12:27)

By their nature, they're large gatherings of people. Right. Like, they're not going to be a monolith. People will always seek to either represent protests in one way or represent themselves as controlling a protest when they have not done so. But for the most part, they're very heterogeneous.

Andrew Sage (12:41)

Yeah. The monolithizing of protests, including in this case with Iran, I think it's a very clear example of how useful that is for every side of a conflict.

James (12:52)

Yes.

Andrew Sage (12:53)

Because, you know, the protest could be treated as a monolith by Khomeini and by the Iranian government, you know, to serve their end. To say, these are enemies from within. You know, these are. These are Zionists backed and this thing. And of course, the Israelis could also try and stake a claim on this and say, yeah, this is our people. And, you know, I'm sure they're probably Mossad agents on the ground, as they are in most protest situations. Not necessarily Mossad agents, but intelligence service agents in general from agencies around the world.

James (13:23)

Sure. Yeah.

Andrew Sage (13:24)

But, you know, you could always pick and choose and create your own Freeman based on which aspects of the truth you want to focus on. But that's why I think our solidarity has to remain with people and not with states.

James (13:38)

Yes. Yeah, that seems to be the fundamental issue affecting much of the Internet left in the United States. Said their solidarity appears to only be to states and not to people. Right. We see that in Iran or Venezuela or Russia or anywhere else, really, that like this sort of. I know Internet tanky leftism likes to talk about.

Andrew Sage (13:59)

Yeah.

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Andrew Sage (14:31)

On Carvana, delivery fees may apply. So we saw a kind of upswing of nationalistic FERVOR following those U.S. sanctions. And the political situation in Panama was deteriorating rapidly. Noriega annulled the results of the May 1989 elections. After his chosen candidates were decisively defeated, protests followed. The Panamanian Defense Forces crushed them. And the images of his opposition figures being beaten by his military saturated US televisions to reinforce the racialized image of the savage Panamanian. Because many of the soldiers that were doing the beating were black and brown and the opposition figure in question was white. So they were able to clip that and create a whole narrative around it that served their interests. Now, In October of 1989, a coup attempt by Panamanian officers failed and the officers were executed. In the US meanwhile, a criticism of President George H.W. bush had intensified with editorials and senators accusing him of weakness for his failure to act decisively against Noriega. And oh boy, call a man weak, he has to go and prove his. Prove his manhood. Yeah, you know. So further motivation for what came next was Noriega's nomination of Tomas Duquet as the first Panamanian administrator of the Panama Canal Commission. Bush did not like that pick. And if the US invaded, then they could pick who they preferred. So there was another motivation. The invasion was also motivated by a desire to showcase the Pentagon's post Cold War mission. You know, the Cold War was waning at that point, particularly with the fall of the Berlin Wall mere months before. And so a new threat, a new boogeyman was needed to justify US military action in Latin America, this time in the form of the drug war story. And then on December 16, a US Marine intelligence unit ran a roadblock near Panamanian military headquarters. Panamanian soldiers opened fire, killing Lt. Robert Paz. Another U.S. soldier and his wife were detained and while the soldier was beaten, the wife was threatened with rape. Within 24 hours, Bush ordered a full scale invasion. On December 20, 1989, the United States launched its 20th military intervention in Panama since 1856, and by far the most violent. It was the worst destruction Panama had seen since Colombia's thousand days war. 18,000 people lost their homes. At least five hundred and sixteen Panamanians were killed by official Pentagon counts. Internal army estimates, however, put civilian Deaths closer to 1000.

James (17:26)

Jeez.

Andrew Sage (17:27)

And many believe that the true number was even higher. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed. El Torillo, a poor, mostly black and mestizo community built originally for canal workers, was bombed and burned to the ground. San Miguelito was also hit and across the country thousands were detained in prison camps. Damage exceeded $1 billion. On top of losses from nearly two years of sanctions, the US used overwhelming force, including stealth bombers, airborne assaults and heavy firepower in densely populated areas against a Panamanian Force of only about 3,000 trained soldiers, Noriega was captured, flown to the United States, tried and imprisoned. And as Lindsay Poland writes, the names of the 25 US soldiers killed during the invasion rolled across TV screens around the world. Yet a register of Panamanians killed during the invasion has never been published, even in Latin America. End quote.

