When the United States struck Venezuela it came with fighter jets, bombers, and drone strikes.
Satellite images show aftermath of US strikes at Fuerte Tiana
But the last time one of the most powerful countries in the world marched across borders and captured another Latin American leader it was with 27,000 troops, stealth fighters, gunships — and heavy metal music.
It has been just a tick over 36 years since the US invaded Panama and arrested its de facto ruler General Manuel Noriega.
The US framing of that incident — a corrupt dictator coming face to face with American justice — has sparked parallels to the military operation in Venezuela.
Operation Just Cause and a rapid snowball effect
The US dubbed its 1989 invasion Operation Just Cause.
In February 1988, General Noriega had been indicted by a Miami court of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering.
He had been in power in Panama since the early 1980s using a series of puppet leaders to maintain his de facto ruler status.
By the late 1980s Noriega had been the de facto leader for several years. (Reuters: Lou Dematteis)
Then-US president Ronald Reagan offered him a deal — relinquish power and leave Panama, and the drug charges would be dropped.
Noriega had no intention of leaving.
Things began to snowball.
Noriega annulled the 1989 Panamanian general elections which had been on track to be won by an opposition party.
The opposition candidate and his supporters were beaten in the streets, and one of Noriega’s former classmates was made president instead.
Anti-Noriega Panamanians were eager to see him removed from his position in 1989. (AFP: Manoocher Deghati)
So then-US president George Bush Sr, elected just a few months prior, dispatched more troops to US bases across the nation.
On December 15, 1989, Noriega declared a state of war between Panama and the United States.
In the days following, multiple US military personnel were detained and attacked by the Panama Defense Forces (PDF) in Panama City.
On December 20 the US invaded.
The US had tens of thousands of troops involved in the invasion of Panama. (AFP: Bob Pearson)
In an address to the nation following the invasion, Mr Bush said he wanted to tell Americans “what I did and why I did it”.
“General Noriega’s reckless threats and attacks upon Americans in Panama created an imminent danger to the 35,000 American citizens in Panama,” he said.
“As president I have no higher obligation than to safeguard the lives of American citizens.
“Key military objectives have been achieved.
“Most organised resistance has been eliminated, but the operation is not over yet. General Noriega is in hiding.”
How a cadet in Peru turned CIA asset, then dictator
Noriega was not just a dictator who ran afoul of the United States.
He was also a former CIA asset.
Born an illegitimate child and raised in the slums of Panama City, Noriega had left high school and gained a scholarship to a military academy in Peru.
It was there that he first came to the attention of the CIA, relaying tips on possible communists among his fellow students.
In 1962 he graduated and returned to Panama to join the Panama National Guard.
Manuel Noriega seen here in Brazil in 1973. (US National Archives)
By 1966 he was taking courses at the School of the Americas — a US Department of Defense school then located in the Panama Canal Zone.
The school trained him in jungle operations, in counterintelligence, in infantry.
Another course at Fort Bragg in North Carolina taught him psychological operations.
By the 1980s he had been on the CIA payroll for almost three decades and was raking in $US200,000 ($299,249) annually.
The death of Panama leader General Omar Torrijos in a helicopter crash in 1981 created a power vacuum, one which Noriega eventually filled.
While the US viewed Torrijos as “contrary” to their interests, according to Professor Robert Harding, Noriega was seen as “loyal and pliant”.
Hope and heartache in El Chorrillo
“Noriega worked closely with a variety of US agencies,” Professor Harding wrote in a 2006 book detailing Panama’s turbulent history.
“[He worked with] the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Defense, the CIA, and even the White House, supplying intelligence and allowing Panamanian territory to be used … for the US war against communism in Central America.
“During the last years of Torrijos’ rule financial assistance from the United States had practically evaporated.
“But after Noriega assumed control US aid rose 600 per cent to $US15 million ($22.45 million) annually.”
But his deals with Pablo Escobar’s cartel, his increasing brutality, and his ties to other intelligence assets made him an asset the US could no longer control.
The Clash, Van Halen, and psychological torment
As the US launched its full-scale invasion Noriega fled, taking refuge inside the Vatican embassy in Panama City.
The US turned to psychological tactics in an effort to flush him out, known as Operation Nifty Package.
They had destroyed his private jet. They had sabotaged his gunboat. They set fire to a nearby field and lined armoured vehicles against the embassy’s fence line.
As Noriega sheltered inside the Vatican embassy to Panama the US rolled military vehicles in. (Reuters: Corinne Dufka)
Outside the embassy they built a wall of speakers and began blasting chicken noises and heavy metal music at deafening levels for 24 hours a day.
Their playlist included hits by The Clash, Van Halen, U2, Guns N’ Roses and The Doors.
After 10 days Noriega gave up.
On January 3, 1990 — exactly 36 years to the day before the US would do the same to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — he was loaded onto a plane and flown to the US.
Noriega in his 1990 booking photo. (AFP: US District Attorney )
Two years later he would be convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for the Miami drug charges.
During that trial the US admitted it had paid Noriega $US322,000 ($482,537) in cash and gifts over the course of his relationship with the CIA.
His attorney, Frank Rubino, claimed he had received $US11 million ($16.48 million).
The court ruled any mention of Noriega’s prior relationship and income from the US was inadmissible in court.
In 2007 he was released from prison for good behaviour and extradited to France, where he served more time for money laundering.
In 2011 he returned to Panama — and was jailed again for murder, corruption and embezzlement.
He gave his first interview in decades in 2015, speaking to local news network Telemetro from prison.
Reading from a piece of paper in his hands, the 81-year-old Noriega apologised.
“Before the altar of my conscience I’ve come to express myself in the spirit of forgiveness,” he said.
“I feel that as Christians we all have to forgive. The Panamanian people have already overcome this period of dictatorship.”
He was, he said, at peace with himself.
Two years later he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. During a surgery to remove it he slipped into a coma and died.
US legacy of using ‘hammer to kill a fly’
Author Peter Eisner, who later interviewed Noriega over the course of three years for a biography, labelled the invasion “a grotesque, shocking experience for Panamanians”.
American military forces took multiple Panamanian prisoners. (Consolidated News Pictures/Getty)
“Theirs was a peaceful country, there were no wars, little violence,” he said.
“What could justify so much suffering at the hands of some distant, ignorant force?
“Panamanians experienced death, fear, wanton destruction, deceit and lies — the hidden truth about the invasion of Panama.
“Even … one of Noriega’s most ardent opponents said that the invasion had created a ‘national psychosis’ of unforeseen consequences for the future.
“Few Americans, least of all soldiers, who lived through the invasion of Panama thought it was their country’s finest hour.”
In their invasion the US annihilated parts of Panama City.
According to Professor Robert Harding they “used a hammer to kill a fly”.
“The Panamanian Defense Force was only about 3,000 [strong] or so,” he told Business Insider in February 2025.
“All they had were machine guns and maybe mortars and rocket launchers.
“But we went in there with the stealth fighters and with the helicopter gunships and just completely obliterated not just the [defence forces] but sections of the city of Panama.”
US says it now ‘runs’ Venezuela. Here’s the key points to unpack
As US tensions with Venezuela grew over the past year, multiple military figures feared an impending repeat of Operation Just Cause.
Among them was retired army pilot Michael Durant, who in 1989 watched through night vision goggles as bombs slammed into a Panamanian air base.
“We have tremendous capability and great people,” he said in November.
“But is it worth putting it all at risk?”
“[Sometimes] you just remove one problem and replace it with another.”
