This article is adapted from a speech given at the Ron Paul Institute Spring Conference in Lake Jackson TX on 25 April 2026.
I’m going to begin our examination of the US-Israel relationship by taking you to an unlikely location, thousands of miles from either Tel Aviv or Washington. We’re also traveling more than 36 years into the past.
On December 20, 1989, the United States invaded the Republic of Panama to oust its leader, General Manuel Noriega, who had outlived his usefulness to the empire. At that point, it was the largest US military operation by far since the end of the Vietnam War, and it marked the beginning of an era of endless regime-change wars that continues to this day. Before Operation Just Cause was over, 23 American service members lay dead and 325 wounded.
At the time, I was a brand new platoon leader in the Army’s 5th Infantry Division at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Two of my fellow 5th ID soldiers, members of a battalion that was on a rotation to Panama at the time, were killed in the invasion. They died in the assault on the Comandancia – the headquarters of the Panamanian Defense Forces.
I was not part of …read more
Source:: Ron Paul Institute
