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The Washington-media coalition and the main magazines abstained from passing judgment on the falsified elections, but dismissed as utterly worthless the Sandinistas' far more free and honest election in the same year. It could not be controlled. .
Noriega stole an election in May 1989 again. This time it was from a representative of the business opposition Guillermo Endara. Noriega used less violence than in 1984. By now the Reagan administration had given the signal that it had turned against Noriega. Subsequently the media voiced indignation over his failure to meet our lofty democratic standards. .
The press also began passionately denouncing human rights violations that previously didn't reach the threshold of their attention. By the time we invaded Panama in December 1989, the press had demonized Noriega, turning him into the worst monster since Attila the Hun. Ted Koppel was orating, "Noriega belongs to that special fraternity of international villains, men like Qaddafi, Idi Amin and the Ayatollah Khomeini, whom Americans just love to hate."" Dan Rather placed him "at the top of the list of the world's drug thieves and scum's."" In fact, Noriega remained a very minor thug " exactly what he was when he was on the CIA payroll. .
In 1988, for example, Americas Watch published a report on human rights in Panama, giving an unpleasant picture. But as their reports " and other inquiries " make clear, Noriega's human rights record was nothing remotely like that of other US clients in the region, and no worse than in the days when Noriega was still a favorite, following orders. .
Take Honduras, for example. Although it's not a murderous terrorist state like El Salvador or Guatemala, human rights abuses were probably worse there than in Panama. In fact, there's one CIA-trained battalion in Honduras that all by it had carried out more atrocities than Noriega did. .
Or consider U.
