Charlie Wilson - Charlie Wilson's war couldn't happen today

[red-beard]

I watched the 2 hour History Channel special on Charlie Wilson. One of the intersting notes is that the Movie doesn't do Charlie's boozing and womanizing enough, and if it did, one would think it was a Holloywood addition. I saw this on the WSJ site today and thought I'd post it here for review


Why Charlie Wilson's War
Couldn't Happen Today

By JOHN FUND
December 28, 2007; Page W13

"Charlie Wilson's War," the film treatment of how a party-hearty Texas congressman teamed up with other Cold Warriors to humiliate the Soviet Empire and hasten its end, is a box-office success. After the failure of preachy political films, like "Lions for Lambs" and "Rendition," Hollywood will credit the movie's appeal, in part, to its witty dialogue and biting humor. Fair enough. But the film offers another lesson, for both Hollywood and Washington: Good things can happen when principle trumps partisanship.
I met Charlie Wilson in his heyday in the 1980s. He was an operator and a carousing libertine. But he was honest about it, promising constituents that, if he were caught in a scandal, "I won't blame booze and I won't suddenly find Jesus." He called himself a Scoop Jackson Democrat, after the hawkish senator from Washington state. Mr. Wilson was fiercely anticommunist.
In 1981, two years after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Mr. Wilson visited refugee camps in Pakistan at the prodding of Joanne Herring, a conservative Houston socialite he'd been dating. There he saw starving families and Afghan children whose arms had been blown off by explosives disguised as toys. "I decided to grab the commie sons o'*****es by the throat," he told me in a recent interview.
About the same time, President Ronald Reagan was signing top-secret directives to use covert action and economic warfare to weaken the Soviets. These allowed a maverick CIA agent named Gust Avrakotos to team up with Mr. Wilson. Mr. Avrakotos picked a team of agency outcasts to funnel weapons to the Afghans while Mr. Wilson made sure they had the means to do so.
The film tells this story and offers up a series of foils for Mr. Wilson. The CIA station chief in Pakistan is a bureaucratic weasel who doesn't want to upset the Soviets. When Ms. Herring asks Mr. Wilson, "Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?" he responds: "Well, tradition, mostly."
In the end, Mr. Wilson used his perch on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to expand covert aid to the Afghans to $1 billion a year from $5 million. House Speaker Tip O'Neill gave him a long leash. Other Democrats, intent on blocking White House support for the Nicaraguan Contras, happily let Mr. Wilson have his way to bolster their own anticommunist credentials.
Gradually the operation wore down Soviet morale. On the first day that shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles reached the mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan, in September 1986, three Soviet helicopter gunships were downed. "They flew, they died" is how Mr. Wilson puts it. In early 1989, the last Soviet troops pulled out, and the experience persuaded the Politburo to think twice about putting down rebellions in Eastern Europe. Within months, the Berlin Wall fell.
As the film notes, the U.S. failed to follow up in Afghanistan and allowed chaos to develop. Years later, the Taliban took over, eventually giving safe haven to Osama bin Laden. But the film stops well short of blaming the U.S. for creating conditions that led to 9/11. As Mr. Wilson says, not a single Afghan has participated in any attack against the U.S.
Mr. Wilson, 74, is now mending nicely from a heart transplant. He is generous with praise for his comrades-in-skulduggery. "We won because there was no partisanship or damaging leaks," he emphasizes. But he believes that nothing like the Afghan operation could survive today's poisonous Washington atmosphere.
Tom Hanks, who plays Mr. Wilson in the film, has fretted that he, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols will be attacked by the right as "a bunch of Democrats who are taking potshots at the war in Iraq." He needn't worry. Mr. Hanks and his fellow filmmakers have produced a rousing paean to America's can-do spirit. They have resisted the temptation to comment on any current U.S. foreign policy missteps and highlighted how, not so long ago, one ornery congressman and a few friends helped change the world.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for OpinionJournal.com.

