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Using night-vision goggles, Mike Durant viewed as two 2,000-pound precision explosives crashed onto the Panama's airbase while he hovered near the country's south shoreline in a Black Hawk aircraft.

"The gigantic flash, coming after a boom ... like the largest lightning flash you've ever experienced in your life," the former US military aviator recalled of the opening attack of the Conflict of Rio Hato's Airfield in December 1989.

Past Comparisons

The stealth aircraft blitzkrieg and subsequent army ranger attack represented the start of the Panama invasion - intended to oust the Panamanian armed forces ruler, Manuel Noriega.

Durant and his colleagues had orders to seize the Panamanian Defense Force base to block forces moving to Noriega's rescue. During the following period, the pilot and more than 25,000 additional American soldiers sought the leader, who finally surrendered on 3 January 1990.

"Noriega was a bad, bad man ... and he had to be removed," commented Durant.

Current Military Deployments

Remembrances of Operation Just Cause have reemerged in the past few weeks' time after President Trump ordered the biggest American armed forces build-up in Latin America and the Caribbean since the time of that operation nearly four decades' prior.

A significant portion of US naval resources - including the world's biggest naval vessel, the USS Ford - have been sent to the area starting in August, with strategic bombers and elite troops seen near Venezuela's north coast. Military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean have killed more than 60 individuals.

Stated vs Suspected Objectives

Formally, the deployment of warships, Reaper drones and about 10,000 service members is a component of a operation on South American criminal organizations who the administration accuses of saturating the US with drugs. But numerous suspect Trump's real goal is toppling Venezuela's ruler, Nicolás Maduro, similar to George HW Bush toppled Noriega prior to he was tried and jailed in the United States.

Political Perspectives

Various members of Venezuela's opposition seem keen for a replay of the Panama operation, on an even larger magnitude. The overseas political figure Leopoldo López in recent times expressed approval for a US military action to remove Maduro, who is generally believed to have stolen the previous presidential election.

"It's not to be the messenger of negative information, but it looks like we are about to embark on yet another regime change conflict, similar to, the coming week's time," announced Tucker Carlson last week, mentioning Iraq as a key example of the United States' unsuccessful track record of regime changes that failed.

"It never works - but we are attempting it another time, evidently," Carlson said.

American and Specialist Perspective

A current poll found nearly 50% of the public against employing armed intervention to oust Maduro with only 18% approving.

The retired pilot also had concerns, even though viewing Just Cause the most accomplished mission of his two-decade army career. He was convinced American forces could remove Maduro, as they had Noriega. "We have significant capacity and superb troops. But would it be justified placing all that at jeopardy?" questioned Durant.

Before the Panama operation, many of American troops were based in Panama, Durant commented, but it has no such footprint in Venezuela.

Strategic Assessment

It was additionally uncertain how prepared Maduro's Venezuelan troops were of combating back. "That to me is the greatest unknown factor," Durant remarked. "They do well-organized military displays. But what can they really do? Are they trained? Are they funded? Are they prepared to fight? Are they faithful?"

Historical Precedents

Michael Grow, a academic who wrote study about US presidents and Latin American cold war operations, saw "interesting parallels" to previous military actions.

In the year 1988, on the eve of Just Cause, the United States prosecuted Noriega for narcotics trafficking - just as they have with Maduro who lately had a $50m reward placed on his head for supposedly running a "drug trafficking" organization. "So ... they've established a useful justification if they opt to undertake a military path," Grow stated.

Potential Outcomes

"However I do not consider it's on the agenda with Trump ... These people are not neocons. They're considerably more isolationist ... I simply do not envision the United States getting entangled in a land war in the continent," Grow added, though he did not exclude "surgical attack unmanned operations"

James Story, the US's top representative for the country from 2018 to 2023, additionally skeptical about a Panama-style invasion was coming: "The United States usually prefer overwhelming power and it would take 100,000 troops - and that's not this administration's style."

Different Strategies

But the ex- diplomat - who originally regarded the administration's military buildup posturing - now saw an 80% probability of "certain proactive measure" on the country's soil in the following 30 days, probably an bombing. "The amount of assets that have been positioned in the zone point to to me that we are planning