US Intervention: The Panama Canal

The construction of the Panama Canal has a number of important foreign policy implies, First it led to the United States' supporting independent factions, who separated the republic of Panama from Colombia, and it also led to the granting of sovereign land rights to the United States over the Panama Canal Zone. The Panama Canal had massive suggestions for

Roosevelt felt strongly about trade throughout the world. In 1904 the Isthmus of Panama was first broken by American shovel. After months of negotiation, the Latin American government allowed the creation of the Panama Canal. The U.S. military and other volunteers did most of the work. But because of Yellow Fever and Malaria , few workers returned. In 1914 the Canal Zone was finished and for the first time the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans were flowing together.

In 1989 under the George H.W Bush administration the United States was involved in war with Panama. In December of that year, the United States Military invaded Panama to overthrow Manuel Noriega, the military dictator of the country. Manuel Noriega was accused of drug trafficking in the United States and also abolished democracy in Panama. He also harmed the stability of the United Nations. Before Noriega was accused of such actions, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in the attempt to assist the U.S in the plan to reduce communism in Central America. He worked for the United States and then removed from the CIA because of his affiliation with drug trafficking. Then he was brought back to the side of the United

On 24 April 1965 the youthful military officers ascended in the Dominican Republic. After four days the United State troops ambushed the nation. It was the essential US military intercession in Latin America in over 30 years. These occasions went on to the main point of everyone's thought somewhat, in reverse Caribbean republic where until 1916 ordinary war and had been the standard, vote based system and honest to government the brief uncommon case. By then the United States attacked, and the eight-year United States occupation orchestrated the one party of Rafael Trujillo, which went from 1930 until his going in May 1961. The nation climbed out of the harm of Trujillo in the midst of a period when the United States was so worried about a

Then later the United States discovered a scandal with Iran and Noriega. President Ronald Reagan hammered him with a bunch of drug related indictments in United States courts; however, laws are different internationally and Noriega said these accusations weren’t credible and he did not accept Reagan’s demands of stepping down. In 1988, Elliot Adams and many others surrounding the Pentagon were requesting to pursue an invasion in Panama. But President Ronald Reagan refused to pursue the invasion due to Vice President Bush’s relations to General Noriega, ironically back then his duty was the task force on drugs, and President Reagan sought that it would hurt Vice President Bush’s presidential campaign. Later the charges on General Noriega were dropped on the drug trafficking incidents. In March 1988, an attempted invasion went through against the government of Panama but was resisted by Noriega's forces. As relations continued to get really bad, Noriega appeared to shift his support to the other Cold War leaders. Due to these alliances, the United States government started coming up with a plan to invade Panama. In May 1989, during the Panamanian National Elections, a

In December 19989, thousands of American troops invaded Panama with the goals of extraditing the dictator, General Manuel Noriega, to the United States and reinstating true democracy within the nation after being indicted by two federal grand juries in Florida, after months of economic sanctions and covert tactics meant to force him out of power. In the years since there has been a question as to the validity of the reasoning behind the interference. Shortly after the invasion, President Bush gave his reasons and goals saying “the goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, [and] to combat drug trafficking…” for the operation but further investigation contradicts what the people were

American attitudes towards Latin America can be summed up as an extension of larger global directives, and the exclusion of foreign powers in the region. This was highlighted especially during the Cold War as US involvement was essentially in competition with the USSR. Latin America was therefore a mere pawn in the larger context of US-Soviet competition for global dominance. The actions and methods used are also characterized by the lack of an international authority, or an atmosphere of inter-state anarchy, which shaped their calculations in the endeavor to increase their influence over Latin America. When one analyzes the situation, it seems only rational that the United States treated its southern neighbors so, due to the geographical

In 1903, the United states under President Theodore Roosevelt signed a treaty with Panama which gave over the rights to build and control the passage through what we now know as the famous Panama Canal, with the purpose of creating a politically, economically and geographically significant waterway that would allow for the travel of ships from the

Doing so in a time where everyone scrambled to collect money, only increased the likelihood of corruption. Paying with drug money appealed to those in the covert war, covert meaning secretive activities are fulfilled without knowing the sponsors. Thus, the U.S. could disagree with the action, but still not know that they were sponsoring, since many drug traffickers disguised their intentions while negotiating with political groups. Also, the weapons and/or drugs were supplied by various people, even by professional personnel, such as the Panamanian Defense Forces, so we do know there was governmental involvement, not just naïve volunteering. The drug traffickers may have made a deal that if the U.S. or other participating countries provided weapons, they would provide them with drugs to produce money in order to give the traffickers the weapons, without losing resources or causing financial

This is a good thing about Latin America because it would probably impact the economy if it wasn’t there. It is the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is a waterway that brings together the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean. It really helped trade in Latin America. The canal was built by the Americans in 1904 and a lot of leaders took over the project, including John Wallace, John Stevens and George Washington Goethals. The project was finished in 1914 after taking 10 years to build. The Panama Canal is an important feature to Latin America because it is a quicker way to import and export goods or cargo. It made it easier because instead of going all the way around South America you can go through Panama which saves you a lot of time. That means a lot of more ships pass through. If there was no Panama Canal like I said it would take a lot longer to travel to bring stuff somewhere by water. I also think there would be less ships traveling because not a lot of people would like to travel a long time at sea. I also think a lot of people would die because the trip would take so long. That is how the Panama Canal impacted Latin America in a good way.

Certainly, the Republic of Panama paid a heavy price for the excesses of entrenched military regime in power for over two decades and which was the culminating stage narco-dictatorship of Noriega. The secret services of the United States, for which Noriega had worked, were undoubtedly the most responsible for the situation created in Panama. But we must not forget that Carter legitimized the dictatorial and unconstitutional regime subscribing Torrijos in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. Moreover, Washington sponsored the electoral fraud of 1984 and up to a certain extent the moral corruption and mismanagement, but that was not all. Once the troops invaded Panama and the Defense Force was disintegrated, Americans assumed police functions implementing the order or avoiding the chaos that was produced. The aid pledged for reconstruction was cut by the U.S. Congress to assist Nicaragua. Our country is not even able to recover intact the 375 million that were being held in respect of payments for the Canal and taxes of U.S. companies. United States arranged for a part of it served to pay off part of servicing the external debt had not been paid in recent years.

So, they began feeding the public information about Noriega’s involvement in drug trafficking in order to undermine him. Noriega’s involvement in drug trafficking was soon placed in a number of news articles. Unfortunately, at that time, the general agreement was that the cost of military intervention would outweigh whatever benefits they could hope to gain. In addition, Noriega had considerable knowledge of U.S. military and intelligence (Robinson, 190). Because Washington had no wish to be defeated as they had in previous wars during the Cold War, and Noriega was not an imminent threat, they chose to restrain themselves from using military force.

Clearly the U.S. government prioritized national security goals over drug trafficking. Even the timing of Matta Ballesteros’s capture was suspect. Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco, noted how the U.S. government eventually used extreme and illegal means to capture Matta Ballesteros, but the raid didn’t take place until 12 days after the Contra/Sandinista ceasefire in 1998.

Pinochet was put into power . This is a perfect example of how the US foreign policy replaced genuine democracy with dictatorship for their own benefit, and again, supposedly in the name of National Security. Latin America was a victim of US foreign policy and corporate greed.

To what degree were the measures taken by the DINA effective in stopping opposition to Pinochet from 1973 to 1977?