Mike Brewer

Anybody following this? Manuel Noriega is scheduled for release from US prison on September 9th, and France and Panama both want a shot at him next. France actually sounds like they'd treat him a lot rougher, as Panamanian law allows him to request house arrest due to his age.

Thoughts?

kingoftheforest

Why don't we give some of our younger viewers a little history behind the gentleman's past Mr. Brewer? I'll let you start since it's 21:00 hours here and I have to be up at 04:15 hours to go to work but I will study up some more on the subject and post some info around say 15:00 hours tomorrow.

It's good for the kiddies to be educated.

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Tom Yum

The man had a pretty scarred up face as I remember. Yep, Manuel Noriega - Panama - mid 80's. Promoted himself as dictator of Panama and was accused of trafficking cocaine?

I also remember news clips of the Marines surrounding his compound with some big bad ghetto blaster type stereos playing some Van Halen's Panama and other rock n' roll 24/7 to keep him sleep deprived and force him out.

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DickHardman

did we nab him over cocaine? was he pinching from our sack?? not paying up?? whats the deal.

Mike Brewer

Noriega ran the Panamanian military in the 1980s, and took over as the dictator of Panama, even though he was never legitimately elected President. HE was a useful partner with the US, and as far as I understand it, cooperated with the CIA on intelligence matters dealing with several national security issues from 1970 to about 1983 or 1984. The Reagan "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign put a spotlight on the fact that he was a huge cocaine trafficker, though, so his usefulness in public terms fell a little. Still, I believe he was still pretty useful on several other fronts. He aided US efforts in El Salvador, and allowed us to set up listening posts and observation posts in the region (even though they were technically not allowed by the Panama Canal treaties, they gave us some pretty serious leverage and intelligence capability in the region). He was, in many cases, a useful messenger between the US and Fidel Castro, and while he denies the claim, many people believe that Noriega was a pipeline for money and weapons that we sent to support the contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
In the end, he was a dictator of a tiny, tiny country that held the gateway to international trade, and he started to feel like an untouchable. He got carried away, partly because of his sense of grandeur and partly because he thought we'd back him, and he started screwing with a lot of other people, and with us. Murdering opponents, trafficking huge amounts of money (through French banks, which is a part of why they're mad at him), and exploiting the Panamanian people he was supposed to be leading put him on a quick hit list. He thought that he'd "used" the US long enough to obtain the kind of power that put him out of our reach, so he started biting the hands that fed him, too. We went to get him in part because we had funded him, and we felt it was "our dog" to shoot, so to speak. We busted him for cocaine trafficking, dragged him back to the US, and had no problems making it stick.

As an interesting aside, Tom, that Van Halen music was a PSYOP campaign that has been largely misunderstood to this day. If you recall, he holed up in a church and sought asylum from the Catholics. There was a ton of press on the scene, and in those days, we were smart enough not to let the journalists hear what we were up to. We blasted Van Halen at him through loudspeakers, and told the press it was to make him crazy. Maybe that was part of what was going on, but the real reason behind all that noise was to keep the journalists and camera crews from being able to hear what we were talking about. UNder terms that were never fully disclosed, we negotiated Noriega's arrest, and he was tried and convicted in Florida, where he sits awaiting his release on September 9th of this year.

Anyway, that's the Reader's Digest version. Manuel gets out of jail very soon, and it looks like the Miami judge is willing to sign a letter or extraditability (I'm not making that term up...) for the French to take him when his term here is over. The French have said plainly that they do not intend to allow him many of the "luxuries" he enjoyed in American prisons. Of course, his lawyers are fighting that tooth and claw. They'd rather he went back to Panama and sat it out in his own home on house arrest.

kingoftheforest

I think France should get him. He had a lot of political pull when he left Panama and history has shown with people like Hitler and Castro, that prison helps their cause more than hurts it.

Both where imprisoned before they took over Germany and Cuba respectively. Let him go back home and we may wind up with him Cuba and Venezuela crawling up our tail pipes while we are trying to keep things held down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those two (Chavez and Castro) know all two well that we don't really have the troops to handle an uprising of Dictators in South and Central America with our hands full in the middle east.

Plus as we were discussing in another thread our southern border isn't exactly secure and small armed groups funneling into the U.S. via Mexico is not a far fetched idea. Especially if they are helping and getting help from terrorists who are trying to get in. Our souther neighbors stand a lot to gain from say possibly invading Texas New Mexico and Arizona in small groups and creating havoc with terrorist attacks. While a full scale military invasion is highly unlikely small attacks over time can cripple a countries economy and morale. Just ask Russia they dealt with it for years from their easter bloc.

