The Panama Deception: Media’s Role in Driving the War Machine

• by Rahul Chadha, May 20, 2011

This post was written by STF blogger Aaron Cael.

The chronicle of American wars contains many smaller conflicts wedged in between the marquee names of World War II, Vietnam and Iraq. Director Barbara Trent’s film The Panama Deception reminds us that for the people being bombed, shot and terrorized by the invading war machine, there are no small wars. Using footage of explosions, charred bodies, and the leveled neighborhoods of the poor, The Panama Deception turns again and again back to the U.S. media’s sanitized version of the “intervention” that omitted everything but the U.S. government’s carefully controlled narrative. Interviews with ex-CIA analysts, investigative journalists, and Panamanians caught in the crossfire put the lie to that narrative, revealing the operation as a live-fire rehearsal for the wars of the 21st century, during which the U.S. tested new weapons on real people.

Barbara Trent was on hand, passing her Oscar statuette around, to provide the audience with context of the true goals of the Panama invasion, and to describe the fierce censorship she and her collaborators faced from an occupying force that sought to dodge the bad P.R. of collateral damage in moves that resulted in mass graves and media blackouts. Special guest Jean-Manuel Beauchamp—grandson of the invasion’s target, Panamanian President Manuel Noriega—also took questions from the audience about growing up in the aftermath of invasion and occupation, and the game of international politics that has kept his grandfather imprisoned.

[Photo: From left, Jean-Manuel Beauchamp and director Barbara Trent, courtesy of Simon Luethi]

Comments

Using footage of explosions, charred bodies, and the leveled neighborhoods of the poor, The Panama Deception turns again and again back to the U.S. media’s sanitized version of the “intervention” .
Fleet Management

    – .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (06/07  at  01:41 AM)

This article written by Aaron Cael, while well-informed in its correct views of the film, is wrong in the lack of respect shown in its final sentence: “the game of international politics that will likely keep his grandfather imprisoned for life.”

While my grandfather is currently serving time in Paris, against all Geneva Conventions, without evidence against him, on behalf of the United States Government, the actions currently being taken by the President of Panama Ricardo Martinelli and the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton make his safe return to Panama imminent. While it was supposedly assumed that the United States should have had no role to play after the completion of his sentence in Miami, all actions point the opposite, and Barack Obama’s current Democratic presidency has to make up for the Republican scheming in the respect of my grandfather’s case.

Despite the use of the word ‘likely’ in the final sentence of this review, this sentence not only provokes unnecessary drama to my requested participation in the screening, but it also takes part in the deception of the media that the film discusses at length by suggesting a continued lack of justice.

-Jean Manuel Beauchamp

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    – .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (06/17  at  12:03 AM)

Cool post! How much stuff did you have to look up in order to write this one? I can tell you put some work in.
Art Exhibitions

    – .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (06/27  at  09:32 AM)

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