I find this subject intresting because when it happened I was at an age that I wouldn't read into the public story line, but I can look back on it in with a genuine memory of the events unfolding. In short, the question is this: One of the long term side effects of the American intervention in Panama in 1989 was that the US was able to re-adjust the Canal agreement and retain a greater level of control over the Canal Zone than was originally intended. (The original agreement called for the Canal Zone to become exclusively the provence of Panama in 1999. After the invasion, the US rewrote the agreement so that they would retain control of the Zone more or less indefinately.) Were the events leading up to Panama part of an American plot to retain control of one of the Canal Zone? If so would it be appropriate for the US to preform such a manouver?
Panama was a crime against international law. We just invaded a soveriegn nation, killed a couple of thousand Panamanians and kidnapped their leader who had previously played ball with Reagan, Bush Sr. Weinberger and Colin Powell. It was an atrocity that bears restudying. ************ The Panama Deception by Susan Ryan Cineaste v20, n1 (Wntr, 1993):43 (2 pages). COPYRIGHT Cineaste Publishers Inc. 1993. Used in the UCB Media Resources Web site with permission. Produced by Barbara Trent, Joanne Doroshow, Nico Panigutti and David Kasper; directed by Barbara Trent; written and edited by David Kasper; cinematography by Michael Dobo and Masnuel Becker; narration by Elizabeth Montgomery; music by Chuck Wild. Distributed by Tara Releasing, 124 Belvedere St., San Rafael, CA 94901, phone (415) 454-5838 and The Video Project, 5332 College Ave., Oakland, CA 94618, phone 1 (800) 4-PLANET. For further information, contact The Empowerment Project, 1653 18th St., Santa Monica, CA 90404, phone (310) 828-8807. On December 19, 1989, most Americans were glued to their televisions in disbelief as thousands of U.S. troops prepared to attack Panama with the stated purpose of ousting the man the media loved to hate, General Manuel Noriega. By early morning, they were reassured that Operation "Just Cause" had achieved its goal of hitting twenty-seven targets, thus making Panama safe for Americans living in that country as well as those safely at home in front of their televisions. But the media failed to investigate many crucial issues, including the fate of Panamanian citizens and a detailed explanation of the just cause' for which American troops were fighting. These are the questions The Panama Deception sets out to answer, and, in so doing, it provides a provocative, well-documented analysis of U.S. relations with Panama and a devastating critique of the mainstream media and its complicity with the official government line. For those familiar with the findings of the report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry see The U.S. Invasion of Panama: The Truth Behind Operation Just Cause, South End Press, 1991), the film's exploration of the contradictions between the official reasons for the invasion and the real motivations will come as no surprise, but for many The Panama Deception will serve as a shocking illustration of the brutal face of American foreign policy. During the attack, the U.S. unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft against a country with an army smaller than the New York City Police Department. With uncanny echoes of Grenada less than a decade earlier, this illegal invasion against a sovereign nation was made in the name of "the protection of American lives" as well as the defense of the Panama Canal, the restoration of democracy, and the removal of Noriega and his drug trafficking operation - reasons which might have sounded good at the White House but failed to convince anyone with a knowledge of the history of U.S.-Panamanian relations. As a result of the controversial 1977 Carter-Torrijos treaties, the Canal was scheduled to be turned over to Panama by the year 2000. The treaty provided for the closure of all fourteen Southern Command bases in Panama by 1999 which would make more difficult U.S. military access to the rest of Latin America. Seen in these terms, the invasion provided a convenient justification for continued U.S. military presence in the area as well as the rationale for the renegotiation of the treaties. From an international vantage point, the overpowering show of force demonstrated that the U.S. retained control over its own backyard.' The Panama Deception explores these contradictions as well as the many other lies generated to deflect criticism of the attack which violated both the U.N. and O.A.S. charters. Using archival footage and interviews with a wide range of both Panamanian and American authorities, the film puts the invasion in context by showing the troubled history of the Canal's construction at the beginning of the century, the resulting confrontations over the years between the U.S. military and Panamanians, and the problematic relationship during the Seventies with Panama's popular leader, General Omar Torrijos. The montage of archival images reprising the historical relationship includes several which foreshadow the events of 1989. Of particular note is the televised segment of a soon- to-be-elected Ronald Reagan recreating the role of Teddy Roosevelt as he compares the Canal Zone to the acquisition of Alaska in saying, "We bought it, we paid for it, and General Torrijos should be told we're going to keep it." The film also chronicles the rise and fall of Noriega as he was courted, then rejected, by the American government after he became a political liability. The sequence on the U.S. media's demonization of Noriega, including Bush's inarticulate rambling about "Mr. Noriega, the drug-related, drug-indicted dictator of Panama" would be comical if we didn't know that this was just the prelude to a bloody confrontation. As an interview with an ex-CIA analyst reveals, the invasion was intended to "reverse Bush's image as a wimp," a rather large price for the Panamanian people to pay for the sake of his political viability. In addition to analyzing the invasion and filling in many specific details about the excessive force used, the film also presents the Panamanian perspective, the side we never saw on the nightly news. Eyewitness