Posted on 01/18/2007 11:08:09 PM PST by beyond the sea
A special effects assistant was critically injured Thursday after a simulated stinger missile exploded on the set of the upcoming Tom Hanks movie, Charlie Wilson's War, reports The Associated Press. Stars of the film, including Hanks and Julia Roberts, were not on set at the time.
A group of special effects specialists were testing the handheld device when it exploded at Downey Studios, a former aerospace factory 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
The assistant was in critical condition while undergoing surgery Thursday evening at St. Francis Medical Center. The assistant's name was not immediately released.
The cause of the explosion was under investigation. The device had been scheduled to be launched from a helicopter during filming Friday.
The film is based on George Crile's book about the CIA's largest and most successful covert CIA operation, the arming of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.
(snip)
How do you react to a very funny book about something that isn't funny at all? George Crile's Charlie Wilson's War is a classic story of good intentions gone wrong, a comedy of can-do Americanism loose in a world it really doesn't understand. Crile's protagonist, the boozing, womanizing Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, and his roster of allies ranging from socialites to dictators to CIA operatives, are figures who might have stepped out of one of the late Ross Thomas' comic thrillers of Americans up to their necks in Third World skullduggery.
Crile, a producer at 60 Minutes, has told of a story here that everyone else missed, and his elation at having a big scoop dovetails with the enthusiasm that Charlie Wilson brought to his cause — arming the Afghan rebels to defeat the invading Soviet army in the '80s. Crile has written an extraordinarily entertaining piece of reportage that has much to tell us about how the U.S. armed a group of people who are now using the weapons we provided them to kill us. A fiction writer would be hard-pressed to come up with a comparable tale of American shortsightedness, or one with more hairpin reversals and rich, comic irony.
But there is a contradiction at the heart of the book that Crile has not been able to resolve. He's torn between seeing Charlie Wilson as a hero and knowing what his unconditional support of the mujahedin cost us. Crile has written a satirical epic of inadvertent hero worship.
Crile's confusion over Charlie Wilson is likely to be the reader's as well. You'd have to be very straitlaced not to like the guy. In the '80s, Wilson was an east Texas congressman, a Democrat, a social liberal and a fierce anticommunist who had a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for funding both the Pentagon and the CIA. Wilson's public persona was something of a joke. A rangy 6-footer (his cowboy boots added a few inches) with a booming voice and the demeanor of the prototypical confident American, Wilson was more known for his shenanigans than his statesmanship. The ladies in his life included a Playmate, a former Miss World contestant, an east Texas divorcée who became his personal belly dancer, and a Houston socialite who so endeared herself to the Pakistan dictator Mohammed Zia ul-Haq that Pakistan's then ambassador to the U.S. made her the country's honorary consul.
ping
Thank God!/sarc
I always hate it when an article talks about someone's ill-fortune or in this case a serious injury and then a writer finds it necessary to breathlessly report that the "stars" were safe!
Not good for the irony of the story, but I don't believe that much of what we armed them with is still around or useful. But hey, if it can hurt the war effort, hollywood will use it.
Those we helped were mostly the group now known as the "Government of Afghanistan, formerly the Northern Alliance. The Taliban were late comers to the war, as was Osama although not so much so. We also supported other groups who the Taliban then defeated when they started fighting amongst themselves.
But, most weapons are pretty sturdy things, by necessity, and they last a long time. There are exceptions of course, small nukes, and infra-red missile seekers being among them. But AKs, ammunition, mortars, RPGs, and even Tanks and APCs, will last a long time, if properly maintained and/or little used.
Yes...... sort of like an egocentic headline here in the states such as:
"50,000 Killed in Eathquake, No Americans"
I get your drift, but .......
I heard a guy interviewed for about an hour on the radio about this Charlie Wilson a few years ago, before this movie was ever conceived. This Charlie Wilson was a fascinating wild man.
If the movie is anywhere true to the book it ought to be great. Wilson's story is incredible!
I was thinking of stingers and more sophisticated stuff that is high maintenance and neglected small arms and ammo. You are correct that we probably provide soviet small arms which would still be useable.
I'll get the book from the library. Does sound interesting.
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