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Tom Yum

There's also the case of Nelson Mandela, whom was prisoned for 27 years as an accused Communist - whom went on to win hundreds of peace awards and become a leader against the Apartheid Movement in SA.

Perhaps the turnaround is unlikely for a guy like Noriega, but its worth a mention - especially if he could be influenced or motivated to make such a turn around?

Good points. Any updates on funding and construction of the border wall? Last I heard it was dropped from the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers into the Border Patrol.

I believe such a wall would increase the physical security along the border, including the creation of promised Special Response Police Teams and delployment of National Guard troops. This is going to cost money, but is a worthy project - considering that it will improve our national security.

The wall would decrease the number of illegal immigrants in the short to medium term and could have an economic impact.

1. This would decrease the growth rate of illegal immigrant workers nationwide. Businesses that employ illegal immigrants in high numbers would have to look elsewhere for labor and pass the buck onto its customers to maintain profits. This could cause a little bit of regional inflation throughout the south and west coast - hitting agriculture, construction, small scale manufacturing, repair services and tourism. Government Leadership could propose tax breaks for said businesses that would suffer from such losses.

2. The costs of smuggling people, drugs and other contraband across the border would rise sharply. Business could potentially be better for the US-Mexican black market economy.

3. New smuggling routes would be found or made - folks trying to dig under the wall, find weak spots and exploit them or whole new routes using the Gulf of Mexico or Pacific Ocean.

Either way, fixing this problem is going to cost money.

We should take a more serious look at Pork Barrel spending in this day and age, so that we can curb the increasing costs of war, have more financial flexibity for the economic costs of security and get a bigger bang for our tax dollar.

As for other southern neighbors...

I remember reading about the North Korean arms broker-dealer talks with Venezeula in the previous years. Last I read, Chavez was discussing the possbility of purchasing nuclear warheads from DPRK to attach to medium range ballistic missles in his arsenal. Not sure if this was just an attempt to flex muscles, but it shows they've got the possibility to launch a long-distance attack without any invasion.

Chavez's actions have brought us closer to an EU ally - The Netherlands, seeing as he might be looking at prime Real Estate in the former Dutch colonies of Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten. The Dutch have considered strengthening their Naval Presence in the region due to a perceived threat.

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Tom Yum

I apologize for getting a bit off topic.

As a side note, I hope I don't come across as a know-it-all because I don't know squat and I'll never fully know everything.

I'm interested in these issues and am very, very far away from understanding it as I need to. I'm hoping by contributing, I will learn one way or another - which is why I post.

Thanks.

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kingoftheforest

Damn man that was some great info you just put out there. I had just been researching a little more and found the arms talks Chavez was having. Good show Tom.

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Mike Brewer

You're absolutely right, Tom. What do you do when you come up on an accident victim? Clean up the blood, or deal with the open wound that's causing it? We're doing the same thing with immigration that we did with illegal drugs. We're focusing on mopping up the blood, and ignoring the open wound from whence it pours. If you stop up the border and make it secure, you control the bleeding, and the illegals that are here can be dealt with. If you try to deal with the illegals before making the border secure, you're trying to bail out your row-boat with a teaspoon. More will pour in than you can deal with while you're concerned with the fringe.

Fix the wound, and the blood will stop.

Mike Brewer

While you're looking into potential deals with North Korea, check out what Chavez is doing with his proposed oil pipelines into Colombia. I bring it up, because it bears on the Pananma situation. If Chavez can circumvent Panama and access the Pacific without needing the Panama canal, he stands to make a ton of money by shipping oil (weapons? Researchers?) back and forth in and out of Asia. Could a Noriega return to Panama affect that situation?

kingoftheforest

Not to mention the fact that he could cut us off from using the trade routes through the canal since we don't own it anymore. Which would force us to send our already belabored military into S.A. to "get back our rights". This in turn would cause a huge conflict with many other countries in the world especially S.A. and maybe gain Chavez and his crew some more supporters.

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Mike Brewer

Aaaaah! Someone is looking at the globe like a chess board! Bravo!

Tom Yum

Blame that on the large global map in SOF magazine...jk.

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kingoftheforest

You mean it hasn't been one since the Iron Age?

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These opinions and views described above may not be the opinion of forum moderators or owners. These are owned only by this forum member protected by his 1st amendment rights. You do not have to agree with these views.

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