Operation Just Cause- Noriega's takedown was the Blueprint for Venezuela- - YouTube

Current tensions with Venezuela are a major headline in the news. The public wonders if there will be an invasion as opposed to simply sinking drug boats. Would an invasion be necessary? If so, how would it unfold? There is a precedent for such an action, the December 1989 invasion of Panama, and that operational template could be used again. U.S. forces hit Panama fast, multiple targets, same night, overwhelming force, and by the time the smoke cleared, the operation was called a total success. But here's the part that still won't die. United Nations later called a flagrant violation of international law. But was it? Their primary target was General Manuel Noriega, who is the face of this story, the strongman, the trigger, and the villain in the official narrative. His actions prompted a strong response. President George H. W. Bush laid out the case, protect 35,000 U.S. citizens in Panama, restore democracy after a stolen election, and arrest Noriega for links to Colombian drug cartels trafficking narcotics into the U.S. and protect the Panama Canal. What precipitated this military action? Why did the U.S. decide to invade? What were the primary objectives? What was the end result? Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army and Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. Beginning of the toughest 26 days in Marine Corps history. 36th president of the United States died this afternoon. The invasion of Panama did not come out of nowhere. After the May 1989 election, the situation escalated hard. Noriega moved to override the outcome. Diplomatic efforts failed. Americans were being targeted. So the U.S. shifted from pressure to planning. Noriega had a long, complicated relationship with U.S. intelligence. U.S. officials had previously worked with him, but he was never fully trusted by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and others in the U.S. government. The U.S. position was that Noriega attempted to nullify and override the result of the election, followed by failed diplomatic efforts, including intervention by the Organization of American States, and he continued to consolidate his power. In May 1989, Bush ordered 1,900 more troops to Panama, augmenting the 12,000 already there. Inside U.S. planning, the mindset changed from slow introduction to a massive, rapid, decisive invasion if things escalated. In May and October 1989, Noriega had ruthlessly crushed the opposition to his rule from within his own military. This prompted the revision of Operation Blue Spoon to sporadically send U.S. forces to Howard Air Force Base in Panama as to not raise any alarms should the situation deteriorate. Major General William Matts, then a brigadier general and involved in the planning, explains this development. I arrived at the 7th Infantry Division in the summer of 1988. Noriega had taken over and made In fact, he became what I would call a narco-militaristic regime at the time. The national authorities under Reagan were watching him closely. In fact, I remember Caspar Weinberger saying, and I was his executive officer there in 87, that, hey, I think someday we're going to have to go down and teach that guy a lesson. A set of contingency plans were developed by the JCS. They were called Blue Spoon, which were part of the prayer book series of contingency plans to get down into Panama if we ever had to. I was a young brigadier general. I was the assistant division commander for support. So it was my job to outload the division in the event that we got a wheels-up notice to get out of there. And so I got very much involved in the outload procedures and on the plans on moving our units to the departure airfields, getting them down there into the AO and so forth. The Joint Task Force was set. The concept hit multiple targets across Panama at once, create confusion, split the Panamanian Defense Force, and end the fight before it can even organize. It was considered necessary to replace Noriega as the de facto military dictatorship with the recognized elected government. There was also the concern that Noriega would take Americans hostage. In June, U.S. Southern Command under General Maxwell Thurman and the Pentagon escalated their planning from a slow introduction of troops to a large, massive, rapid, and overwhelming and decisive invasion if needed. 