The Panama Deception
by Barbara Trent
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DVD details
Actor: Elizabeth Montgomery; Abraham Alvarez; Carlos Cant??; Diviana Ingravallo; Alma Mart??nez; Lou Diamond Phillips; Ramsey Clark; Julio Cesar Guerra; Isabel Corro; Eugene Carroll; Jeff Cohen (III); Roberto Dur??n; Jose De Jesus Martinez; Guillermo Ford; Gavrielle Gemma; Balbina Herrera de Peri??an; Mark Hertsgaard; Alejandro James Jr.; Robert Knight; Peter KornbluhDirector: Barbara Trent
Brand: New Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: NEW VIDEO GROUP
DVD Reviews of The Panama Deception
DVD Review: An intresting match of facts and (biased?) opinions
Summary: 2 Stars
While the film shows some interesting facts about how the media and U.S. government handled the invasion, much of the information portrayed portrayed as factual by the documentary is in fact based in opinions, and sometimes from questionable sources.
Some of the people interviewed were close Noriega followers that had strong (even criminal) anti-protester stances. Some of these people should have been convicted, (probably weren't due to corruption, and the fact that everyone in Panama is somebody's cousin) yet are being interviewed and their comments being put forth as facts.
Additionally much is left out by the documentary, much of the background information needed to evaluate the comments made by the interviewees is not included.
Furthermore, the conclusions made by the documentary are mostly speculation, and have in fact been disproved.
However if you take everything you see with a gran of salt, it still shows some interesting concepts about government control of the media which have carried to more current events.
DVD Review: like an earthquake on the Oakland freeway
Summary: 4 Stars
This DVD is important to me mainly as a reminder of an important time in my life. Extra bonus material on the DVD and my reading ofNight (Oprah's Book Club) suggests that Nam vets have been quiet about certains aspects of their own experiences, so that reactions which change the audience could be much more radical than the contents of a documentary which does not attempt to reach so far into inner experiences while it can hardly avoid showing people who have gone through something that is not ordinary. I don't mind taking the worst kind of view, putting this show in the context of a theopathic state:
Midpoint gentility factors
Seeking a sociology of knowledge worthy of 40 years of recapitulation of my year in Viet Nam, it strikes me that December 1969 was the midpoint of my year in Nam, as the Panama takeover of December 1989 was the low point that the Vet Center prepared me for in 1989 at the midpoint of my 40 years of recapitulation. Gentility was a major factor in 1989, though ironically it was called the wimp factor on the DVD The Panama Deception about the American invasion of Panama in December 1989. The DVD did not harp on religious issues like the book Night which won a Nobel Peace Prize for Elie Wiesel in 1986, but I had considered church activities a microcosm of my relationship with the world at large. Church attitudes deal with depression much more openly than superpower politics, I find December an extremely depressing dark time of year, and The Panama Deception fits in very well with the kind of cultivation of stupidity that treats underlings like cornering quivering cows in hecticity.
I was still going to church with my family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when I was home in 1968. Getting an obscene tattoo which would be offensive enough to make me 4-F for the draft seemed laughable compared to the conscientious objection granted with great gentility in the draft law. The Supreme Court was not sure that belief in a Supreme Being was necessary to be an opponent of wars, but my church and Congress considered God the main requirement for anyone who wished to submit to the kind of codes which granted gentility within the horizon it expected good people to remain within. It gets dark in December, so in December, 1968, I had a break in basic training to return to my family and the other guys in the army had a chance to get laid by someone familiar instead of a perfect stranger. Ten years later Jimmy Carter was ready to ask Congress to have men and women register for the draft, and by 1980, my own church's denomination in Minnesota was considering a resolution to have churches register young people as conscientious objectors so that if a draft call came, there could be an official record supported by an institution that recognizes a supreme being of C. O. status that draft boards were not going to keep track of as a routine matter.
I was not a big fan of all the gentility crap in 1980. Outright opposition to the draft is weaker coming from young people who actually have a life to lose than coming from a bunch of old farts who clearly see how the cultivation of stupidity is always set up to corner quivering cows in hecticity. By 1989, the idea that a real Zapata, a former head of the CIA could become president of the United States and ask for a Statute of Limitations on arguing about the Vietnam War effective January 20, 1989, seemed like an attack upon every fiber of my being. At church, the usual method of gentility was to ask:
Where is God in all this?