[legion]

No it coudln't happen today.

The Dems want to be communists, not fight them. They are more worried about appeasing international aggressors than beating them.

And if anyone tried to appropriate this kind of money, the New York Times would run a story front-page--full of misquotes and misinformation. Some congressmen and senators would purposefully distort the facts for instant political gain.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by legion

No it coudln't happen today.

The Dems want to be communists, not fight them. They are more worried about appeasing international aggressors than beating them.

And if anyone tried to appropriate this kind of money, the New York Times would run a story front-page--full of misquotes and misinformation. Some congressmen and senators would purposefully distort the facts for instant political gain.

Unfortunately too correct in todays society.

[azasadny]

I'm scared that IT could ever happen. Subjugating the Democratic process to help out any group, whether "democratic freedom-fighters" or any other group without the support and knowledge of the voters is just wrong (IMHO).

[nostatic]

shhh! Sometimes "Democracy" needs to be kinda set aside by those that know better (you know, the ones with money and power). They know best what to do and are here to save us from ourselves. They fixed Afghanistan quite nicely. I'm sure Iraq will be sorted out in the next week or two, then we'll cure Pakistan.

[sammyg2]

So, what you're saying is that a POS congressman can't illegally use taxpayer money to arm and train terrorists anymore? I think that's cool, but I'm betting that Osama Bin Laden and his followers won't like that.
We should have let the USSR have Afganistan. Maybe then we wouldn't be over there fighting the terrorists with the weapons good ole Charlie gave them.
This guy deserves to be hung, not glorified.

[varmint]

I'm sick of that lie. the CIA/charlie wilson never funded al queda. bin laden came to afghanistan with his own money.





The feds figure a way to listen in on al queda's cel phone conversations. Someone leaks the info and the New York Times runs it n the front page.

The feds run a rendition program, someone leaks it, and the New York Times runs it on the front page.

The feds figure a way of monitoring financial transactions across the middle east. Someone leaks it, and the New York Times runs it on the front page.

It's sort of like someone doesn't want us to win.

[nostatic]

yeah, the feds are kind of screwing the pooch...

[legion]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

So, what you're saying is that a POS congressman can't illegally use taxpayer money to arm and train terrorists anymore? I think that's cool, but I'm betting that Osama Bin Laden and his followers won't like that.
We should have let the USSR have Afganistan. Maybe then we wouldn't be over there fighting the terrorists with the weapons good ole Charlie gave them.
This guy deserves to be hung, not glorified.

Good point. What about secret programs that are backed by a majority of congressmen? They don't stay secret anymore either.

[sammyg2]

Get your facts straight and then pop off. I'll say it again but in plainer english this time:

The CIA and Charlie funded the mujahideen. They trained them and provided weapons. Many of them later became taliban. many became Al queda.
The taliban provided al queda a place to set up training posts and safe haven. They benefitted indirectly. They are allies.
The US military is currently fighting the taliban and Al Queda, which Charlie helped arm and train. The only real difference is what they are called now.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by legion

Good point. What about secret programs that are backed by a majority of congressmen? They don't stay secret anymore either.

Except for Area 51, it doesn't exist

[varmint]

The CIA and Charlie funded the mujahideen. They trained them and provided weapons. Many of them later became taliban. many became Al queda.



i haven't seen the movie. i actually read the book. we funded a group of warlords loosely called the northern alliance. and mostly pashtun tribesmen in the south. after the soviets left these groups turned on each other.
when the taliban rose. they made a point of killing anyone who had a connection to the westren intelligence agencies. the best example of this was on september 10th 2001. when a couple al queda suicide bombers disguised as journalists killed masoud, a mujahideen leader who had worked with he CIA.

[BeyGon]

I saw the movie yesterday and liked it, my wife liked it. It was entertaining and had some skin shots. Lots of language in it, maybe a little rough for the little kids.