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The Invasion of Panama In order to carry out his invasion of Panama in 1989, as Jonathan Alter states in the article For Bush, the Best of a bad bargain? , President Bush had two alternatives to choose: either to tolerate Manuel Noriega (Newsweek: January 1, 1990, p. 23) and in this way to make a tacit confession of importance (Newsweek: January 1, 1990), or to follow a more drastic path: to start a war to remove Noriega (Newsweek: January 1, 1990) and consequently to level buildings, to kill civilians and, in other words, to victimize the whole country of Panama for the sake of political purposes of the USA. The option the American President implemented, the war against Panama, was named in the article a product o failure (Newsweek: January 1, 1990), because Bush's diplomats showed their inability to find out the middle course between the mentioned extremes. This war could be a lesson for the American President as it neither had official justification, - to destroy Panama to save it? - nor produced desirable outcomes. On the whole, I agree with the author of the article For Bush, the Best of a bad bargain? that this radical step - the invasion of Panama- was unnecessary and, what is more, it resulted in many complications and negative consequences. First, in regard to the invasion, the United States would have to pay a high price.
This concerns money, morals and political issues. The author of the article mentioned 20 million dollars as covert aid (Newsweek: January 1, 1990), which can be added to the assistance and sponsoring of opposition and rebels in Panama. But, to my mind, when a matter concerns a war, no money issues can valued more than a price of human lives lost in it. No morals and no laws can justify violation and death. Politically, America demonstrated to the whole world its tendency to dominate and to unleash a war while pursuing its own goals. Second, according to the article, the United States had to stay in Panama for a long period of time: from April 1998, when there was a little publicized fire fight with Panama forces (Newsweek: January 1, 1990) in American media; and until the end of 1989, when president Bush's options narrowed to two: tolerate Manuel Noriega, or start a war to remove Noriega (Newsweek: January 1, 1990).
This fact testifies to violence, fire fights, unmeasured deaths of the both parts, and all the other disasters of war conflicts. Nobody knows how messy the war was, but I think that even one human life lost can be regarded as a huge price. Third, the capture of Manuel Noriega brought many problems instead of a long awaited conclusion. Bush stated losing the confidence of American Congress and the Senate. In October President failed to aid a coup (Newsweek: January 1, 1990, p. 23).
He requested 20 million dollars and the Senate cut this sum in half (Newsweek: January 1, 1990, p. 23)... Moreover Bush and his planners got a nickname Keystone Cops in the Senate (Newsweek: January 1, 1990, p. 23), which implies political clumsiness of the President in foreign affairs. Consequently, hot debates and discussions among American politicians and sinking of the Bush's rating somewhat delayed the installation of democracy in Panama after the capture of Noriega and as Jonathan Alter sadly admitted, The moment for helping Panamians change their own government had passed. (Newsweek: January 1, 1990). Unfortunately, I have to conclude in my essay that the invasion of Panama and the removal of Noriega were carried out under a silent approval of American public. Though the article reported some favorable attitude to the dictator among U.
S. officials, for example, when Noriega was indicted by Florida grand juries, not everyone in the U. S. government agreed that he had to go (Newsweek: January 1, 1990) and chairman of the Joint Chiefs stuff at the time, rejected invasion Newsweek: January 1, 1990), no attempt to condemn the policy and stop the violent plan of President was made. Probably, this silent approval resulted from the fact that American media was strictly censored and fire fights were little-publicized (Newsweek: January 1, 1990) in the American press.
Bibliography: Alter Jonathan, For Bush, the best of a Bad Bargain? , Newsweek, January 1, 1990, p. 23.
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