By Alan McPherson* of
Photo: AFP/SUPPLIED
Analysis - 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 US courts on drug charges.
The date was 20 December, 1989, the country was Panama, and the wanted man was General Manuel Noriega.
Many people in the Americas waking up on 3 January, 2026, may have been feeling a sense of dΓ©jΓ vu.
Images of dark US 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 NicolΓ‘s Maduro, along with his wife, Cilia Flores, recalls an earlier era of US foreign policy.
US President Donald Trump announced that, in an overnight operation, US troops captured and spirited the couple out of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
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