In the darkness of each December, the old year dies and the birth of an infant God is celebrated. Life has cycles of growth and death that cyberpower has not managed to get to yet. Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, changed things for the United States of America more than September 11, 2001. Having opponents that can be defeated in a few years is almost cheerful compared to years of searching for money laundering without being able to nuke anybody.
DVD Review: TELL THE TRUTH !
Summary: 5 Stars
Amazing Video... Documentary. I knew something was going on when the local radio station did not announce a Tornado in the area.
The news used to be the news and they would do public announcements, it is a business and when the government jumps into the mix, we the people are left out.
The Panama deception sounds a lot like the guantanamo Bay of the Iraq War. It is shocking and eye opening. Everyone should see it.
DVD Review: Every American should View the Panama Deception
Summary: 5 Stars
Every American should watch the Panama Deception. Panama was a wonderful country in 1987 and 1988, a country which I visited at that time and saw with my own eyes. The tragedy that the USA bestowed upon Panama by bombing them mercilessly at the end of 1988 was initially covered up, but was later revealed in this award-winning documentary that is narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery.DVD Review: Business as Usual
Summary: 5 Stars
The invasion of Panama is one of many military operations in Central America that result from business deals going bad. The business in this case was drug smuggling. Noriega was found out for what he was, a CIA operative that was following orders to facilitate CIA drug running to the US. US criminal boss ,Poppi Bush, had him taken out to rid the world of this drug kingpin who was also head of state. "Panama Deception" shows in grisley detail the results of "Operation Just Cause".
Description of The Panama Deception
A riveting Academy Award-winning documentary, made all the more timely by recent U.S. invasions and the current war on terror, THE PANAMA DECEPTION documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, the events which led to it, the excessive force used, the enormity of the death and destruction and the devastating aftermath.Acclaimed filmmakers Barbara Trent and David Kasper uncover the real reasons for this internationally condemned attack, and reveal General Manuel Noriega s longstanding relationship with the C.I.A., the D.E.A., and George Bush, Sr. Utilizing devastating footage, expert commentary, and eyewitness testimony, the film shines a spotlight on this pivotal moment in U.S. history. Network news clips and media critics contribute to a staggering analysis of media control and self-censorship used to deceive the American public--a film hauntingly relevant today.
An example of documentary journalism at its best, THE PANAMA DECEPTION is ...tough, provocative, highly opinionated... an answer to the official United States Government line about the 1989 invasion of Panama. (The New York Times)
DVD Features: Follow-up interviews with filmmakers Barbara Trent & David Kasper; Panama to Iraq: The Trajectory of U.S. Militarism; The Future of Panama & Latin America; The Politics of Demonization and Fear, with Phyllis Bennis; Panama After the Invasion, with Humberto Brown; Trailers from GoodFilms.org; Resource Guide; Filmmaker Biographies
Years before the US went after Saddam Hussein, the White House had Manuel Noriega, another former ally, in its sights. In their Oscar-winning documentary, director Barbara Trent and writer/editor David Kasper (Cover Up: Behind the Iran Contra Affair) contrast media coverage of the 1989 invasion with expert testimony. The filmmakers backtrack to America's turn-of-the-century takeover of the Panama Canal--and volatile aftermath--before flashing forward to the reform-minded Carter era. When the CIA-supported Noriega comes to power, reform gives way to repression, and Reagan calls for the dictator's ouster. His successor, Bush, brings in the troops. It would be one thing if they only targeted military facilities, but witnesses claim soldiers also fired on civilians and residential property (a Pentagon spokesman denies the accusation). Depending on the source, casualties ranged from 250 to 4,000. Narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery, Panama Deception was shot on video--and looks it--but content is king. To some, the film will play like conspiracy theory as a few speakers are unidentified (probably to protect their identities). Trent and Kasper also suggest that General Torrijos's 1981 death by plane crash may not have been accidental, though they offer no proof. More often, however, they're persuasive in their case against the intervention--and they have extensive audio-visual evidence to back it up. Incidentally, the 1989 operation was dubbed "Just Cause." It seems unlikely many Panamanians would agree with that description. DVD extras include filmmaker profiles and interview updates on the impact of the invasion. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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