Tommy Vitor
speaker
4,356 appearances
16 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 7 Jul
Tommy Vitor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 4.
Appearances
Bush, he ordered this operation to an invasion of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega, who was the dictator running Panama at the time.
The scale of that operation was massive.
The U.S.
deployed 26,000 troops.
I think about half of them were already in Panama because at the time, U.S.
Southern Command was located there.
in Panama.
Now it's in Florida.
But this invasion came after, you know, lots of repression by the of the Panamanian people by Noriega, lots of evidence that he was involved in drug trafficking, the killing of a US Marine by a Panamanian soldier.
And then the Panamanian General Assembly passed a resolution declaring that there was a state of war, that a state of war existed between the US and Panama, which I think was twisted,
to suggest that Panama had declared war on the US, which wasn't really what happened, wasn't really intended, but whatever, it's history now.
So the US invades, Noriega hides in the Vatican diplomatic mission for a few days before he gives himself up.
23 US troops were killed, hundreds were wounded, hundreds of Panamanian troops were killed along with hundreds of civilians.
And the US military just leveled Panama City, like tens of thousands of people lost their homes and became IDPs or refugees.
But I think what makes the
That operation, especially crazy been in the benefit of hindsight, is that like Noriega was a longtime CIA asset throughout the Cold War.
The CIA paid Noriega for information about the Cubans or about, you know, or to train the Contras or other, you know, do other dirty deals for them.
And they turned a blind eye to the fact that he was a military dictator who killed his political opponents.
He was a serial rapist.
He was a massive drug trafficker and just by all means an evil dude.
Showing 3681–3700 of 4,356 · page 185 of 218
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