George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

that racist hysteria was being actively elicited. In his speech delivered at 7:20 AM on
December 21, 1989 announcing the US invasion, Bush said: *
Many attempts have been made to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and negotiations. All were
rejected by the dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, an indicted drug trafficker.
Last Friday, Noriega declared his military dictatorship to be in a state of war with the United
States and publicly threatened the lives of Americans in Panama. The very next day forces under
his command shot and killed an unarmed American serviceman, wounded another, arrested and
brutally beat a third American serviceman and then brutally interrogated his wife, threatening her
with sexual abuse. That was enough. [fn 45]
On December 22, Bush was asked what had made him decide to launch the attack now.
He replied:
I think what changed my mind was the events that I cited in briefing the American people on this
yesterday: the death of the Marine, the brutalizing, really obscene torture of the Navy lieutenant,
and the threat of sexual abuse and the terror inflicted on that Navy lieutenant's wife.... [fn 46]
Later in the same press conference Bush obsessively returned to the same topic, this time
answering a question about the Soviet reaction to the US move:
And I also need to let him [Gorbachov] know-- look, if an American marine is killed, if they kill
an American Marine-- that's real bad. And if they threaten and brutalize the wife of an American
citizen, sexually threatening the lieutenant's wife while kicking him in the groin over and over
again, then, Mr. Gorbachov, please understand, this president is going to do something about it."
Blacks and mestizos make up the vast majority of the population of Panama. The
principal enemy image was constructed around the figure of Noriega, who was ridiculed
as "the pineapple" in the US media loyal to Bush. Noriega was not however the only
target: Francisco Rodriguez, the pro-Noriega President of Panama, was, like Noriega, a
mestizo, while the minister of government and justice, the minister of the treasury, and
the minister of labor were all black. The foreign minister was of Chinese background, as
was the head of the small air force. A number of Noriega's leading PDF colleagues were
black. By contrast, Guillermo Endara, the new US puppet president who was now
adminiustered his oath of office by US military officers on a US military base, was white,
and lily-white was his retinue, including first vice president Ricardo Arias Calderon and
second vice president Guillermo "Billy" Ford. There would be only one non-white in the
new Endara cabinet, a black woman who was minister of education. The rest of the US
assets belonged to the lily-white oligarchy of Panama, the rabiblancos or "cottontails,"
who had ruled the country with supreme incomptence and maximum corruption until the
advent of the nationalist revolution of Gen. Omar Torrijos, Noriega's patron, in 1968.
Endara's base was among the "BMW revolutionaries" who had attended anti-Noriega
rallies only in the confort of their air-conditioned limousines. These were Bush's kind of
people. One of Bush's soldatesca in Panama, General Marc Cisneros, boasted that the
Panamanians "need to have a little infusion of Anglo values."
The US military operations, which got under way just after midight on Tuesday, were
conducted with unusual ferocity. The officers were obsessed with avoiding a repetition of