User reviews

I wanted to write just to share some light on the issue of U.S. foreign policy but after reading the posts here I'm glad to see that not all Americans are short-minded and/or blind about their government, or supporting it even though they know what things they do just believing thats what a good "patriot" do. I would say a good patriot is what a lot of the people here posting are doing because it shows the world there's still hope the U.S. can become the country it's supposed to be as it was intended by the U.S. constitution. Patriotic is not defending the U.S. blindly just because is your country.

Let me just say I was 11 years old at the time and a lover of the USA (I had already been in Disney World :)) but two months prior to the invasion Americans surrounded my neighborhood, closed the roads, put cutting wire, armored vehicles, helicopters flying etc. (they did this because there were still some Americans living there, although imagine that were you live Chinese soldiers take control over the area, in a nice town of Florida, I don't think you would like that) and I have to walk home (I was returning from my school, still in the uniform) and an American started pointing me with this huge machine gun attached at the top of an AV (I guess now that was an M-60) and kept following me as I walk. Let me tell you, that can change your life. During the invasion I have to stay down under my bed for almost two weeks until it ended. Not an experience I would like to repeat.

Believe me or not, the video not only is unbiased, but is actually missing even more. For all of you who think is biased, just remember, everything you were hearing about the invasion was good things, like the US government was doing "just" a favor to the Panamanian people, that "all" of us loved it, etc. Obviously these guys wanted to tell the truths the US gov. didn't say and exposed the lies they did say. So in that aspect, yo better believe they were biased, that's the intention of the video, to go against what they told us, not to make it appear as if they were doing the film from a neutral point of view and that the conclusion of the film was what they told us on it.

I read some people here was mad saying it was all lies but they were never in Panama, not before, during, nor after. Then how can they say is not true? I know this people don't like hearing negative things about their country, but imagine, I'm not only hearing hypocrisies about the reasons of the invasion, which offends me, but also a lot of my fellow countrymen died.

Well, I wrote more stuff but its too long to fit in here, if I create a homepage in the future, I'll post it and give a link here. Peace out

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.

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.

I watched this tape because of a term paper I was doing on the Panama invasion in 1989. I thought I had a good idea of the invasion, but this documentary showed what the biased news did not and was not allowed to show. After seeing the tape, I was enraged by the dirty back-room Realpolitik courtesy of Bush I and his henchmen. The comments by the Pentagon spokesman and military general were ironic when excellently juxtaposed with images that refuted their half-truths and deception. The documentary is not the kind you would ever see on the History Channel, but (perhaps for that reason) it is well worth watching. I am no history buff, but this 1 1/2 hour exposé was quick and done. You might understand why people in yet another corner of the world hate U.S. Americans after being enlightened and angered by _The Panama Deception._

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.

Although the film maker's bias tends to show through, this is probably the most thourough (I bet I spelled that wrong) account of the US invasion of Panama I have ever seen. I have already read volumes of books, all of which agree with what was expressed in this documentary (and the funny thing was, I wasn't specifically looking for that, either. I couldn't find any first-hand accounts that towed the US-government line).

I have two friends who served in Panama, and became very disillusioned after the things they were ordered to do. Although most people will never hear of this, much of what is discussed in this documentary is actually standard military practice all over the world. I'm not defending it, i'm not attacking it. I'm just stating it; shelling of civilians is somewhat of a game to many military men. Most of my male family members in the States are military guys, and there was a massive change in them after their tour of duty.

The funny thing is, I think this is a great documentary, and i'm further from the left than Reagan. But, you can't argue with the truth. A splendid look at how the truth gets shut out sometimes.

I tend to forget that we even invaded Panama (such is my luxury as an American), so this film was interesting not only for reminding me, but for also showing how horrifically ridiculous and overkill (literally) the whole thing was, and worse, how unjustified. The narrator describes Panama as practice for the first Gulf War, but the parallels are obviously very strong with the Gulf War that occurred after this film was made, complete with a clueless, kneejerk-patriotic media that didn't even have the lame 9/11 excuse for failing to see through government rhetoric. It is made clear that the government's control of what media sees was actually a new thing since Vietnam, but of course, they fail to complain about it directly to us when they are denied access (as they were during the initial bombardment).

