Charlie Wilson's War

[question everything]

Not much spoilers here but if anyone is concerned, don't read.


We went there with several misgivings. First, what's a Congressman doing running a secret war? And, two, the training and arms that we provided the mujahadeens eventually were used against us, not to mention that these "brave" freedom fighters ended up being the Taliban with their women behind burkas.

But the movie kept us interested. No doubt, Sorkin's excellent writing contributed. And, yet, the atrocities by the Soviets were chilling. I think that the description was pretty accurate.

And the end was the more poignant. Charlie Wilson, after giving Afghanistan $500 million, wanted additional $10 to build schools, to help the Afghani rebuild their country and was denied.

And this, he observed, is what we always end up doing. We provide military aid to countries and then we just leave, we do not help them making a transition to civilian life - even though their "democracy" may be different from a Western-style one.

And what we have seen with extreme of all religions: they are the one that fill the vacuum, providing health care, and shelter, and food and schools to the poorest of the poor, with their teaching of their fanaticism.

Was interesting to hear Murtha having problems with ethics, and Guiliani investigating Wilson.

And the blatant use of women in Congress as sexual objects, calling one of them "jailbait." No wonder they had no idea what Anita Hill was talking about.

[cynatnite]

1. I loved the movie...

I thought it was awesome. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymore Hoffman were great! Sorkin's best work.

[midnight]

2. It sounds like what we got going on right now. Same old, Same

old.

[lvx35]

3. "they are the one that fill the vacuum, providing health care, and shelter..."

Good point. You see the same thing with Hamas and groups like them, they play these roles like any church organizations, schools medicine etc. And when you look, its often all these people have, they're living in dirt. And then we come in with all our wealth and condemn the "backward" doctrine of their only social institutions whilst sipping lattes and watching Jon Stewart on Comcast, and those of us who don't do that are busy bombing them and screwing them out of their oil.

America just needs to get OUT of the middle east, beyond supporting our few friends in the region.

[question everything]

5. I even heard about some Indian activist who claimed Mother Teresa's

work let the Indian government off the hook by not leading the way in taking care of the poor and the sick.

[Jane Austin]

4. My Dearest Husband loved the movie,

but said the book was much, much better.

Probably just can't distall all that down to two hours.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. It was a very well-written and well-acted defense of covert wars

And repetition of CIA propaganda.

(Yes, I just bet the Soviets placed toys on top of mines to target
children, unlike anything our covert forces ever did to indigenous
populations in obscure "anti-communist" uprisings. Ever heard of
the Great Game?)

Interestingly, OSAMA BIN LADEN was not mentioned ONCE, although he
was one of our clients recieving arms and his dad was part of the
frequently mentioned Saudi matching funds & arms conveyor belt.

But they had time to mention Murtha and Giuliani. ????

Sure there are hard working, no bullshit civil servants like Gust in the foreign service.
Many of them are whistleblowers.

But they weren't in charge of covert wars, goddamnit.

The guys in Afghanistan and elsewhere were purely about extending US business interests around the globe to benefit "US INTERESTS" (companies) and cut off supplies to the Soviet Union, which had an isolationist economic policy that was strictly focused on denying us access to third world resources (which we in turn wanted to deny access to the countries themselves, since nationalization of resources was pro-Soviet. We wanted a British style global trade empire.) They wanted to keep the Soviets from having sea access and prevent them from competing with US foreign trade by keeping them in a dependent economic relationship, selling grain and oil to the United States for pennies on the dollar in return for foreign exchange (dollars) to build up their military machine further, thereby funding the contrived Cold War (much like the contrived Cold War Reagan and Bush engineered in closed talks with Khomeini.)

Last I checked, covert wars lead to more death and destruction, not less.

Charlie Wilson said it best in a recent interview. "We did the right thing because it was the only place in the world we were killing Russkies. We got to kill Russkies."

[cynatnite]

7. Do you remember the ending?

On the screen it said 'We fucked up the endgame'. It was in reference to the Taliban which was filling the vacuum left by the retreating Soviet Union.