James (18:30)

Geez. When Noriega, like, sought refuge in the Vatican Embassy for a while, I understand that they played like u2 music non stop to force him to capitulate.

Andrew Sage (18:41)

They paid. What?

James (18:43)

Yeah, yeah, they used U2. There may have been some other stuff.

Andrew Sage (18:48)

Too, but I'm pretty sure my age here. This is before my time. This was the band that was forced onto all the ipods and stuff, right?

James (18:57)

Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah, this was. Yeah. And perhaps a parallel operation. Maybe again they would. Maybe that was a CIA op. Yeah. Bono, the guy who talks a big game and then never pays his taxes in Ireland, also part of the invasion of Panama.

Andrew Sage (19:14)

He had a critical role in U.S. intervention.

James (19:17)

Yeah. Wait until I find out. I bet there was some band I like as well. But U2 is the one that sticks.

Andrew Sage (19:22)

In my mind, the humanity. There has to be a war crime, right?

James (19:26)

War crime, yeah.

Andrew Sage (19:29)

So in all seriousness, though, Noriega was not a good guy by any stretch of the imagination. And I don't know why people feel this. This compulsion to try and rehabilitate figures that have been targeted by US imperialist aggression. You know, you can condemn US Imperialist aggression without carrying water for their image, right?

James (19:54)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (19:54)

No, Noriega was not a good guy, but he was not unusual. I think if anything, you can point out the hypocrisy of the United States in this, you know, selective outrage. Yeah, because at the very same moment, far worse atrocities were being inflicted by leaders across the region, carried out by regimes firmly integrated in Washington's good graces. In Guatemala, for example, security forces kidnapped, tortured and raped Diana Ortiz, an American nun, before she managed to escape.

James (20:28)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (20:28)

But there's no evidence that this triggered outrage in Washington or calls for military intervention. And then in El Salvador, guerrilla forces launched an offensive on San Salvador, and the army responded by murdering six Jesuit priests. The same forces went on to arrest, torture, and intimidate international aid workers and church personnel. But none of this was treated as grounds for invasion, regime change, or emergency action. The US Only removed Noriega because he wasn't convenient to their ends anymore. And the aftermath of that invasion was utter devastation. Panama was left without a functioning government until the US military stepped in to fill the vacuum. After two or three days, American forces formally took over the administration of the country. Under the Pentagon plan called operation blind logic, US officers were assigned to supervise 22 Panamanian ministries and state agencies, effectively running the country for months. At the same time, the military crippled what remained of Panama's civilian administration by seizing roughly 15,000 boxes of government documents. The invasion permanently reshaped Panama's political reality, dividing it between those absorbed into Noriega's nationalist rhetoric and those who had welcomed foreign intervention. It also sent a clear message to every political actor that Panama's sovereignty was conditional on their cooperation with the U.S. meanwhile, in the U.S. there was barely a murmur against their government's claimed right to invade Panama, remove its government, dismantle its military, and inflict costs on Panama's poor black and mestizo communities. The US Kind of moved on from Panama after the invasion. I mean, they continued to meddle and intervene, but they had basically gotten what they wanted at that point, which was the removal of someone who was not gonna cooperate with them anymore.

James (22:23)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (22:23)

And lest you believe that they disrupted the drug trade with the arrest of Dorica, Panama continued to function as a transit point for cocaine and a centre for money laundering at basically the same scale as.

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Andrew Sage (23:14)

So finally, what exactly is the connection with Venezuela, if any? James, you want to go first?

James (23:21)

Yeah. I mean, there's a very obvious parallel in that they have deposed a leader that you don't need to go carry water for the guy they deposed. You can say something is bad without, like, the person it happened to does not therefore become a perfect angel. Things cannot be binary. That's okay. But, like, it is wild that we look to what happened in Panama and we're like, you know what? We can do better than that. We don't even have to declare a war. We don't even have to do an invasion. Right. We can just. Just kidnap a guy.