The story is largely told through footage of the aftermath (disturbing, to say the least) and a certain amount of talking heads. Most of the "experts" seem fairly level-headed, although I think they would've improved their credibility by not including one particularly ridiculous claim. The composition of the film itself does leave something to be desired; the director uses the cheesiest freeze-frame and wipe effects, puts a lame "TV frame" around US media footage, and dubs rather than subtitles most of the Spanish speech. This film, then, is basically good because of what it tells us and the fact that it makes us look at what happened, giving us less room to brush it off. If, say, you already knew everything about the Panama invasion, the film would hold little value for you.

This shocking and detailed eye-opening film on the events surrounding the Panama invasion by U.S. forces in 1989, amazingly won the Best Documentary Oscar, one of those rare occasions when the Academy takes big chances and awards the most controversial of the competitors. With justice. Barbara Trent's film is hypnotic, brave, providing loads of information in the right measure, without being overbearing and excessive.

What one calls it as Operation Just Cause with the intent of taking down Panama's then leader Manuel Noriega was nothing less than a bunch of gruesome operations that led in 3000 casualties on the Panamenian side, 23 on the American side, - numbers varying from source to source - thousands of people lost their homes during the one month occupation and only in the end such operation got to the eventual fall of its leader facing many accusations from drug trafficking (major source of drugs entering in the U.S.) to violation of human rights. With all that in mind, "The Panama Deception" doesn't fall into being biased or deeply anti-American as it could be, instead, preferring to examine both sides of the issue presenting the horrible suffering from the Panamenian people and the embarrassing explanations given by a Pentagon aide who doesn't convince at all on why the operation was necessary. Gotta be kidding when it's mentioned that all happened because they had to defend U.S. sovereignty on a foreign soil, or something to that extent that if one American dies (in this case a marine was shot a few days before the invasion) something must be done. Such reaction didn't occur when Flight 007 was taken down by the Soviets in 1983, there was an American senator in the plane. Wonder why. The goal in here was to keep control of the canal, change the deal signed by Jimmy Carter which was more favorable to the Panamenian control.

A brief yet powerful history lesson that goes to show once again history repeating itself: the frailty and dangers of a paranoid nation who creates their foreign demons to later battle them back when they no longer represent their interests (in this case, Noriega), giving false pretexts to command invasions, establish their orders and murder innocent people indiscriminately. Thankfully the truth came out with this documentary which was bold enough to question authorities during its making (it's not rare to see moments where U.S. soldiers kept asking for the camera to be turned off when filming the concentration camps - shelters? - with thousands of people living at the worst possible conditions, surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards) and to denounce how close the first world media was treating the matter in their prime time news.

Enraging, brutal, at times shocking and brilliantly made. 10/10

First it must be stated that it is quite apparent that those involved in the production of this documentary have an agenda and that makes the documentary somewhat obviously biased. It also must be noted that, no matter what the reasons were for the invasion, the people of Panama are certainly no better (or worse) for the change in government and worse off because of the invasion. Whether Noriega was involved in drug-trafficking or not (I would tend to think most governments with large-scale drug production areas within their borders probably are, and Noriega is no exception), getting rid of Noriega was like shhoting a flea with a Howitzer: noisy, messy, expensive and ultimately futile overkill. A good piece of work so long as you understand that there is an agenda here. I suspect that if you put the governmental story on one side and this on the other, the truth would be somewhere between them, but closer to the documentary than the government.

Not to say that Farenheit 9/11 was bad as it was indeed a quality film, but if you saw and enjoyed, the 2004 blockbuster documentary (or just want to watch a great and enlightening film), then I would strongly recommend The Panama Deception. Firstly, from watching The Panama Deception, I realized that Fahrenheit 9/11 was not as groundbreaking as it may have first seemed as the former questioned and dissected the official version of a US foreign war 12 years before the latter was released. And The Panama Deception further supersedes Fahrenheit 9/11 in exposing Corporate Media's role in propagating White House lies. Although Fahrenheit 9/11 also does the above, The Panama Deceptions' presentation of big media is far more truthfully eerie, having the effect of showcasing the sham of selling of a illegitimate war to the American public. If you want to learn more about the history of the Bushes (as Bush 41 was pres. during the invasion of Panama) lying to the American people, then check out The Panama Deception.