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. No, the movie left the impression that Our Enemies (tm) filled the void left by our shining light

We FUNDED the goddamn Al Qaeda at its exception as a CIA backed Saudi mujahedeen operaiton (part of the $500 million in Saudi matching funds) which is why we know it EXISTED within minutes of the first Al Qaeda bombing operation (when newspapers around the world gave readers a "who is this new enemy of ours?" breakdown exactly who Al Quaeda was and what it wanted within minutes of the first attacks in the late 1990s, almost like a superhero movie or a video game where the villain's identity and next moves are obvious.)

Sure enough, Al Qaeda promptly telegraphed its next move with a media-published threat to crash planes into buildings, a threat which DUers promptly forgot, assuming they were avid readers at the time.

The ending of Charlie Wilson's war is an implicit lie.

Omission can be very telling.

Omission of the fact that ISI created and funded the Taliban with some of that $1 billion, or the fact that we knew exactly who Bin Laden was and we had tabs on him the whole time right up until 2001 (but somehow lost track of him afterwards.)

This is a movie which does not attempt to explain how "spy business" really works. It is literally structured like a "caper" film. Even "blowback", a watered down concept for public consumption only, is not mentioned.

Syriana and the Good Neighbor are a lot more accurate, I think.

Movie reviewers said the fact it was a caper film with heart-warmingly
lovable scamps like Gust (who eerily resembles a family member of mine
who worked for the Govt) was justifiable because Afghanistan was the
LAST "GOOD WAR".

Tom Brokaw started this meme.

In a few decades they'll be saying the same thing about a US invasion of Iran, how it was the last "good war" and how we went up against evil bureaucrats who did not want direct military confrontation, like that dispicable CIA station chief.

On Edit: Do I feel bad about those copters being shot down? Not really. But it is telling that we are expected to cheer for them, but not cheer for the Afghans trying to shoot down US copters today. After all, we are the freedom-bringers, and we're not indiscriminate barbarians like the Soviets. My question is, isn't it interesting how fast those munitions disappeared after the Afghan war was over? We seem to have complete control of the battlefield there, contrary to popular reports... I don't recall ANY US copters being downed by US OR Russian-made heat-seeking missiles!

[cynatnite]

9. I think you need to watch it again...

At the end Wilson is shown attempting to get more funding for the Afghans after the Soviets pulled out. It was also an indication of what was to come during his conversation with Hoffman's character. That's not counting the quote that they fucked up the engame in reference to the vacuum left behind that was on the screen.

All of the above was very clear and concise.

There is also a satirical bent to the film as well. It's a very well done movie that really holds up a mirror for us to look into. That's how many of those movies are. They force us to take a look at ourselves...zits and all.

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. Hoffman's oblique reference...Again, WE FUNDED the "crazies" you claim we could have saved them from

I guess if we had provided schools and roads then, we would have diverted
money which continued to flow to Bin Laden and the future Taliban through
Reagan/Bush affiliated trusts into BCCI and the Saudi-Israeli-Pakistani
connection designed to beef up Sunni Islamic terrorism in order to
"encircle" Iran and the Soviet Union, which the movie speaks openly about.

Or no, $10 million would be a tiny fraction of the money we continued to funnel to warlords
(using opium poppies as an international currency of
choice for all black budget covert ops, with Afghanistan being the global
center of the market like Amsterdam was for diamonds in the 17th century)
including Bin Laden and his known terrorist gang, useful tools of the US
arsenal who Bush and his friends in the black ops agencies was strangely
able to tell Clinton all about his movements, and journalists were
strangely able to find him with ease, but not assist with exterminating
because his dad was an FOB.

[cynatnite]

11. I'm not arguing those facts with you at all...

I'm saying the ending showed that the US failed the Afghan people clearly. Do you understand?

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. It was a good movie. The US failed the people of Afghanistan how?

Only insofar as Gust's whole strategy was destined for disaster
from the start, since the warlords and Bin Laden supporters who
took over Afghanistan were the people we were funding to, er,
take back Afghanistan from the Soviets using Saudi and Pakistani
jihadis as the primary intermediaries.

