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| WSJ: The Real Charlie Wilson |
| 2007-12-23 |
| On Saturday from 8-10 p.m. ET, the History Channel will show "The True Story of Charlie Wilson," a documentary featuring some of the real people portrayed by actors in the new movie "Charlie Wilson's War." The gist of both accounts is that Mr. Wilson, a flagrantly hedonistic congressman from Texas, basically won the Cold War by almost single-handedly making sure that Afghan mujahideen got the money and weapons they needed to defeat the Soviet army. There is something offensive about this notion, though Mr. Wilson at least has the grace to point out that the real credit goes to the Afghan people. Repellent in another way is the confident claim -- being revived in the wake of the movie -- that supporting Afghans gave the world Islamic terrorism. So it features the juicy bits. They include Mr. Wilson's formative experience as a boy, when his dog was deliberately killed by a local politician, an act Mr. Wilson avenged by contributing to the politician's electoral defeat. When Mr. Wilson first went to war with the bureaucracy, the official U.S. strategy for Afghanistan was to help the resistance put up only a token fight that no one expected them to win. Yet while Mr. Wilson battled a cynical CIA, he created hurdles of his own. The documentary does give Ronald Reagan -- the only time he is mentioned here -- credit for ordering that Afghans receive the Stinger missiles which turned the tide of the war after 1986. At the end, "The True Story" tries to shoot down criticism that by arming the Afghans, Mr. Wilson gave us the Taliban and al Qaeda. What it doesn't say is that arming the Afghans was not the real mistake anyway -- recruiting and training Arabs was. Many resistance leaders and mujahideen argued passionately against the importation of foreign fighters, whom they neither wanted or needed, and generally loathed. I remember towards the end of the war talking to one muhahideen in particular. He said his fellow Afghans generally disliked the Arabs and called them "cowboys". It was easy to spot the Arabs as they were they only ones to wear the traditional towels on their heads. Good short read. |
| Posted by:Icerigger |
| #4 Debbie put it best. We did not create Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. We did not create Islam or its many dominant extremist strains that want to wipe us off the face of the map. These things were already here. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-12-23 16:33 |
| #3 (should have been "Make die the death of a thousand ducks." Network problems, yeah, that's the ticket...) |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2007-12-23 16:22 |
| #2 The last time I checked, the weekend before 9/11 the Taliban (with the help of Al Jazeera journalists) killed Shah Massoud in a suicide bombing and the first thing we did after the attacks happened was go back and decide we needed to keep supporting the Mujaheddin after all. The whole fiction of "It's Charlie Wilson's fault" expoused above is just another comforting conspiracy theory meant to shelter those who believe in it from the _real_ awful truth: that the Taliban and Al Qaeda rose to power (_and_ committed the 9/11 attacks) with the help and support of the armed forces of a hostile nuclear power. People too weak-minded to admit that we face the choices of a) capitulating, b) starting the nuclear war now, or c) going through the long slog (and believe me, Afghanistan's gonna be a longer harder slog than Iraq over time) will want to say "It's all Charlie Wilson's fault," as if pretending it's all been engineered by KBR will make that true. You see the same thought in all the people who want to pretend betraying Israel to the arabs will make things better. Frankly all they're really proving is that Osama was right after all: that the US is a bunch of craven cowards who it'll be easy to conquer and die the death of a thousand ducks. And Betty Crocker will _not_ protect you. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2007-12-23 16:20 |
| #1 It's hard to believe that this movie is glorifying Terrorism, Covert Wars, Illegal Drug Use, Corrupt Politicians and the Breaking of International Laws all at once....but it just might be. By reading Rotten Tomatoes.com one will read "Charlie's partner in this uphill endeavor is CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos (Hoffman), a blue-collar operative in a company of Ivy League blue bloods. Together, the three of them--Charlie, Joanne and Gust--travel the world to form unlikely alliances among the Pakistanis, Israelis, Egyptians, arms dealers, law makers and a belly dancer." But you don't read about Tom Hanks and Julia's characters recruiting a Saudi Arabian man to lead their joint venture, by the name of Osama Bin Laden. If America has forgotten so quickly, go back and read about a leader of the Afghani Resistance against the Russians. Yep, Charlie Wilson helped train, educate and fund Osama Bin Laden...and look what Osama Bin Laden has done since Charlie Wilson found him. You would think that Hollywood and anyone with a brain would rather educate people. Glorifying Charlie Wilson, Osama Bin Laden and Joanne Herring is wrong. Many people don't know that Joanne Herring is part of the Johnson Family that owns Kellogg, Brown and Root and DynCorp Private Contracting Groups. Who would have thought huh? My advice, read about these scum in books or on-line. By the way, the book Charlie Wilson’s War is rather dry and isn‘t worth the paper its written on if you asked me, but you get an idea of what went on during that time period. My Advice, don't watch movies that glorify Terrorism and the people who get rich off Wars against Terrorism. Those who seek to impose their own ideology and want nothing else but to be powerful should rott in hell. Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth. |
| Posted by: Butch Gramp3166 2007-12-23 13:11 |