...could swallow this film wholeheartedly.

I am not living in a polyanna-ish world where the US administration's motives for invading Panama were absolutely pure. However, any valid criticism of the US administration that might have been in this film was lost amongst the bizarre, unbelievable paranoia the so-called documentary filmmakers chose to adopt as a viewpoint. Some of this material (like the bit about the US Army using random Panamanian civilians to test Area 51-type secret beam weapons on) landed somewhere between comic book and schizophrenic dementia. Oh, and the "everything was great until the US got involved" viewpoint- classic.

Sadly, I remember seeing this film with the kind of zombies who would cheer the filmmakers at every statement, no matter how outrageous or out of touch with reality. Goes to show that the hardcore religious right is not the only political orientation with a cadre of zombies willing to ignore facts or even the slightest contact with reality, as long as what they are being told fits in with their preconceived notions. One thing the far left and far right have in common: they will pay to have people tell them what they are already convinced is true!

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!

Elizabeth Montgomery spent much of her life trying to break from the "Bewitched" reputation. I would say that "The Panama Deception", which she narrated, marked her full success. The documentary exposes the real reasons for Bush Sr.'s invasion of Panama: it was not to stop Gen. Manuel Noriega from drug trafficking, but rather to overthrow him when he was no longer an acceptable puppet leader - and the US army killed almost 4,000 civilians in the process.

We assumed that this must be the truth all along. For further info on the circumstances of the invasion, read "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" by Noam Chomsky. He explains how, during the invasion, Bush announced an increased arms sale to Iraq and China. This was less than a year after the Tianenmen Square massacre, and less than two years after Saddam had used chemical weapons against the Kurdish city of Halabja. As Chomsky put it, Noriega looked like Mother Teresa compared to Bush's allies in Baghdad and Beijing.

All in all, Bush Sr. deserved to get impeached for this. Or the Gulf War (or both). Never doubt what these people are doing when they claim to be sending troops to countries for humanitarian reasons.

What I just can't understand, is why some people, both Panamanians or not, have such a hard time believing the US Government and the troops can behave like this. Both before (like in Vietnam, My Lai massacre), and after (Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo), the US has committed terrible war crimes and crimes against humanity, but we refuse to accept this.

Some Panamanians blame the people from Panama like the "Dignity Battalions" with burning down the Chorrillo. With all the history of the atrocities by the US military, and the footage showing you the firepower used, in the middle or a large barrio of wooden houses, they want (need) to believe that somehow all these missiles and bombs only fell in the so called "targets" and completely missed the houses, which were then conveniently burned by Panamanians.

I was also there (18y/o). Regrettably, having swallowed 18 years of indoctrination, I supported it, and I supported people like Endara and the guy beaten by the police, Guillermo Ford (who despite being Latino prefers to call himself "Billy").

Mr Ford says he doesn't care about the price tag, and that he would pay "any price". Of course, he did not die, nor did his children, parents, wife, siblings, etc. It is easy to pay "any price" when that price is the blood of others. He reminds me of Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under Clinton, who also thought the lives of the 500,000 Iraqi children that died according to UNICEF as a result of the US sanctions, were a price "worth paying".

I wished the film would have stopped for a second longer to challenge the elections of 1989. The opposition was funded by the US. This is illegal under both US and Panamanian law. As it is under Venezuelan law (the US funds the Venezuelan opposition as well). So yes there was fraud on Noriega's side, but there was fraud before on the opposition side, accepting money from a Foreign Government. And there was the economic sanctions applied to Panamanians, which obviously influenced the result as well. And BTW I voted for those people you saw on the film, Endara & Co, who now I regard as "vendepatrias (people who sell their country)". How dare they be "sworn in" as president in a US base? Last thing, someone said the filmmakers "have an agenda". We all do. Wake up, the US media has an agenda too. To take your tax dollars for themselves and the military industrial complex, of which NBC is a part. The US commercial media has a huge agenda that has nothing to do with you (unless you hold shares) and everything to do with keeping you distracted from what truly affects you.