Andrew Sage (23:51)

I mean, they did do an invasion. They kind of bombed a bunch of people and stuff, too.

James (23:56)

Yes, they did. Yeah, they did an air. Yeah, they did, like, a airborne invasion, I guess would be the way to describe it. Like, and in a sense, Right. Like, I'm happy that they didn't sort of go through the streets of Caracas with bombs and artillery and mortars.

Andrew Sage (24:11)

Yeah. They didn't do scorched earth.

James (24:13)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (24:14)

This time.

James (24:15)

But at the same time, like we have now, like I've literally have spoken to several people in Venezuela in the last 24 hours. Right. And they are in that situation now of not knowing. Right. Like who is the relevant authority. The US in this case doesn't seem to have replaced the regime. They've just in, again, a parallel to what we saw in Panama. Just installed another person. Right.

Andrew Sage (24:36)

Not even necessarily install another person because I mean, just let it trickle down.

James (24:41)

And see how it rides.

Andrew Sage (24:42)

Rodriguez was already in power.

James (24:44)

Yeah. Like, I guess maybe they looked at Rodriguez and were like. Because she's previously worked with like, I guess the analogy would be the Chamber of Commerce, maybe something like that. Like Venezuelan business interests. Maybe they were just like, yeah, well, maybe we can force her to be compliant with what we want. Like the only shit getting liberated is the oil in Venezuela. Right. And it's actually not very good oil.

Andrew Sage (25:06)

Yeah.

James (25:06)

The same happened in Panama. Right. The US didn't go to liberate people, it went to liberate the canal. It's so disappointing to see people still look at foreign policy in binary terms. And like you said before, I think one of the things that the Venezuelan people I'm speaking to express deep, deep frustration with is that when they take a risk, Right. And go online and share their frustrations with both Chavismo and with the United States invading their country, they are told by Western leftists that they must be either CIA agents or pretend Venezuelans. Like Americans posing as Venezuelans.

Andrew Sage (25:45)

Yeah. Or like Cusanos or whatever.

James (25:48)

Yeah. Like there is this, I mean, in the case of Venezuela, Right. If you thought it was great, you could have gone. You had two decades to go. I went when I was in undergraduate.

Andrew Sage (25:58)

Right.

James (25:58)

To see it, to study it, to understand, was formative in the way that my politics are now, which is politics that doesn't see human liberation coming from the state.

Andrew Sage (26:08)

It's not to say that there's nothing positive happening in Venezuela in terms of experiments with communal initiatives and cooperative economic projects. Despite the US sanctions, despite what they are enduring, Venezuelan people have, you know, managed to innovate and managed to create, you know, these kinds of projects where they can exercise their autonomy, exercise their voice and their self determination.

James (26:38)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (26:39)

I think, of course, that there's a level of, I think, co optation or attempts by the government of Venezuela to use those projects or to integrate those projects into their apparatus or to gain legitimacy through those projects.

James (26:56)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (26:56)

But as always, the situation on the ground is very complex and people are going to have different perspectives and feelings on the levels of government involvement in their communes and whatnot. I think the best outcome for Venezuelans would have been, well, of course, primarily the lifting of US sanctions and you know, secondarily their own self directed liberation from the imposition of the government on their projects. But you know, there are those who have those projects who support the government involvement, who get received funding and that kind of thing.

James (27:35)

So it's complex like you say. Right. Like these things aren't binaries. It's not like always good, always bad. But as you said. Right. Like our solidarity with should be with the Venezuelan people. They should be the ones who get to decide who rules Venezuela.

Andrew Sage (27:50)

Yeah. I mean, even if I disagree with them.

James (27:52)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (27:52)

I still think it's ultimately up to them.

