The Panama Deception

What's surprising about Panama Deception is not the facts that it delivers, but that a film that reveals so much about US policy was allowed to win the Academy Award. The film's analysis of media bias is dead on, and its seamless corroboration of the true events of the Panama invasion are irrefutable. In addition to the in-depth analysis of the history of US intervention, the film accurately predicts the current US quagmire in Colombia. This film is a classic treatise on US foreign policy, and a great example of the necessity of true independent media.

The "Panama Deception" refers to acts and events that are classically typical in the history of this and other powerful governments throughout history. The U.S. administration in power during the period is known by informed people of all economic and political strata to be particularly cynical.

I notice a highly critical review of this film on this site is by a "19 year veteran of the army." While what this person says has some merit, I put little stock in the opinion of someone who is naive enough to join the army and is in such deep denial over the sins of government.

I applaud this film. Heck, it even won an Academy award - a stunning turn of events considering it's radical nature - that is, in your face truth.

Aesthetically I do not value "The Panama Deception" very highly. Most of the time it looks poorly made; even the image quality of the footage Barbara Trent shot in Panamá looks poor. The reason that it works for me as a Panamanian, and that it may have considerable value for a foreign viewer, is that it is quite honest when it analyses the so-called "Operation Just Cause" to destroy Panamanian armed forces, under the guise of an international raid on Manuel Antonio Noriega, in the name of democracy. Nobody believes this today and it is not hard to do so in retrospective, when one thinks of El Salvador or Nicaragua, just to name a couple of Latin American countries where self-determination was violated by American troops. I could be biased because it deals with one of the lowest points in the Panamá-USA relations, from a point of view that leaves little space for doubting what it denounces: on one hand, it offers motives for the Panamanian invasion, that sound more credible than the rhetoric arguments of American or Panamanian officials, and on the other it shows how irresponsibly the US media treated the fact. Besides, in the final analysis, what Trent seems to be more concerned for, is the empowerment (as the name of her organization) of the American people, through the acknowledgement of what their governments have done in the last two centuries, taking the invasion of Panamá as a case in point. Panamanians all have different opinions about what happened, about the data and inferences the film offers, as many Americans also do; and I believe this is what makes this documentary work. In the case of my fellow countrymen, it is also a starting point to research the effects of a hyper-violent moment of our national history, when suddenly the notion (and our perception) of a "state" vanished, and we lived moments of total social, economic and political chaos with protagonists of all social classes, as the film graphically shows.

Narrated by Elizeabeth Montgomery and produced by Barbara Trent who previously produced "Cover-Up" a documentary about the Iran-Countra scandal or deception "The Panama Deception" has to do with the real reasons behind the 1989 invasion of Panama which had nothing at all to do what we the American people were told at the time by the Bush I Administration and the US media.

The unprovoked invasion of Panama that cost as many as 4,000 Panamanians and two dozen US servicemen's lives had to do with the September 1977 Carter-Torrijos Treaty that was to hand over the Panama Canal to the Panamanian Government on New Years Eve 1999. Something that the new incoming Reagan Administration was dead against and determined to overturn. After Panamanian strong man Omar Torrijos was killed in a mysterious plane crash on July 31, 1981 CIA sponsored Manny Noriaga was was put in charge hoping that he would do as he's told by his handlers back in the USA. Manny who was canned or kicked off the CIA payroll by President Jimmy Carter's CIA Director Mansfield Turner back in 1978 was immediately put back on the CIA payroll by the Reagan Adminstration at double his salary. It's then that Manny started to organize both drug trafficking and supporting the Sandinista contras for his employers the CIA.

It was later when Manny didn't go along with what he was told that the US now run by President George Bush the First made plans to dump him in him becoming too independent for his own good. After a number of failed attempts to ouster Manny it became obvious to the Bush Administration that it had to use use force but at the same time demonize Manny in order to get the American public to support a military invasion and take over of his country. Planting stories about Manny Noriaga being a sexual degenerate and drug user and pusher, which he was for the CIA, as well as Hitler lover it didn't take long for Bush in the excuse of restoring democracy in Panama, which in fact never had it, let loose the "Dogs of War" on that country from which it has never recovered since now over 20 years after it was invaded.

What turned out to be the real reason for the invasion of Panama was not just to scudded the 1977 Carter-Torrijos Teaty but destroy and disarm the Panamanian Army! With the Panamnian Army needed in protecting the canal the aforementioned treaty became invaded which Bush made sure it would be! And thus have the US military, which in fact destroyed it, replace the Panamanian Army when the treaty came into effect some ten years later!It was also the invasion of Panama that opened the door to a new and aggressive form of US foreign policy that was implemented in countries like Iraq, in 1991 & 2003, Kosovo and Afganistan that with no Soviet Union to worry about no one not even the UN being able to challenge it.

P.S Even though the documentary "The Panama Deception" was released in 1992 it in fact accurately predicted the course of US foreign policy for the next 20 or so years! Something that Jean Dixon or even the great seer Nostradamus couldn't do and it didn't even need a crystal ball to do it!

It seems people are letting their politics decide their ratings. As a documentary, it's good but not outstanding. It's a fairly straight forward PBS or Frontline type documentary. It won an academy award because it was against not very strong competition. One was downright bland, about using music in films.

The first third of the doc is completely uncontroversial. It's a straight forward history of Panama, the canal, and how Noriega got into power.

The ones hating this doc, calling it paranoid, were themselves paranoid and downright hysterical, and bashing the film on flimsy pretexts. The film actually gives plenty of voices from the Bush administration. This includes a Pentagon spokesman and several generals.

And sometimes their outrage leads them to spout falsehoods. They claim the film says "The US Army used lasers to kill people." No, it says some weapons were laser guided, being tested in the field for the new time.

Claiming "There were mass graves" and "thousands dead." That's not even controversial. Every estimate is several thousand killed.

Claiming some of the experts should be better labeled. That might be the only criticism with any validity. Perhaps for a few, who are shown as authors or journalists. I went to the trouble of looking them up. Two were in academia, one a TV reporter, another a national radio reporter.