The two nations mentioned in the title above are separated by geography, culture, language differences and history. One is part of the Arab and Islamic world, the other is part of Latin America. So why combine the two? Because both cases are instructive in the way we in Australia (and in the wider Anglophone community) approach and understand these two distinct nations. Our view of the Global South – and both Kuwait and Panama are part of that informal collective – is informed by the way the Anglo-American imperium treats the Global South community.

In the early 1990s, as American forces built up their military presence in Saudi Arabia for an attack on Iraq, the putative rationale offered by the corporate controlled media was that Iraq had illegally invaded and occupied Kuwait. True enough on the surface, but hardly a convincing reason for the massive military buildup.

Kuwait had actually been part of Iraq for centuries, carved out as a supposedly independent emirate by the British colonial empire in the 1920s. Resistance to the enforced separation of Kuwait from Iraq continued well into the 1930s. The histories of Iraq and Kuwait are inextricably entwined.

The imposition of a British-backed petromonarchy in Kuwait, personified by the Al-Sabah family, continues until today. That is important to note, because during the brief Iraqi military occupation of Kuwait, the major Anglo-American media outlets provided favourable and routine coverage of the ‘resistance’ – those Kuwaitis who supported the Al-Sabah royal family.

We were offered the viewpoint of Kuwaiti royalist supporters, shedding tears (and fake news stories – remember the ‘Iraqis are killing babies in hospital incubators story?) about the terrible privations of Kuwaitis groaning under the weight of foreign occupation.

The Palestinians of Kuwait, who largely occupied a role as a class of workers and servants for Kuwaitis, were expelled en masse for their support of the Iraqi military. Supporting a foreign military is a wrong move to be sure. However, after decades of mistreatment by the Kuwaiti royal authorities, the Palestinians could be forgiven for their all-too-human resentful miscalculation.

After the Iraqi forces were expelled from Kuwait in 1991, that nation basically fell off the radar of the Anglophone media complex. That is interesting, because in recent times, Kuwaiti voices have risen again.

No, not the obsequious and cowardly Kuwaitis begging at the feet of the Al-Sabah royal family and its American supporters, but Kuwaitis like Osamah Al-Abdulrahim, the secretary general of the Kuwaiti Progressive Movement. He gave his evaluation of the current global political and economic situation, which was published in Peoples Dispatch magazine.

He spoke about the decline of imperial hegemony, and the rise of a multilateral order. Why did we not hear the voices of Kuwaitis like him in our corporation-dominated media landscape? His perspective does not align with the massive US propaganda drive – reinforced by a compliant Australian media – to go to war in 1990-91 on false premises.

In the period 1989-91, there was another war that the US waged on false pretences – the regime change operation in Panama. Conducted ostensibly to oust the narco-trafficking regime of Panamanian strongman General Manuel Noriega, the misleadingly named Operation Just Cause was fought to implement a strict capitalist neoliberal regime on Panama.

I wrote about the underlying hypocrisies of the US propaganda drive that accompanied that particular war. Noriega himself was a product of American intelligence activities in that nation, spying on leftist students and activists in his younger days. He actively supported the drug trafficking trade, all done under the watchful eye and connivance of the CIA.

The US military invasion of Panama, we were informed, was done to restore democracy and economic fairness in that nation. Well, that is interesting, because there is a huge movement for democratic change and economic fairness going on right now in Panama.

At least since the beginning of this year, thousands of Panamanian workers, peasants, urban and rural poor are waging an economic and political struggle against the ultrarightist and US-backed government of President Jose Mulino.

Mulino, in his younger days, agitated among the Panamanian oligarchs to support a US invasion of his country in 1989. He has violently suppressed trade unions and labour organisers. His economic policies reward the ultrawealthy at the expense of the working class. His administration works to serve the mining-financial oligarchy, nothing more.

This upsurge of political struggle in Panama has been met with virtual silence in the corporate controlled media. Yes, we have all heard about Trump’s proposal to re-annex the Panama Canal. His proposal has been rebuffed with scorn and derision inside Panama. Other than that, we have heard nothing about what the Panamanian workers and peasants are demanding.

If the media only act as an ideological adjunct of US regime change operations, then they cease to act as journalists and become propagandists. Stenographers for regime change are a dime a dozen. It is time for the media to behave like journalists – as insurgents against the doctrines and abuses of the rich and powerful.