James (27:54)

We should want a world in which they can choose even if they don't choose what we want. Otherwise it's just another kind of colonial project. Right. And I think that colonial impulse, and let's also be honest, there is a racialized component to the way that the American left talks to people in the global South. Right. And I think, like we should not overlook that, that they think that people aren't capable of either they don't know what's best for them and they need to be told by someone else, or that they're not capable of understanding. Like people in Venezuela are extremely aware of the consequences of US intervention. I lived with people who were tortured in Chile when I, when I lived in Venezuela, many people came from fleeing Pinochet right to Venezuela. It was a place that previously accepted migrants, before migrants ended up leaving in large numbers as they have now. People are extremely aware of what U.S. intervention means. You know, they're much better educated than most Americans on affairs in south and Central America.

Andrew Sage (28:52)

Yeah.

James (28:53)

They know the game that is being played here. And I would just like to see people afford them the same humanity that they afford people in this country. Shouldn't be that difficult, but it genuinely seems to be.

Andrew Sage (29:05)

Yeah. I think too there's an element where you know them with their knowledge, may make calculations, may make decisions that you with that same knowledge wouldn't make. You know, because there's internal disagreement too. The people who have the same knowledge and then they come to different conclusions about that, about the best course of action, about the best trade offs that they should be making, about how they navigate the conditions they've been placed in.

James (29:35)

Yeah.

Andrew Sage (29:35)

And I think There's. There's room for those conversations to be had without, you know, erasing that diversity of perspectives in favor of that simple binary that we keep coming back to.

James (29:48)

Yeah, definitely. Like, there's no need for that condescension. Like, if we can give criticisms from a place of solidarity. One of the things that I learned when I was in Rojava, like, not everything that happens there is something that I think is perfect or good. Right. And there are a lot of people there, including internationalists. Right. Like, there's an anarchist group, Tekoshin Anarchist, who are an anarchist group within the revolution. And like, the revolution itself is not purely anarchist. Right. But they exist to give criticism from a place of solidarity. And both groups wanting the other group to get better. Right. To have what they want to succeed, which is how our relations with these other, like, I guess liberation struggles in Venezuela would be a reasonable term to use. Right. Like, our relations with them should be that we care about you and we hopefully both care about these things. Right. About human liberation, about people being able to live with dignity and respect. And we could disagree, but we're ultimately disagreeing from a place of solidarity and support, not of condescension, which is what I see. Far too much, I think, when I'm on the Internet.

Andrew Sage (30:57)

Exactly, exactly. So Noriega and Maduro are not interchangeable. Panama in 1989 is not Venezuela in 2026. The political systems, regional dynamics, and global context are different, but the stories told to justify US Intervention are pretty familiar. In Panama, the invasion was framed as a moral necessity to stop drugs, restore democracy, and defend American lives. And this is in spite of the fact the US Collaborated with that very same regime for years beforehand. Interestingly, in Venezuela's case, the justifications were also pretty similar at first. Stopping drugs, restoring democracy, defending American lives. And just like with Panama, they faced sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and economic pressure. But after the invasion of Venezuela, Trump just dropped the pretense entirely. He just came out and said it, yeah, we want their oil. So what. What is the international community going to do about it? The laws do not apply to us. In fact, we are going to withdraw from all of those international agreements that, you know, threaten our interest. You could look this up, that the US Literally put this into. What was it?

James (32:17)

It's an executive order. Right.

Andrew Sage (32:18)

Let go this executive order.

James (32:20)

Right, yeah.

Andrew Sage (32:21)

That they're withdrawing from all of these international agreements that don't align with what they want. And so in both the case of Panama and the case of Venezuela, American interests supersede all else American laws somehow apply to the entire world while the world's laws never apply to America. Yep, and the actual people on the ground in both cases don't matter at all. And also another parallel the domestic American narrative of racialized fear and drug war hysteria can be found in both invasions. And just like Panama left the media consciousness after the invasion as though the problems were solved, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a similar situation play out after they get what they want out of Venezuela. Suddenly all the issues that Venezuela have would no longer be in the picture because America got what they wanted. Yeah, of course it's a development story, so it remains to be seen. That's all I have for today. History does not repeat, but it's good to know because I find it often rhymes. All power to all the people. Peace.

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