A predawn op in Latin America? The US has been here before, but the seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is still unprecedented

Photo: Marines of Company D, 2nd Light Armored Infantry Battalion, stand guard with their LAV-25 light armored vehicles outside a destroyed Panamanian Defense Force building during the first day of Operation Just Cause – December 20, 1989. Photo credit: DoD photo by PH1 Elliott via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain, Article by Alan McPherson. The Conversation – January 3, 2026.

In the dead of night during the holidays, the United States launched an operation inside a Latin American country, intent on seizing its leader on the pretext that he is wanted in U.S. courts on drug charges. The date was Dec. 20, 1989, the country was Panama, and the wanted man was General Manuel Noriega. Many people in the Americas waking up on Jan. 3, 2026, may have been feeling a sense of déjà vu. Images of dark U.S. helicopters flying over a Latin American capital seemed, until recently, like a bygone relic of American imperialism – incongruous since the end of the Cold War. But the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife, Cilia Flores, recalls an earlier era of U.S. foreign policy. […]

Click here to view original web page at www.theconversation.com