Admittedly, guys like Gust probably thought they could
"ride the tiger" by getting the jihadis on our side, directing
their anger at the Soviets, paying them off like the Saudis
continue to do in the case of Al Qaeda and other jihadi
organizations, protection money to ensure the Sunnis are
on our side against the Shiites (whose primary evil was
that they nationalized Iran's oil that had been in British
hands for over a century).

But guys above Gust, or rather below him on the ground,
would have known that what was really going on was we
were relying on Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists and
hand-choppers for money laundering and arms dealing after
the war against the Soviets was winding down. A lot of
that money probably went to fund all kinds of crazy
black ops that got labeled terrorism in random parts of
the globe which we will never know about (and guys who
were in the secret services in the 80s are SOOOOO proud
of this fact, they're always going on about it.)

Bin Laden was basically our client until Bush (his dad's
drinking buddy) personally slighted him by stationing troops
in Saudi Arabia. Then all of a sudden we were keeping track
of his every move and pronouncement as if we knew he was
a terrorist all along (because we did.)

[cynatnite]

14. We all knew it was a disaster from the start...

We're the viewer and we already know the history after the Soviets leave. I think that's what makes watching the movie a lesson in irony because one can't help but think it from beginning to end.

[Leopolds Ghost]

16. I wish most Americans understood what we see in the subtext, but I fear they dont.

I only understand because I grew up in DC and saw the "media line" on
foreign affairs (in a town where foreign affairs are actually covered)
change from year to year depending on who was in charge.

The leftists, the liberals, the rightists, the BFEE, they all had
consistent double standards when it came to bringing the hammer down
on various enemies of the US which varied from season to season,
that were easy to sort out and easy to figure out who benefits
domestically from "unexplained events" in foreign lands. As you
know I'm sure, we have three options.

1. Assume the Evil US Imperialist Secret Gov't is All Powerful, never
makes mistakes and has a consistent agenda that does not favor individual interests above the common interest of some sort of secret cabal.

2. Assume the CIA and similar agencies are utterly incompetent and hobbled by Evil Liberal Secret Elites and thus had no control over (or power to stop) disasters abroad which we clearly made no attempt to forestall, but somehow would have done so if it had been in anyone's interest.

3. Assume that the government is a collection of corrupt men who rise to the top above suffering civil servants who are punished and demoted for honesty, e.g. for revealing the actual small- and large-scale political and economic criminal conspiracies which are conducted by small groups of corrupt power brokers on an everyday basis in Washington, some of which conspiracies have devastating consequences that are unforseen and unintended to most of those involved (but certainly not unprepared for, as they usually never come out of these conspiracies at a loss, even when one or two scapegoats go to jail, the rest always keep their spoils because shit rises to the top.)

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. In short, I think the movie humanized the gov't by showing how few people it takes to implement

real change, even when the policy is fucked up and leads to disastrous
consequences unbeknownst to them down the road (but perfectly beknownst
to people higher-up than Gust Tavrakotos, and probably beknownst to him
as well.) Anyone as well informed as Gust would have known what those
opium poppies were being used for, and about the Bin Laden connection,
and would have seen where that was going when they started pumping up
Bin Laden as the next supervillain years before he attacked the WTC,
at a time when the conservative (hostile to Clinton) secret services
still had close tabs on Bin Laden due to our 15-year-old business
relationship with his mujahedeen, while the media was dropping hints
left and right that he would attack the WTC, and nothing was done to
prevent it. He was simultaneously the next supervillain and not a
threat to these shores. But "whoever" attacked the WTC, according to
Giuliani (who warned us, along with the owner of the WTC, that the
building WOULD be attacked again, and they warned us with relish)
would get their ass kicked, so the thinking went.

[cynatnite]

15. It did that and I think it also showed how short-sighted the govt. can be...

As it was here. I loved how Charlie wanted to help by stopping the Russian birds. Very simple and to the point. We can feel good about ourselves, pat ourselves on the back and all that...up until the point that the Afghans have no govt. and the Taliban waltz in and take over. It made me feel pretty rotten by the end. I was thinking 'we are such fools'.

Love the movie.