Just Cause 2? US military buildup stirs memories of 1989 Panama invasion

Some see the anti-Noriega operation as a model for deposing Maduro, but the US record of regime change is ignominious

- Tom Phillips

Michael Durant watched through night-vision goggles as two 900kg laser-guided bombs slammed on to the Panamanian airbase while he hovered off the country's south coast in a Black Hawk helicopter.

"A gigantic flash, followed by a boom ... [like] the largest lightning strike you've ever seen in your life," the retired US army pilot recalled of the opening salvo of the Battle of Rio Hato Airfield in December 1989.

The stealth bomber blitzkrieg and army ranger assault marked the start of the US invasion of Panama - Operation Just Cause - designed to dethrone Panama's military dictator, Manuel Noriega. Durant and his colleagues had orders to capture the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) base to stop troops coming to Noriega's rescue. Over the coming days, the pilot and more than 25,000 other American troops hunted the autocrat, who finally surrendered on 3 January 1990.

"Noriega was a bad, bad man... and needed to be removed," said Durant.

Memories of Just Cause have resurfaced in recent weeks after Donald Trump ordered the largest US military buildup in Latin America and the Caribbean since that invasion almost four decades ago.

A seventh of US naval assets - including the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford - have been sent to the region since August, with B-52 bombers and special forces spotted off Venezuela's northern coast. Airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea have killed more than 60 people.

Officially, the deployment of warships, Reaper drones and about 10,000 service personnel is part of a crackdown on Latin American narco-traffickers who Trump accuses of flooding the US with drugs. But many suspect Trump's real goal is toppling Venezuela's dictator, Nicolás Maduro, just as George HW Bush toppled Noriega before he was tried and jailed in the US.