18th Airborne Corps under Lieutenant General Carl W. Steiner was requested as the Joint Task Force headquarters. The plan would be to hit multiple targets scattered throughout Panama and timed to create confusion and divide Panamanian forces. President Bush framed this as an imminent danger to Americans in Panama and the point at which diplomacy had effectively run out. Panama was already a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Steiner was selected to be the combatant commander, so to speak. Steiner, as I recall, broke it down into really four primary task forces. There was Task Force Atlantic, which consisted of about 6,000 soldiers. That was the 7th Infantry Division. That was my unit. The objectives were to secure the France airfield, to secure the key canal facilities that were within his AO, and to capture the Gamboa prison, and also to secure the Madden Dam area. Had Noriega gotten in there and blown that up, it would have made for a very difficult situation. Task Force Pacific, they were located obviously in the Pacific area around Panama City. That was primarily 82nd Airborne Division and the Ranger Battalion. Their objectives were to secure the airfields in the area, of which there were three, to control the routes going in and out of Panama City, and also to destroy the PDF. Then there was Task Force Semper Fi, which were the Marines. They had a very key objective, protecting the canal crossings, primarily the Bridge of Americas. And then the fourth task force was Task Force Bayonet. Their objectives were to destroy the PDF bases in Panama City and to destroy the Comandancia, which is Noriega's headquarters. To secure and defend the airfields that were in that area. Also to secure the embassy, the Fort Amador housing area, which was the prime housing area there for all the Americans that were stationed down there, both military and civilian. And their last objective also included protecting South Com Headquarters. The tactical objective for all of us was to destroy, take out, neutralize, whatever word you want to use, the Panamanian Defense Force and to capture Noriega. In his formal letter to Congress, Bush described the action as self-defense, citing U.N. Charter Article 51, and consistent with U.S. responsibilities under the Canal Treaties, and welcomed by the democratically elected Panamanian government he recognized. Then the fuse was lit. On December 15, 1989, Panama's National Assembly aligned with Noriega and declared a state of war with the United States. On December 16, U.S. Marine First Lieutenant Robert Paz was killed in an encounter with Panamanian forces and his two comrades wounded. U.S. personnel were beaten. One incident included the kidnapping of a naval officer and the sexual assault of his wife. American military police were taken and beaten. At that point, diplomacy was over. The invasion clock had started. Paratroopers, Army Light Infantry, and Marines moved fast, converging on primary objectives. Major General Matts explains how the mission unfolded with U.S. Army Paratroopers, Light Infantry, and U.S. Marines landing and converging to tackle the primary objectives. So my job was to stay back there, kick out all of our battalions, get them off, get them out to the departure airfields, get them loaded on the aircraft, which the Air Force did a tremendous job that night. That was the 60th military air wing out of Travis. And incidentally, we also had to take over the Monterey Airport because we couldn't get everything out of just Travis Air Force Base. So we used two departure airfields on the West Coast, both controlled by the 7th ID. Actually, I was the guy sort of responsible running back and forth between them, working with the Air Force and getting our guys out there, our ammunition out there, our pallets, our artillery, everything loaded on time and getting out of there. Panamanian resistance varied. Some positions fought, some collapsed, and as organized forces lose cohesion, the chaos mutates. Roving bands, looting, and hit-and-run tactics became part of the battlefield. And back home, the world was watching in real time. Protestors showed up at Fort Ord, California, home to the 7th Infantry Division Light. Even in a clean operation, the politics started biting immediately. By this time, the world press and the U.S. public were well aware of the situation. Congressional Representative Leon Panetta had a call placed to Brigadier General Matz, who was still at Fort Ord, regarding these protesters. So I was still back there, and of course, Panetta was very concerned because there were protesters at the front gate, and they were protesting the fact that we should not be invading a completely, quote, friendly country. They wanted to come on post. They had bullhorns. They were from the San Francisco, San Jose area, and just really raised as much hell as they could at the front gate. We obviously didn't let them in, but I got a call saying, you know, that we should oblige them and those kinds of things. I actually answered the call. I didn't talk to Panetta, but talked to his representatives. I said, hey, I'm busy getting troops out of here and providing resupply. I'll get back to you. So I guess that wasn't good enough. A couple hours later, I got another call, and finally, I turned the mic over to our military police people who were there, and they took control of the situation. Actually, they apprehended a few of the more belligerent protesters at the gate. None of them ever got on post. So that was a little story in itself, too, and of course, that made the press and those kinds of things. U.S. forces encountered some stiff resistance at certain locations, while others were less defended. Yeah, well, as soon as we got the troops out of there, we got out of there in a few hours, but then we had follow-on