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Why can't the United States do anything about Gen. Manuel Noriega? Not that we haven't tried to dislodge him from Panama. He was indicted for drug sales in this country, and the Reagan administration offered a plea-bargain deal if he'd step down. Then our government tried economic sanctions that succeeded in making Panamanians even more impoverished, but failed miserably at removing Noriega.
If Panama had held an honest election last week, Noriega would be history. But the count was rigged. Noriega had soldiers on the streets, and his goons were at large, beating on opposition candidates. President Bush has responded by putting more troops on our military bases in Panama.
Noriega is still in charge, and the informed sources say he'll be tough to topple, since he's a rich man with millions in drug profits.
The reason America can't win this go-round is that we are a nation that esteems losers. There is no incentive to win if there is no penalty for losing. This attitude is certainly wholesome and democratic -- if 32 people enter a race, 31 of them will be losers. That's the majority of us, and we're a nation where the majority rules. But this is not an attitude that produces results.
Consider the past 25 years' worth of wars. There was the War on Poverty. Despite the herculean efforts of thousands of sociology majors who couldn't get find jobs, Poverty won.
What happened to the losers? Were they forced to march in chains down some barrio boulevard, ghetto street or rural road while the victorious poor jeered and taunted? Were the losers enslaved and sent to toil in salt mines?
Of course not. They kept their comfortable positions and served their time; most of them are probably drawing good pensions now. Why should they bother to win when there were no penalties for losing?
There was Vietnam, a real shooting war that we lost. The architects of that disaster were men like Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger. Did they endure capture, imprisonment, war crimes tribunals and the other ordeals generally visited upon the leaders of the losing side? No, they continue to live well and command substantial fees on the lecture circuit. They're respected elder statesmen.
Just compare their retirement careers with those of American leaders who actually won wars -- Gen. George Marshall, for instance, who ended his days being vilified by right-wing Americans. Not only is losing painless, it's easier on you than winning.
Jimmy Carter told us that beating the energy crisis was
the moral equivalent of war.
We'd have to reduce
petroleum consumption and imports.
We won some battles for a year or two, but we've certainly lost the Moral Equivalency. We import more oil than we did in 1975, we consume more energy, and most of us would trade incomes with the president of Exxon. Losing a Moral Equivalency is tough, but somebody has to do it.
There were various Wars on Waste
during the
Reagan regime. Those whistle-blower auditors who took that
seriously lost their jobs. Waste won, with handsome rewards
for defense contractors, who could then offer high-paying
jobs to those government employees that managed to lose the
war on waste.
Concerning Panama, we might examine one phase of the
War on Drugs
-- the South Florida Task Force, which
was supposed to interdict every gram of cocaine headed for
these shores. It was headed by none other than the
vice-president of the United States, a fellow named George
Herbert Walker Bush.
The Task Force lost miserably, which is one reason Noriega is still in power. But the leader of that losing task force was not disgraced; he was promoted.
Vince Lombardi once said Show me a good loser and
I'll show you a loser.
He was wrong. What America
really says is Show us a loser, and we'll shower him
with money and prestige.
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