Word: noriega
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tyrants go, Ceausescu was surely crueler, more methodical and more blood-soaked than Noriega, who often came off as a tin-pot dictator. Yet the similarities were striking. Like many of their kind, both described themselves as reformers, Ceausescu as a leader independent of Moscow, Noriega as a Panamanian nationalist. The U.S. was not above using both when they served its special purposes. Richard Nixon welcomed Ceausescu's help in negotiating the first opening to China; under Ronald Reagan, the CIA sought Noriega's assistance in aiding Nicaragua's contras. But in Ceausescu's 24 years of iron rule...
Both became drunk with vanity. Ceausescu styled himself the "Genius of the Carpathians," put his face on posters all over Rumania and had 30 volumes of his speeches published. One of Noriega's last political acts was to have himself named Maximum Leader. Both pursued quirky impulses. Ceausescu made his wife Elena his deputy, and she not only draped herself in furs and jewelry but also used the police to spy on her grown daughter's love life. According to U.S. Army investigators, Noriega practiced Santeria, a mystic religion, and wore red underwear to fend off the evil...
Despite protests against the invasion of Panama and legal questions about U.S. justification, it is difficult to credit the Noriega regime with real legitimacy. Aside from the general's alleged crimes, ranging from drug dealing to murder, he simply canceled last spring's election after it had gone against him, ruling thereafter by force. There was international criticism too of the secret trial and hasty execution of Ceausescu. But in both cases, the legalities were overwhelmed by a kind of political necessity -- and both countries should be the better for it in the new year. If, that is, they prove...
...file their first dispatches until six hours after that. Worse, the initial pool report shed almost no light on the confused military situation, leading off with the hardly titanic news that the U.S. charge d'affaires in Panama, John Bushnell, was worried about the "mischief" that deposed dictator Manuel Noriega could cause. Complains pool member Steven Komarow of the Associated Press: "We kind of missed the story...
...extent we got any news at all," Komarow says, "it was pretty much by accident." He notes, for example, that the pool did witness looting in Panama City, but only when their military driver lost his way. Exposure to actual combat was also a matter of chance, as when Noriega forces attacked the Southern Command's headquarters, about 400 yards from the press center...