On December 20, 1989, the United States of America invaded the sovereign republic of Panama.
There were four reasons the United States felt that validated the invasion, and according to polls taken during the time, the American public supported them (Downing, 1990).
Many people in the United States are probably not familiar with all of the reasons that were used to legitimize the United States invasion of this small country. If you asked them why we invaded, most would probably say that it was because of Manuel Noriega and his involvement with the CIA. Actually, they would not be entirely wrong.
It has been well documented the Noriega was in fact on the payroll of the CIA. However, it is not the fact of his involvement with the CIA that is the major issue. It is more that he was becoming more increasingly involved with Cuba and Fidel Castro that became a problem for the United States. The United States felt that since Noriega had been involved with the CIA, and since he was now becoming more involved with Cuba, he was becoming a threat to the national security of the U.S.
In February of 1988, a federal grand jury had indicted Noriega for drug trafficking. This seriously soured relations between Panama and the United States. So for the first time, the Pentagon had to consider Panama as a threat. On February 22, 1988, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a planning order for SOUTHCOM to write an operational contingency plan for the defense of the Panama canal and the American lives and property in Panama, taking into consideration a hostile Panamanian Defense Force (PDF).
The command received approval in July of 1988, and Operation Blue Spoon was entered into a family of other contingency plans known as the Prayer Book. This plan covered everything from mass evacuation of American civilian and military dependents in case of the event of local terrorism, to the forcible recapture of the canal. This was all done legally under the terms of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties (McConnell, 1991).
A second reason for the invasion was that American lives were being placed in danger. After Noriega declared the Panama election invalid and he declared himself president, many American soldiers and their dependents began to be harassed (Towel & Felton, 1989).
In May of 1989, elections were held in Panama, and President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents Calderon and Ford were elected. However, Noriega had troops from his PDF Battalions physically beat these elected officials and declared himself the new leader of Panama (Downing,1990). The United States refused to recognize Noriega as the leader of Panama and instead condemned him for his actions.
It was shortly after this that the harassment of U.S. citizens living in Panama began. Some examples of this include a Navy officer being shot and killed for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another incident involved an officer being physically beaten and his wife sexually assaulted (Towell & Felton, 1989). Both of these actions were conducted by the PDF and fully condoned by Noriega himself.
The third component of the invasion of Panama had to do with the Monroe doctrine. The Monroe doctrine states that the United States will not allow the spread of communism into any other country in which communism does not already exist.
After the fall of Cuba to the communists, the United States felt that it could not allow that to happen to any other countries in its Southern Hemisphere. Not only would the spread of communism to another Latin American country place the national security of the United States at risk, but it would also call into question the United States' prestige and credibility.
The United States did not want to appear weak in the eyes of the world by allowing Noriega, a one-time CIA informant, to draw close ties with Cuba and not do anything about it. In order to save face in the eyes of the world, the United States had to do something. They could not just sit idly by while Noriega snubbed his nose at them; especially after Noriega had declared war on the United States on the 15th of December 1989 ( Bush, George, 1989).
Even more so than declaring war on the U.S., troops from Noriega's own PDF Battalions shot and killed a U.S. serviceman the very next day. By these actions it was quite clear that the United States had to do something in Panama or risk being the laughing stock of the world.
The fourth and final component of the invasion of Panama has to do with the accessibility and free flow of trade through the Panama Canal.
Although the canal is not as important as it once was, it still reserves its place as a symbol of U.S. interest and presence in Latin America. This symbolic value has often caused its security to be offered as a justification for intervention in the Southern Hemisphere when the real causes lay elsewhere.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaties with the country of Panama in which the United Sates agreed to give sole custody of the Canal to the country of Panama (Kemp, 1990).
However, there is a clause in this treaty which allows the United States to intervene in the affairs of Panama if the free flow of trade is ever restricted or cut off or if its security is ever placed in danger (Nanda, 1990).
The clause further states that the United States can use whatever force is necessary to reestablish a smooth flow of trade through the Canal. It is through the use of this clause that Bush was able to use this as another reason for the U.S. to invade.
Since it is the President's responsibility to safeguard the lives of American citizens against foreign threats, and since Noriega was beginning to show more interest in Fidel Castro and the left, there was reason to believe that the Canal's peaceful mission might be compromised.
Due to everything that has been stated previously, it is quite obvious that the United States had no other course of action other than to invade Panama. President Bush's quick and decisive decision to invade clearly shows that he would not tolerate this outrage from one single man who claimed himself to be in control of power over a country.
Furthermore, the United States could not recognize him as the leader of Panama, simply because the power that he claimed over the country of Panama came from strong-arming the citizens of Panama, and terrorizing them into submission. According to a poll conducted by Newsweek in January of 1990, "80 percent of Americans polled showed that they felt justified in the U.S. invasion of Panama." This poll clearly demonstrates that not only did President Bush make the right decision, but that 80 percent of the American public would have done the same thing.
On January 3rd, 1990, Noriega surrendered from the Vatican and was finally captured and arrested. He was then transported to a federal prison in Miami. In total, 23 American soldiers were killed and 347 were wounded.
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Complete military details of the operation at the link above.