accounts of the bombing and the fear felt by the people as they saw their families killed, their homes destroyed, and their city devastated, powerfully convey the human suffering caused by this act of aggression. In contrast to the images of Panamanians welcoming the Americans as a liberating force which the mainstream broadcast media presented, the angry voices of Panamians describe the horror, pain, and continued disruption of their lives. While some might call it heavy- handed, the ironic juxtaposition of official commentary by government spokesmen with actual footage of the invasion and its aftermath succeeds in revealing that lies were created on every level - the sites of the bombings in civilian neighborhoods, the search and destroy methods of the U.S. military in the days following the attack, the number of Panamanians killed, and the continued impact on the people in the form of homelessness, unemployment, and political instability. Various regional and international human rights commissions estimate that between 2,500 and 4,000 Panamanians were killed in the invasion, a far cry from official U.S. reports of only several hundred. Many of those interviewed in the film - like Isabel Corro, a Panamanian human rights worker - continue to raise money for the exhumation of bodies from mass graves which Pentagon spokesmen deny exist. As the film makes clear, the U.S. government was not solely responsible for the deception. The mainstream media was shamefully complicit in passing on government press releases as news. Interviews with media analysts Michael Parenti and Mark Hertsgard discuss the total collaboration of the media in this dress rehearsal of restrictions on the press later repeated during the Gulf War. Several cleverly edited sequences mesh the images and voices of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and other arbiters of information as they use virtually the same language to describe the invasion and what it means' to the American public. In this respect, The Panama Deception is not only a visual analysis of the events of December 1989, it is also an indictment of the news apparatus in a society where alternative interpretations of events rarely reach the public at large. In Panama, the suppression of information included the destruction of photographs and videotape documenting the high number of civilian casualties. .... link
I didn't have a problem with it. The action was provocated by attacks on our civilians by Panamanian troops. When did the damned UN get veto powers over what we do with the most powerful military in the world? Jimmy Carter was a stupid, naive fool for simply giving away the Canal like a moron. Now a Chinese company that is part of the PRC military-industrial complex runs it, not a good development. http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/4/5/80227
I am convinced that Glynch hates America. He NEVER sides with anything the US does militarily. Socialism doesn't work Glynch..give it up. DD
In fairness, we did everything we could to provocate the panamanian military into provocating the attacks on Americans.
Panama was a crime against international law. You realize Panama had both declared war on us and killed (or wounded, I'm not positive) a few Americans in the country in the days before we invaded, right? If a country declares war on you, why is it a violation of international law to fight them?
Hutchinson Whampoa is a multinational company whose core business is running ports. If you're worried about them running the Panama Canal, what about the port that they are operating in the Bahamas? Only 50 miles to the US. They might be spying on us and keeping WMDs there ready to strike on the orders of the Communist Chinese. HW also runs the busiest ports in the UK. We should warn them.
My brother in law who spent 20 years in the Army,most of it in the Rangers was in the invasion. He considers himself a Republican, but was sickened by the large number of Panamanians we killed. You don't have to be a socialist to be against that war. Don't be silly, Dakota.
A misconception, and likely a mistranslation, apparently, propagated by the "liberal" media: http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/Issues/97-04%20APR/devilpan.html
You realize Panama had both declared war on us I don't believe this is true. Prove it. From the Joint History Office of the Office of the Chairman of JCS (Sorry, I have a hard-copy, no link). Article is "Operation JUST CAUSE": "In late 1989 relations with Panama grew sharply worse. On 15 December 1989, the National Assembly passed a resolution that a state of war existed with the United States, and Noriega named himself the Maximum Leader. Violence followed the next evening when a Panamanian soldier shot three American officers; one, First Lieutenant Robert Paz, U.S. Marine Corps, died of his wounds. Witnesses to the incident, a U.S. naval officer and his wife, were assaulted by Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) soldiers while in police custody." This was a resolution, not some random Noreiga statement.
Source #2: (also a hard copy, although you may be able to find it online) "The Panama Invasion Revisited: Lessons for the Use of Force in the Post Cold War Era" from <I>Political Science Quarterly</I> volume 110n4 by Eytan Gilboa "On 15 December 1989, the Panamanian National Assembly appointed Noriega chief of the government and 'maximum leader of national liberation.' The assembly also <B>declared Panama to be in a state of war with the United States.</B> ... The United States interpreted the declaration of war as a license to harass Americans. Indeed, in the following days, there were several serious incidents between the PDF and the U.S. forces in Panama."
I'm pretty sure the 'original' agreement was that we owned the canal forever. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that glynch. And I think you're presenting a terribly skewed picture of the time. Why aren't you talking about the Panamanian opposition that was bloodied and bludgeoned in the streets to quell those opposed to Noriega's dictatorship? I find it ironic that you criticize heartily those governments that have paramilitaries exerting control through terror in other places and yet seemingly support Noriega despite his use of the same tactics.
