Drugs Law Enforcement And Foreign Policy Panama

An investigation regarding the links between foreign policy, narcotics, and law enforcement in connection with drug trafficking from the Caribbean and Central and South America to the U.S. Includes a country-by-country analysis of the drug problem as it has effected U.S. foreign policy in Latin America (Bahamas, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Panama); a review of drug links to the Contra movement and the Nicaraguan war; of money laundering; and of issues involving conflicts between law enforcement and national security.

Johns and Johnson analyze the invasion of Panama in order to explore the ways in which the War on Drugs has been used as an ideological justification for a projection of U.S. state power into Latin America. They characterize the Bush Administration's reasons for the invasion as cynical ideological rhetoric which covered up strategic interests the United States had in deposing Noriega and replacing him with a more cooperative regime. The authors particularly discuss the role of media coverage, including the demonization of Noriega and the immediate adoption by the corporate media of the name Operation Just Cause, in legitimating the invasion and transforming it in popular ideology as a law enforcement operation. Finally, they examine the aftermath of the invasion in the United States--Bush's popularity ratings, the distortion of civilian casualty information, the macho celebration of the war--and in Panama--the destruction of the labor and independence movements, the puppet Endara government, and the increased drug trafficking through Panama.