I remember naively taking food and water to US troops camping in front of my house. Now I realize how stupid and foolish I was, risking my life and trusting the "good intentions" of soldiers. There are many dead people in Iraq who did the same and approached US checkpoints.

to all of you government trusting people let me tell you,,, this documentary covered only 45 days of what was going on. anyone remember the bush family and the savings and loan scandal,,, chase bank stole money from honest panamanian citizens by closing the bank in panama, bankrupting that said bank, by u s federal law and then using the proceeds and bailed your sitting president and his half wit brother out of the scandal. the u s believes in our constitution, i do to, i fought for it, now we the patriot act and all the rights it strips... yes the panama deception is accurate right down to me being put on alert during the October coup to peacably end noriega, but that would not have served the purpose for taking down the chase bank to steal from the panamanians,,, signed, the upset vet

This film is a leftist polemic in which the American forces involved in the 1989 Panama incursion are all liars and murderers and the leftists who are interviewed are all victims and heroes. That said, the film is well made and interesting, that is no doubt why it won the Academy Award for documentary films. Nevertheless, it is entirely unconvincing. The only person I saw interviewed in the film's entire 1 hour and 45 minute length who was credible was Pete Williams, now a network newsman, who was then the Defense Department's press spokesman. The bias of this film is demonstrated by its maker's position that the American press was itself biased because it focused on the tragedy caused by the deaths of Americans who died in the incursion. It's thesis that American soldiers willy-nilly murdered innocent civilians is supported only by biased interviews and urban legend. Despite the skill of its maker, this film is not recommended to anyone with an interest in knowing the facts.

The Panama Deception (1992)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-winning documentary takes a look at the American invasion of Panama in 1989. Through archival footage from all the major networks, we see that the majority of Americans and all of the media were behind this invasion even though overtime it became clear that they were mislead about the real reasons. People were told that it was for American safety but this documentary tries to show a more malicious reason, which resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of Panama citizens being killed. When viewing this film today I think many people will connect it to events that are going on within the last few years. Overall this is a pretty impressive documentary and you can tell that the director really has a passion and anger over what happened. There's some pretty graphic material here and especially towards the end when we're told about all the mass graves and we see some brutal footage of them being dug up where we see many of the bodies that were thrown in there. We also get some photographs of dead civilians who were shot and just left on the streets. Throughout all of this we get footage from the major news broadcasts and we see how they were all behind the invasion and not too many questions were asked and not much detail was given to anything except showing the Americans who were killed. As impressed as I was with the film, the one thing I'd hold against it (and many documentaries) is that they only show one side of the story. It's really too bad someone who supported what happened wasn't interviewed to give their opinions on why this invasion was needed. Many sources here are Panama newspapers and I'm really not sure if we can trust them any more than we can trust American newspapers. With that said, THE PANAMA DECPTION does a very good job at getting its point across and history buffs will certainly want to check this out.

This film is a complete waste of time. The film throws out all sorts of allegations, and yet does not back it up. Thousands of American soldiers were involved in the invasion and yet the film does not have a single ONE backing the films allegations. Skip this one.

If you enjoy writing your congressman to complain about black helicopters, you'll love the Panama Deception.

Though this movie did a masterful job of deceiving the Motion Picture Academy and many of those who viewed the film, the film is nothing more than an anti-American propaganda piece. The claims of mass civilian killings have crumbled under the slightest scrutiny, and the premise of the film is widely rejected not only by Americans familiar with the decision making process involved in choosing to invade the country, but by every Panamanian national I've ever met - regardless of socioeconomic status.

I travel regularly to Panama and have had the fortune to develop strong relationships with Panamanian nationals. After hundreds of conversations and interaction in virtually every facet of daily life with Panamanians, I've yet to encounter a hint of regret for the U.S. invasion. The truth is that Panama labored under a dictator whose thirst for power and disregard for political dissent grew to an unacceptably dangerous point.

But even if your politics won't permit you to agree with my comments above, you would acquit yourself well to ask why the U.S. honored the Panama Canal Treaties and handed over full control of the Canal in 1999. The central premise of The Panama Deception is that the U.S. sought to destroy the Panama Defense Forces in order to thwart handover of the Canal to Panama in accordance with the treaties signed by President Carter in the late 1970s. And yet, the U.S. closed its military bases, and today Panama is one of the most robust democracies in the Western Hemisphere and operates the Canal in sovereign fashion.