TV Reviews : ‘Panama’ a Surreal, Hard Look at the ’90 Invasion

“Frontline’s” excoriating report on “War and Peace in Panama” (tonight on Channel 28, 9 p.m.; Channel 50, 10 p.m.) takes a hard look at Operation Just Cause, last year’s invasion to oust dictator Manuel Noriega. Producers Charles Stuart and Marcia Vivancos conclude that none of the stated goals of the invasion have come to pass.

It is surreal tale. Video from Air Force cameramen shows pre-invasion U.S. troops putting on camouflage make-up like opening-night actors. The cameramen, while filming Noriega’s command headquarters in an inferno during the airborne attack, can be heard muttering, “Burn, baby, burn.”

Noriega, according to the report, was very drunk and in a prostitute’s bedroom during the first attack. Upon fleeing, the superstitious leader futilely tried to retrieve a lucky charm left in the bedroom. When troops took over his headquarters, they found not only pictures of Hitler, but also furniture in camouflaged upholstery and cabinets full of frog statues.

In the subsequent year, President Guillermo Endara has proven to be a hapless head of state, according to the producers. They find that not only are all the conditions of the Noriega era still rampant--public and private corruption, drug-money laundering, loose cannons in the military--but, in many ways, they are also worse. Former U.S. ambassador and Panama observer Robert White charges that Endara is “quite willing to accept an unemployment rate of 25%.” Endara slaps libel suits on Panamanian journalists who report on a massively armed populace’s total distrust of the police.

Stuart and Vivancos arguably overdo the hearts and flowers with a look at the bloody fate of a woman, Elizabeth Ramos, whose death her bitter family blames on the U.S. At the same time, they investigate whether Operation Just Cause was a test run for Operation Desert Storm.

But “War and Peace in Panama” seems to testify to misbegotten U.S. foreign policy, which flips from country to country like an impatient channel changer.