In 1904, US President Theodore Roosevelt enunciated the Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which allowed the US to intervene anywhere in the Western Hemisphere to prevent intervention by European powers.

In 1903, the US planned to construct the Panama Canal for strategic military and commercial reasons. Panama was a northern province of Columbia. Colombia, however, did not back the US plan to create a canal on Colombian territory that the US would occupy and have sovereignty over indefinitely. The way the US government got around this problem was to send US Marines to Colombia to engineer the "independence" of the province of Panama. The US staged a one day “revolution” that was run by the US which resulted in a declaration of “independence” immediately recognized by the US. The US then installed a US-backed regime in the newly independent nation of Panama.

	Camp Bondsteel

The proposed Panama Canal was perceived as essential for the emergence of the US as a global imperial power. The Canal would allow the US navy to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific without having to traverse around South America. The Canal was vital from a military and strategic perspective, as well as commercially. Two routes were proposed, a canal through Nicaragua or Panama. The backers of the Panama route were able to get their plan approved. The next step was to obtain the permission of Columbia to construct the canal over Colombian territory, the northern province of Panama.

US Secretary of State John Hay and the Foreign Minister of Columbia Tomas Herran signed a treaty allowing the US to construct the canal. Columbia would receive $10 million and yearly payments of $250,000 for the use of the land. The US Congress ratified the Treaty on March 17, 1903.  The Colombian Congress, however, rejected the treaty unanimously on August 12, 1903. The violation of Colombian sovereignty was one key issue for opposition to the plan.

The US had several options. The US could build a canal at the alternative site in Nicaragua. The US could seek to renegotiate the deal with Columbia. The US could occupy or seize Panama based on the 1847 treaty that the US and New Granada (the precursor to Columbia) signed that gave the US the right of passage over Panama.

There was another option that was more subtle and duplicitous. This was the option the US chose. The US could engineer the “independence” of Panama and achieve the secession of the province by superior force. The Indianapolis Sentinel newspaper even cynically debated the independence option in 1903: “The simplest plan of coercing Columbia would be inciting a revolution in Panama….and supporting the insurrectionary government…It is hypocritical, but it preserves appearances.”

In May, 1903, the “independence” or detachment or dismemberment of Panama from Columbia was being engineered as a contingency if the canal agreement with the U.S. was rejected by Columbia. The secessionists were led by Manuel Amador Guerrero, known as Dr. Amador, who was a physician who worked for the Railroad Company, who went to New York to coordinate the independence or secession strategy with US corporate and government officials. He sought $6 million from the US to arm the separatists. His discussions were with William Cromwell, who was one of the sponsors of the Panama Canal construction project.  Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer involved in the canal project, who was to obtain $100,000 for the secessionists to finance the “independence”, was the intermediary between the US government and the Panamanian conspirators. The secessionists had links to the Panama Railroad and the New Panama Company which were owned by the US government.

US President Theodore Roosevelt saw the canal as of vital interest to the U.S. He threatened the Columbia leaders: “These contemptible little creatures in Bogota ought to understand how much they are jeopardizing things and imperiling their own future.”  US Ambassador to Columbia Arthur M. Beaupre similarly threatened the Bogota government: “[O]ur U.S. Congress would take steps in the coming winter that every friend of Columbia would painfully regret.”

The US then chose the “independence” option. From August 12 to October 15, 1903, the planning with Panamanian secessionists was coordinated. The US would empower separatists and secessionists to seize Panamanian territory which the US would militarily occupy. The separatists that the US created would then declare independence unilaterally. The US would then recognize this independence. There would be nothing that Columbia could do to prevent the amputation or detachment of Panama.

On October 26th, the US sent two war ships to Panama, the USS Nashville and the Dixie, which docked at Colon, with 450 marines on board, prepared for war and armed conflict with Columbia. In the Pacific, the US war ships Marblehead and the Boston were deployed. The objective was to prevent the Colombian navy from preventing the takeover of Panama by the US and its Panamanian proxies. This was an instance of “gunboat diplomacy”. Ironically, the Nashville had been used to put down the Filipino insurgency or independence movement in 1900 and the Boxer Rebellion, a Chinese insurgency to achieve independence from European colonial and imperial occupation and exploitation.

On November 2, 1903, the Colombian naval vessel Cartagena was deployed to Panama. The US war ship Nashville, with eight 4-inch guns, however, was able to force the ship to retreat. The Colombian garrison on Panama was bribed by US forces not to intervene. The next day Panama declared independence. The US immediately recognized the independence of Panama. The Panama Canal could now be built. Voila! A new nation was born just like that.

	USS Nashville

In 1921 Columbia was forced to recognize the independence of its former province. The US paid Columbia $21 million in exchange for recognition. Panama would be ruled by juntas, the military, and dictatorships for much of the 20th century. In 1989, the US would depose Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had been a CIA asset since 1959.

The similarities between the engineered “independence” of Panama in 1903 and Kosovo in 2008 are striking and real. In both scenarios, the US used the weapon of secession to dismember states that were perceived as hostile to US interests. Columbia prevented the construction of the Panama Canal, seen as a vital geopolitical, military, and commercial interest for the US.

The US built 14 military bases in Panama and was reported to have had 130 installations there overall. In Kosovo, the US constructed Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest and most expensive US military bases ever constructed, which houses 4,000 US occupation troops. The camp complex was constructed on 955 acres in Kosovo with a 7 mile perimeter. The base was constructed by private firm Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) and the US Army for $350 million and costs $50 million a year to run. The camp has its own electricity power source, water treatment facility, waste disposal, SEA huts, a helicopter landing port and even a Burger King restaurant and a Taco Bell. In November, 2005, a human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, Alvaro Gil-Robles, went to the camp where he saw a detention facility which he characterized as a "smaller version of Guantanamo".

Serbia, similarly, was seen as an obstacle to US efforts to bring the Balkan countries, Southeastern Europe, into NATO and US military and commercial alliances. US leaders saw US penetration of the Balkans as of vital strategic interest for the US. In the 2000 Presidential debates, George W. Bush stated that Kosovo was vital for the future of NATO and for NATO expansion. Kosovo and the Balkans were vital for the US military and strategic role in Southeastern Europe.

Like in the Panama scenario, US policy was to use the potential secessionist movements as a way to dismember or neutralize a country that was perceived as hostile, antagonistic, or was an obstruction.

The Kosovo scenario was, thus, not “unique” or sui generis. Panama showed that the modus operandi (MO) had been used earlier.