Looking Foolish

There are limits to what the United States should do to end the rule of the notorious Manuel Antonio Noriega in Panama. In fact, Washington may already have gone too far. The 1,300 reinforcements being flown to Panama have no military meaning. They risk, however, conveying a commitment to military action that would be most unwise. The security of the canal is not in doubt. There already are 1,270 members of the U.S. security force and another 10,000 combat troops under the U.S. Southern Command.

Even more alarming were the proposals from the State Department last week for a massive U.S. troop movement to Panama, and for action by U.S. special forces to invade Panama, kidnap Noriega, and bring him back to the United States to stand trial on the drug charges for which he has been indicted. We are told that it was the Pentagon that resisted the proposals, and at least for that wisdom we can be grateful. Such a brazen act would have exposed the United States to the accusations of terrorism it has brought against Libya, Syria and Iran.

This is not the first time that Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, have urged force rather than economic and diplomatic alternatives. There is no question that the United States has an enormously powerful military. But its deployment will likely do more harm than good unless there is a clear and present threat to U.S. security. Its utility as an extension of global power will only be weakened if it is carelessly and inappropriately applied.

The opposition of almost all Latin Americans to U.S. intervention is an understandable inheritance of generations of meddling and military adventures by U.S. forces. Just as there was virtually unanimous opposition of Latin Americans to the U.S. role in arming the Contras in Nicaragua, there is now widespread concern about the intervention in Panama, however despicable Noriega may be. The United States would invite the censure of the hemisphere, if not the world, were it to breach the norms of international law in its zeal to bring down Noriega.