Mainstream media coverage and political non-debate regarding the U.S. Christmas invasion of Panama have been so debased and one-sided that the naysaying commentator (yours truly) hardly knows where to start a discussion of the issue. But, for now, let's start at the beginning with some elementary talk about the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations.
You don't hear much about the principle of non-intervention in American political discourse these days, but they still talk about it at the United Nations and in other exotic, non-English-speaking corners of the world. In fact, non-intervention is widely held, by global treaties and institutions, to be one of the rules of the road of civilized international relations.
Not only is non-intervention the international law, but it is also demonstrably the right thing to do. Large and powerful countries should not use their might to force their will in the internal affairs of their smaller neighbors. It's wrong when bullies do it in schoolyards, and it's wrong when superpowers do it in their "sphere of interest."
It's even wrong when it is aimed at getting rid of a reprobate like Manuel Noriega. And that's worth remembering, because the tricky thing about non-intervention is that everybody has their pet exceptions. Liberal Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is against anti-communist interventions and for "anti-drug" ones. The equally liberal Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY) is against intervention in Central America but all for it in Cambodia. Lots of otherwise nice people supported Bush's recent military intervention to prop up President Corey Aquino in the Philippines.
But non-intervention works best when you make no exceptions. For one thing, that's the only way to be fair.
The new leaders of the Soviet Union seemed to have learned this lesson about non-intervention. They got out of Afghanistan as fast as face allowed, and they've steadfastly refused any new foreign entanglements. In the final days of 1989, as the dominoes were falling all over Eastern Europe, a top Soviet official of the Gorbachevian school explained that the Brezhnev Doctrine -- which had long maintained the Soviet Union's right to intervene militarily to preserve Communist rule -- had been replaced in his country by the "Sinatra doctrine." Under the Sinatra doctrine, the official explained, Soviet allies have the right to "do it their way."
Frankie may be Chair of the Board in the Warsaw Pact, but U.S. policy toward our smaller neighbors seems to be dominated by the (Mick) "Jagger doctrine," with the theme song being The Stones' '60s sado-classic, "Under My Thumb." That was one of the lessons of George Bush's Panamanian Adventure.
IN FACT, THE RECENT BEHAVIOR of the two superpowers in their respective "backyards" provides a stark contrast between the low road and the high in international affairs. The Soviets have stayed out of recent East European turmoils. In the process they have appeared to encourage diversity, democracy, and self-determination. As a result, epic political changes -- on the scale of those brought by past world wars -- have taken place with (excepting Romania) hardly a drop of bloodshed. In the process the Soviet regime has won the admiration of former adversaries in the West, and even the grudging gratitude of its reluctant allies in the East.
Meanwhile, down on the low road, the United States was seen pouring 20,000 troops and countless tons of ammunition into a small, underdeveloped, and totally dependent country, ostensibly to rid the world of one third-rate tinhorn dictator cum profiteer. In the process we tested the Stealth bomber on the Panama City ghettos, leveled those neighborhoods, and killed unknown hundreds of civilians. The world saw American troops violate the sanctity of diplomatic installations (Nicaraguan and Cuban) and mercilessly harass the Vatican representative in Panama.
We totally disrupted the functioning of Panamanian society, threw the country into complete chaos, and them imposed the iron fist of rule by occupation. Within days our boys were seen shaking down passers-by at roadblocks and rounding up labor leaders and other civilian politicos considered unfriendly by the government we installed. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the Andara presidency, which was indubitable after he won the dishonored May elections, was now beclouded by his subservience to the gringo invaders.
And what was gained by it all? Panamanian politics was apparently purged of nationalist elements and returned to the status quo of the 1950s. One secondary drug-trade figure was extradited to face a questionable prosecution in U.S. courts. U.S. politicians, generals, and establishment journalists got a feel-good "victory" to crow about. We earned the undoubtedly short-lived gratitude of some Panamanians, the scorn of the international community, and the deepened resentment of our Latin American neighbors. Most resentful were those Latin governments, namely Colombia and Peru, whose cooperation and sacrifice are being most demanded in our anti-cocaine campaigns.
There's one more, rather obvious, lesson to be drawn from a parallel observation of recent events in Panama and Eastern Europe. Military action is never the only option against dictatorship. Absent the interference of outside armies, change can come about through the efforts of mere citizens.
Certainly if the Poles could rid themselves of Gen. Wojceich Jaruzelski and the East Germans could bring down Prime Minister Erich Honecker and his henchmen, then the Panamanians could have rid themselves of Noriega. And, even more certainly, they deserved the chance. Noriega deserved to be overthrown and brought to justice, for any one of a dozen reasons, but he deserved to be overthrown by the Panamanian people and brought to Panamanian justice. Only then could one begin to talk about building democracy in that poor, abused country.
BUT DEMOCRACY IN PANAMA was not what this invasion was about. And neither was the drug trade the primary matter at stake. Like everything else involving the United States and Panama in this century, the Christmas invasion was mostly about the Panama Canal.
Here is the real deal. In 1903, there was no Panama and no canal. Then, President Teddy Roosevelt conspired to swipe away the northern province of Colombia, set it up as an "independent" nation, and then make us a waterway through its oh-so-convenient isthmus. And so it was done.
That canal made the United States a global power of the first order -- the only great power to span the two great oceans of the Earth. Even today, in an age of Star Wars and microchips, the canal is one of the keystones of American economic and military power. And to this very day we are loathe to allow the wishes of dark people, whose land our canal happens to traverse, to affect its operation. This is why, since 1903, our troops have intervened more than a dozen times in the internal affairs of the sovereign Panamanian nation we brought to birth.
This is also why the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, which would eventually turn the canal back to Panamanian control, was such a landmark event. Negotiated and signed by President Jimmy Carter, the Canal Treaty represented the first glimmer of an opening toward equity and mutual respect in U.S.-Latin American relations.
The Canal Treaty was also one of the founding issues of the contemporary New Right in American politics. Then-candidate Ronald Reagan led the charge with his famous statement about the canal, "We built it. We paid for it. It's ours."
That still summarizes the view of many official players in post-Reagan Washington toward the canal, and toward Latin America in general. And Noriega's rather colorful misdeeds may have supplied the perfect pretext for the United States to renege on some of its treaty commitments. Especially endangered is the treaty's key provision calling for the United States to remove its entire military presence from Panamanian soil by the end of 1999. That relocation seems highly unlikely now.
The Christmas invasion was also, to a lesser extent, a tryout of the popular theory that the drug war may provide a replacement for the Cold War as the ideological justification for a militarized U.S. economy. For years, at least since Nixon declared the first war on drugs, the Pentagon has refused to get involved in drug interdiction. They said it wasn't their job. And they were right. There are grave constitutional dangers involved in turning the exercise of routine police functions over to the military. But now, with its very reason for being evaporating in the euphoric mists of Central Europe, the generals are rethinking their position and discovering a "national security" angle to the drug question.
The Panamanian conquest represented a logical extension of the growing militarization of the drug war. And in the wake of the action in Panama, the United States sent warships to hover off the coast of Colombia on "anti-drug" duty. A couple of weeks later the U.S. Navy fired on a Cuban merchant ship in international waters off the coast of Panama claiming to suspect the Cuban ship of carrying drugs.
An overtly and covertly militarized "war on drugs" may well become the most important foreign and military policy issue of the 1990s. And so far the official opposition in the Congress and the media is showing no more courage or devotion to truth than it did at the inception of the Cold War in the late 1940s.
Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!