Panama Deception Essay, Research Paper
The United States government has performed tasks that have been considered controversial in nature. Operation Just Cause is a military assignment that has aroused suspicions. The operation caused censorship of the media and many false statements and contradictions, but was continuously defended by the United States Government and rejected by many other political powers.
The United States media was restricted in its knowledge due to the military restraint placed upon it. For example, the media was not allowed to film the first couple days which has been considered the most crucial time in such an out break. As a result, the media was misinformed on many of the facts. These were not the only reasons that caused a strong biased opinion, the media played a part in it as well by only interviewing the educated white middle class. The effects of the restrictions gave America a false sense of what was happening in Panama. Because of the stiff regulations placed on the media the United States public did not realize what had happened was illegal, voted by the United Nations, and deemed unnecessary by many foreign nations.
The new President in office had a weak image and was not held in confidence by many Americans. In order to ease the American public, of the fear that he was not capable of defending the United States by taking action against any nation that proposed a threat, former president George W. Bush had to strengthen his image. All to portray the confident identity the public demanded. The only way he could portray it was to come across strong. In censoring the media and giving them the information that he wanted known he was able to obtain the image he needed to gain the respect of the United States population. Deceiving the population on many facts such as the death toll, made former president Bush the hero and not the villain.
Former president Bush was able to justify his actions by exaggerating the situations. One American life, a wife being harassed, and drug trafficking was equal to two hundred lives. In reality over four thousand lives were taken. Ideologically it was not war but defense. We were defending ourselves from Noriega and his drug trafficking. If action was not taken we would be overrun with drug and crime problems, more so than we already were.
The contradictions were all done so that the President of the time could gain status among the people. For example, the reasons he used for the invasion was to protect American lives, to return Panama’s democracy, and to reduce the drug trafficking. In reality no American life was in danger, Panama never had democracy, and the drug trafficking doubled in a couple of years following the invasion. None of these was more evident than the other, although drug trafficking was the original reason exposed to the public. The focus of the invasion in private was only political, to enhance the Presidents image. Drug trafficking was only distracting the public from the truth.
Although Bush gained many supporters in the United States, he gained more disgust and anger among other nations such as France where their media proclaimed a more accurate death toll and declared the whole operation a massacre. But this was more of a national fight than it was an international intimidation, unless it was directed toward the weaker countries. Overall this was nothing less than a political scheme to gain prestige among the American people.