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The Panama Deception. Prod. by Barbara Trent, Joanne Doroshow, Nico Panigutti, and David Kasper, 1991. 91 mins. (Tara Releasing, 124 Belvedere St., San Rafael, CA 94901)
The Panama Deception is a film about Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 American invasion of Panama, after more than two years of confrontation between Washington and the government of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega.
The film is unreservedly hostile to the Bush administration for launching an intervention that was "swift, intense, and merciless," laying waste whole tracts of the Panamanian isthmus in three days of "brutal violence." The devastation is graphically captured in footage of the United States invasion and in gruesome shots of its aftermath, notably the exhumation of bodies allegedly buried in mass graves by the United States armed forces. And the documentary is also deeply critical of the media for being agents of "corporate America," for peddling the official line that Just Cause was designed to protect American lives and restore democracy to Panama, and for mouthing the White House claims that it was a success well worth the cost in American blood and treasure.
The swoop on Panama, runs the commentary, should have come as no surprise given the history of United States-Panama relations. But that history between 1903 and 1964 is allotted only...