Get To Know Your Dictator: Manuel Noriega

Friday was the 20th anniversary of the Manuel Noriega’s conviction on drug trafficking and assholishness charges in Miami. Before that he spent the better part of 20 years as the American supported thug dictator of Panama.  In that vein, let’s take a look at this classic bit of Latin American dicktatory-goodness.

Manuel, the man who proved that you don’t need good skin to be a politician, started off as a military man with extensive CIA training. In fact Manny was a career CIA man, becoming one of the agencies assets in the mid-1960’s until we invaded his country in 1989. He is a textbook example of American interventionism gone wrong. The U.S. had a strategic need to control the area because of the Panama Canal. The Yanquis worried that, if left to their own devices, those silly Panamanians might fall into communism. Noriega capitalized on this fear by ruthlessly going after any leftist guerrillas in Panama and the surrounding areas, thus proving his loyalty to his buddies up north.

He consolidated power in 1983, becoming the de facto ruler of Panama, while continuing the sham of a democracy for PR purposes. Noriega teamed up with fellow thug-asshole Pablo Escobar to run tons of cocaine (Yeyo)  into South Florida, creating one of Latin America’s most powerful ‘Narco-dictatorships.’ He stole millions from Panama’s coffers and from Escobar, as well as receiving payment from the CIA, addding up to make him one extremely rich asshole, (though he never could afford Proactiv solution for his crater face.)

Following another corrupt election in 1989, Manny got cocky and started to antagonize his employers in Washington. Thinking that George Bush, Sr. didn’t have the cojones to do anything about it, he ordered his troops to engage with the Americans in the canal zone and he began seizing U.S. property. Unfortunately for Manny, Bush borrowed some cojones from wife Barbara and invaded Panama in 1989. (Manny hadn’t heard of the Bush family hobby of regime change.) After several days of hiding out in the Vatican embassy, Manny gave himself up and was brought to Miami for trial. Convicted on several counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and bad skin charges, he has spent the last 20 years in prison there. He even found Jesus in prison,(if by Jesus you mean his Cuban boyfriend and cell mate, Chuy.) When he gets out he will be extradited to France to serve ten years on money laundering charges and then to Panama to face charges for murder, human rights abuses, drug trafficking and, again, bad skin.

Manny Noriega is a classic example of an American puppet whose thuggishness was accepted as a necessary evil as long as he did what the U.S. wanted. Manny was a straight up murderer, thief and drug dealer who was allowed to rule a country for years out of expediancy. Senator John Kerry once said that Noriega was, “One of the United States’ biggest foreign policy blunders.” D’oh!