log birds going back and forth each day with ammunition, supplies, etc. The time I got down there, actually, most of the real fighting with the PDF was done, because our forces took them out, took them down very, very quickly. But there were a lot of mop-up operations, etc. I went out, visited Keith Kellogg's outfit. He was still moving through some of his missions and sort of cleaning up the city of Cologne. Yeah, I got down there then and stayed until the end of January and brought our final forces, 7th ID forces, back when they finally came back in January after we did all of the mop-up operations, which took us all the way to the Costa Rican border on one side and the Colombian border on the other. Many Panamanian forces lost the will to fight and devolved into roving bands of thugs and looters. The much-vaunted Dignity Battalions remained the main threat, as they were not professionally trained soldiers, and they resorted to criminal activity against their own civilians and performed hit-and-run attacks against U.S. forces. Noriega ultimately took refuge in the Vatican Embassy and later surrendered to U.S. forces to face trial. And inside the U.S. Army, the operation was praised as so well executed that Congress and the press could find no fault with it. The cost in U.S. casualties was 23 killed and 322 wounded. Civilian casualties, urban destruction, and a disputed body count became a talking point. Decades later, the issue still bites. Panama has continued looking for remains in possible mass graves from the invasion era, but many Panamanians were killed by their own people in friendly fire and brutal repression, as well as used as human shields. Others died fighting as guerrillas against U.S. forces. I don't give a lot of credence at all to any of the stories or any of the embellishment that a lot of Panamanian citizens were killed. I didn't see any of that, and I was in charge those last couple weeks there, and included in that were the POW cages, and I did not see a lot of Panamanian casualties. I did not see a lot of Panamanians unnecessarily detained, etc. At that time, we were trying to clear out these final dignity battalions, which really became quite ruthless and quite dangerous. I went into the hospitals afterward that were still there, did not see a lot of Panamanian casualties. So, you know, these stories that come about that there were tremendous casualties and those kinds of things among the Panamanians and the civilians is not correct. And as far as I know, there were no American casualties at all. I'm talking about the families of the people that worked at the canal and the families of the military that were stationed there. None of them got hurt. The U.N. General Assembly condemned the invasion as a flagrant violation of international law, arguing the triggers didn't amount to an imminent armed attack that would justify invasion. Human Rights Watch, America's Watch, also criticized aspects of the operation, especially attacks in dense urban areas like El Chorrillo, including the claim that civilians weren't warned when warning could have reduced harm. Given the rising temperature with Venezuela today, Operation Just Cause may just be a template for any similar action being considered by the Trump administration. We're all reading the same news and listening to the administration, the DOD, and to the president. He has declared what I believe Venezuela now a narco state. We all know what he's doing by taking out the narco boats. He's got about 17, 18 percent of our active duty Navy down in and around the Caribbean. And of course, there's been some language about maybe even putting boots on the ground. So when I started hearing this, what is maybe as much as 10 days ago, I thought to myself right away, take out Just Cause and dust it off, because Just Cause was such an exceptionally well-planned and well-executed plan. One of the bigger differences is we don't have a lot of Americans or American families down there like we had in Panama, where we had to take care of and watch. In fact, there are very few Americans, I guess, right now in Venezuela. All the oil guys have left, etc. I am not one to advocate putting boots on the ground or in a vertical landing by airborne troops. All of that type planning, we did and executed in Just Cause. So it behooves us to take a look at that, because you would have some of the same forces, I'm sure, go down into Venezuela, should our Commander-in-Chief elect to go down there and take out pockets of it that way. Was Panama a justified rescue, protecting Americans, securing the canal, removing a dictator, or a president that stretched imminent danger into a full-scale invasion? Decades later, was removing Noriega the right call? And, if so, would a similar invasion of Venezuela be justified, or even work? Let us know what you think. Thank you for watching this episode of Forgotten History. If you liked what you saw, please click like, share, and subscribe. And, if you would like to assist with the ever-increasing costs of production, please consider becoming a channel member and joining our Patreon page.