What do Americans today think about the war against Panama in 1989?

46 comments

  3. Honestly forgot that it happened until you mentioned it.

    Even at the time I’m sure nobody thought much of it.

  4. I’m not totally ignorant to US history, but this was before I was born and also I’ve never heard of it.

  6. Most probably don’t even know or remember it happened. When you’ve fucked with as many smaller nations as we have it all starts to blur together, and you can’t really expect us to keep track of every single time we got involved in someone else’s business.

  9. I was 9 at the time and I don’t remember it at all. I remember the Gulf War much better because they were selling american t-shirts at the local grocery stores, and my parents had the news on all the time.

  10. I just googled it and it does sound vaguely familiar but I don’t know any details about it.

  12. I’ve legitimately never had a discussion with any other American about it, and my bachelors is in history. Seems to be a forgotten war lost in the sea of wars we’ve waged.

  14. We can’t have any threats to our use of the Panama Canal. It would significantly harm our economy. Panama was given the canal back based on that understanding.

  15. Our shady Cold War era dealings with Latin America are mostly ignored, probably out of willful ignorance.

  16. Only reason I remember it is one of the conflicts my dad was a veteran of as a Marine. Other than that just a blimp on the radar.

  22. It’s completely irrelevant to the general American public.

    5 week war with less than 25 Americans killed.

    Hilarious that Panama through declaring war on the US would work though.

  25. It wasn’t really a war. More of “don’t threaten the lives of Americans in your country and you won’t get hit” reminder to everyone. That and Noreiga *daring* the US to do something about it was the stupidest comment he could have made. Beyond that it’s just one more Cold War conflict that the anti-American crowd will point to as proof the US is the most awful place ever while also wanting us to do their dirty work in places like Ukraine today. So I just chalk the whole thing up to actions taken in the Cold War and file it all away.

  26. I was a kid, but I do at least remember this happening. It wasn’t really viewed as a war, but more of a “military action” to remove and arrest Noriega (the one thing some people here will have heard of, but maybe not connect it to Panama, was that the US Military did a siege of the building Noriega was in and tried to force him out by blasting Van Halen at crazy volume).

    I wasn’t old enough to be aware of the politics of the situation, but certainly nobody was losing a lot of sleep over the whole thing.

  27. If I remember right it wasn’t much of a war with the whole country. It was like a day and half of fighting soldiers loyal to Noriega and a month of playing loud music at his house.

    The first gulf War was only a few months after. It took over our attention spans and probably kept us from properly dealing with the aftermath.

  28. War? LMAO, that was a police action, and a well founded one.

    It lasted a month, it was done because Noriega was helping the Columbian cartels.

  29. We’ve had to many wars/conflicts for me to keep up with. If they make a movie maybe some might remember but not until then.

  30. We needed a canal and offered The Republic of Columbia a token sum for the right of way to build the Canal.

    The Republic of Columbia wanted more than we offered to pay, so we took Panama away from The Republic of Columbia, installed a puppet government and payed them the sum of money we had offered The Republic of Columbia for the canal that we wanted.

    Panama was very pleased with the arrangement for many years until they weren’t, and The Republic of Columbia was very unhappy with the arrangement given The Republic of Columbia had been reduced to just plain old Columbia.

    Lots of people died trying to stop it from happening.

  31. Former High School History teacher: History is poorly taught in this country, and major events barely get mentioned. The more modern the event the less time spent on it. The curriculum I had to use dedicated about two pages to the Korean and Vietnamese wars in the larger context of the Cold War. That’s the only reference to those two years-long conflicts.
    The average American is probably not aware that we ever sent troops anywhere in Central American/Caribbean, let alone the specific conflict in Panama.

  32. My uncle participated and even met his Panamanian wife while there. I would wager that probably the only experience that Americans have with Panama or Noriega would be the call of duty game that featured it. Which is crazy because for 100 years America literally owned a very important part of Panama

  33. I think the invasion of Panama was another Cold War way for the US to flex its “muscles.”

    We also had joint control of the Panama Canal with Panama until 1999.

    So, we wanted to oust Noriega & save our bottom dollar if you ask me.

    I also think we needed a way to give our military some real world experience. Going up against a force we know we could beat helps train our guys.

    I suspect our government knew we’d be facing much larger battles moving forward (i.e., Desert Storm).

  34. The little knowledge I have of it came from COD Black Ops. I don’t feel at all qualified to speak on the matter tbh

  35. I was in elementary school so most of the details I learned were after the conflict but I vaguely remember that there was airborne landing with small tanks, a former CIA asset drug lord who turned on the US, rock and roll music used to flush him out of a church, and first or one of the first use of stealth aircraft. It was considered a successful regime change by force.

  36. I had never heard of it until I went to Panama and it’s definitely a big deal there. It’s pretty sad how many historical events with US involvement in other countries we don’t learn about, our history classes focus on the major wars and Colonial times unfortunately.

  37. It’s notable as the first war by a president Bush and our major major war since Vietnam. But in history class they focused more on how Noriega was ultimately driven of hiding in the Vatican embassy due to the US military blasting the entire street heavy metal music, which he hated

  38. I remember that. Honestly what I remember most is the story about military troops blasting rock music to taunt Noriega when he was holed up in whatever embassy he was in.

    ETA It wasn’t really a war. More of a military operation.

  39. I think about it as my mother was there so it’s a part of my childhood memories. I honestly don’t think most people ever or have ever thought about it unless they were involved in some way.

  40. We don’t, I bet most people don’t even know if it. I know of it because I enjoy learning about that sort of stuff and have seen videos of DELTA guys talking about it.

  41. My guess is that nobody thinks anything about it at all, unless Noriega is brought up (which almost never happens now that he’s dead).

    I remember it, as I was in my early 20s and in the USAF at the time, so we got various intel/assessment briefings. The only particular thing I remember about it was how Noriega’s compound was blasted 24/7 with rock music.

  42. It wasn’t a war. The US told Noriega we were coming (because of his activity with drug cartels, treaty violations, safety for Americans in the country and good old “freedom”) and in response Noriega declared war on us. Considering all the mayhem we caused in Latin America during the 1900s, Panama got off easy.

    Was it legal? The answers are dubious but international law is only worth a damn to those interested in following it. France wasn’t going to stop us.

  44. Most are probably barely aware that it happened if they know at all. It had very little lasting impact and was relatively short and unmemorable. Of all the conflicts we’ve been involved in, this one just doesn’t really stand out in the history books. So unless you were an adult actively following the news of it at that time, odds are you wouldn’t know much about it or think of it at all.

    Why do you ask? Are you from a central American country? Or do you have some other particular interest in this event?

  46. I have a vague recollection of it, but it was very brief. The one thing I remember is US troops using loud rock music as an intimation technique.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like