US Recalls Noriega Playbook: Same Game, New 'Dictator'
CBS News, in a dazzling display of historical amnesia, links a Venezuelan leader's potential capture to the 1989 arrest of Panama's Manuel Noriega, framing both as triumphant US interventions against 'dictators.' What they conveniently omit? Noriega was a long-time CIA asset, on the US payroll since 1968, until he defied Washington's interests. The invasion, dubbed 'Operation Just Cause,' saw
27,000 US troops deployed, leaving thousands of Panamanian civilians dead and displacing tens of thousands more, according to Human Rights Watch. The 'drug kingpin' narrative only emerged when Noriega stopped playing ball. One might wonder if the US policy handbook simply recycles old chapters: fund, befriend, arm, then demonize and depose when the asset becomes inconvenient. The timing of this
journalistic 'comparison' is impeccable, diverting attention from the US's own history of installing and subsequently toppling leaders in the region. How many 'dictators' are merely inconvenient figures in the US sphere of influence?