This is a chapter from my book entitled 'Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire'. At the time of this I was working for the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice.
“From Mexico to Argentina, Latin American governments today roundly condemn the use of force by the United States against General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama.”
—New York Times, Dec. 21, 1989, p. 24
“I appreciate the support that we’ve received, strong support from the United States Congress, and from our Latin American neighbors.”
—George Bush, Dec. 21, 1989, reported in New York Times, Dec. 22, 1989, p. 16
On December 20, 1989, in the dead of night, George H. W. Bush (King George I) invaded the country of Panama ostensibly to go after one bad apple by the name of Manuel Noriega. It was called Operation Just Cause, but the cause was not just. Manuel Noriega had been on the CIA’s payroll since the 1950s when he became an informant, paid over $200,000 a year by the U.S., to spy on his fellow classmates at a military academy. Over the years, this corrupt man had been a CIA operative during at least six U.S. presidential administrations, going back to the first years Nixon was in office.
The invasion of Panama was done, in part, to re-establish U.S. control over the Canal Zone, but also to help justify the existence of the military-industrial complex. All signs pointed to the collapse of the Soviet Union just two years later. We were about to lose our big enemy and had no good “enemy” prospects lined up. What was a war monger to do? Go bomb someone who could not retaliate of course. Another reason for the invasion was to field test new high tech weapons systems like the Stealth bomber. It was used to drop bombs that “liberated” the Panamanian people from our bad boy, Noriega.
El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood, was bombed, shelled with heavy artillery, strafed, and finally burned to the ground by U.S. troops. One resident, a young mother, told investigators after the invasion that “helicopters were firing all kinds of weapons because you could hear the bursts, and explosions were of different intensities...The lights in the neighborhood went out and houses began to burn. It was chaos. People tried to leave their burning homes but found themselves between two fires...tanks, and armored cars, and U.S. soldiers on foot advancing, firing. We could hardly believe it.” Another resident reported that a group of U.S. soldiers came down his street and “entered each house. We saw the people—the residents—coming out, followed by soldiers, and then we saw the houses, one by one, go up in smoke. The U.S. soldiers were burning the houses.”
In order to hide the dead, the U.S. military dug mass graves and bulldozed bodies into them. Cremating bodies was another method used to destroy the evidence of the massacre. A report from the Panamanian National Human Rights Commission claimed that in Cocle province “hundreds of bodies were cremated” by U.S. troops using flamethrowers.
Some speculated that another reason for the invasion was that Noriega had not followed U.S. orders to assist in the illegal U.S. war on Nicaragua in 1986. This was punishment for his “betrayal” of his bosses in Washington.
For me, it was painful to watch the U.S. media grovel and promote the invasion as something patriotic, when in fact it was a sad and despicable moment in American history. The main Pentagon spokesman during the invasion was a guy named Pete Williams who, today, works as a reporter for NBC-TV. Now imagine that today you are watching your TV evening news wanting to believe that you are getting the best fair, balanced, honest reporting possible and then Pete Williams comes on the screen. My first reaction is to feel sick to my stomach. I remember that he was the Pentagon spokesman during Operation Just Cause and that he lied through his teeth about the reason for the invasion and insisted that we were not killing innocent civilians.
Pete Williams has no credibility. He is not a journalist. He is a Pentagon operative who has been placed inside the mainstream media to pose as a reporter. His job is to gain the confidence of the American people and to lie to us every chance he gets. And because very few people will remember all the way back to December, 1989, they will believe Pete Williams at NBC. But I won’t. I will always remember that Pete Williams at NBC is really Pete Williams at the Pentagon. The same tall man with glasses—he lied to each of us about how the U.S. never killed innocent people in Operation Just Cause. It was an action to liberate the Panamanian people. Pete Williams said so......
But I won’t forget..........Pete Williams at NBC/Pentagon/NBCentagon......
Bruce
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