World Boss History Reason #8: Narco Politics - The Rise and Fall of Rent-a-Colonel

The Contras in Nicaragua weren’t our only drug smuggling friends in the region. Panamanian strongman and CIA informant, Manuel Noriega, moved enough cocaine in his crooked career to ski on the beach. Noriega’s code name tells you everything you need to know about the man: “Rent-a-Colonel.” He held no firm allegiances. He was on the CIA’s payroll for decades. He spied on his friends for us and helped the Contras in Nicaragua’s civil war. In 1986, he even offered to “take care of” Nicaragua’s leaders for us. But Manuel played both sides of the fence. He sold information to the Nicaraguans and the Cubans, too. And he smuggled lots and lots of cocaine. But because he was useful to us, we let him continue to profit from drug running.

To recap: As millions of Americans suffered from addiction and drug abuse, and we spent billions of dollars here and abroad waging a phony war against drugs, we coddled one of the biggest drug smugglers in the hemisphere. All because he served our narrow interests in the region.

Before relations between the United States and Noriega soured in the late 1980s, we not only coddled him, we propped his regime up, as we have so many other creeps.  In 1984, Noriega completely rigged his country’s presidential election because a political rival beat his handpicked candidate. Ronald Reagan sent George Shultz, his secretary of state, to Panama to legitimize Noriega’s fraud.

But by 1989, Noriega wasn’t doing our bidding. He wasn’t fighting the Nicaraguans quite like we expected him too and he was acting evasive about keeping the Panama Canal in American hands. In response, Reagan and Bush Sr. actually had the gall to say Noriega’s drug running was the reason for opposing him. What a joke. Washington had known about, and permitted, Noriega’s smuggling for many years. It was only when Noriega dared to bite the hands of his keepers in Washington that they bit back.

NEXT: World Boss History Reason #9: Empire in the Canal Zone