Word: noriega
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When he was told by an American journalist in 1988 that he was "the most hated man in the United States," Manuel Antonio Noriega preened with pleasure. "Do they really hate me even more than Gaddafi?" he asked. Yes, he was assured, even more than Gaddafi. Noriega laughed...
...just that cocksure quality, combined with cunning and ruthlessness, that enabled Panama's leader to face down repeated U.S. challenges over the past 2 1/2 years. But in the days leading up to the U.S. invasion, Noriega seemed to slide into recklessness, as if he were deliberately trying to provoke his own doom. First his handpicked assembly declared that a "state of war" existed with the U.S. and installed Noriega as Panama's "Maximum Leader." Then he sat back while his troops shot a U.S. Marine and abducted and abused a Navy lieutenant and his wife. Noriega could not have...
...Noriega's increasingly bombastic language and his trigger-happy troops may have been indications that events were spinning out of control in Panama, forcing him to extremes. But other evidence suggested that the dictator was losing control of himself: U.S. troops searching his various hideouts found, along with pictures of Adolf Hitler, collections of pornography and sophisticated weapons and more than 50 kilos of cocaine. In one Noriega guesthouse, searchers found a bucket of blood and entrails, which they said may have been used for occult rites to protect him. Was the accused drug trafficker deteriorating into a megalomaniac drug...
Evidence of his erratic behavior first emerged after an aborted coup attempt against him in March 1988. Reports circulated that Noriega had taken to the bottle and occasionally drank himself into a stupor. In the months after he violently halted last May's presidential election, Noriega -- perhaps prudently -- saw himself as a marked man. He refused to sleep in the same place on consecutive nights and, as a precaution against being poisoned, ate only food prepared by his girlfriend's mother...
...deplore this act of violence. We are presently looking into the circumstances of this incident," Popadiuk said. "The Noriega regime is isolated both domestically and internationally and has been using force and intimidation to thwart the will of the Panamanian people. Acts such as those of last evening are the consequence of such a regime...