Posted on 12/22/2007 10:16:52 PM PST by kellynla
Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s.
"Charlie Wilson's War," out Friday, is based on a book about former Rep. Charles Wilson, Texas Democrat, known widely on Capitol Hill during his tenure as "Good Time Charlie" and who helped fund the semi-secret war that ultimately helped fell the Soviet Union.
The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Bin Laden, the officials said, never got CIA funding or weapons, and was not directly involved in Islamist extremist activities until years after the Afghan operation ended after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.
That anti-American aspect of the film, namely that the Afghan operation ultimately caused the September 11 attacks, reportedly was altered after protests from Mr. Wilson and his former fiancee, Joanne Herring.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Should finish with just $9 million for the weekend, at #5. Another Hollywood Anti-american bomb.
My two cents worth:
Saw the film yesterday. My general impression from the film was most of the stupidity was during the Carter administration. The early part of the movie with all the exposition of the government's foibles can be laid at the foot of Carter. The writer uses the CIA agent (great performance by Phillip Seymore Hoffman, very funny) at the end to say that we traded one evil, the soviets, for the unknown evil of fundamentalist moslems.
The movie showed the Americans helping out people being used for target practice by the Soviets. Seems like good guys to me.
I didn't think this was as heavy handed as West Wing (same writer), and we both found the movie entertaining and interesting since we've been reading it was close to actual story. If you haven't seen it, please pass on by.
PS: It shows Murtha getting a pass from the ethics committee. Doesn’t that tell the truth?
"Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." Julia Roberts
I don’t think it can be called a “bomb” just yet. Depends on how many screens and per-screen average.
I’m glad Sorkin’s leftist nonsense was excised; in the finished product, the spectre of Islamic fundamentalists (or “crazies” as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character calls them) is raised, but the point is not hammered.
The movie is immensely entertaining.
“I have been saved by Jesus Christ and I am not ashamed to admit it!” - Julia Roberts, in “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
Whatever her real-life politics, Julia Roberts plays this wealthy, Christian, conservative Texan onscreen with great panache. Her character comes off great.
I saw the movie tonight and enjoyed it. It was quite humorous, and it did the promiscuous side of congress. I can’t vouch for the entire accuracy of the film, but I did not get an overall anti-Republican vibe from it.
If somebody walked in to this movie not knowing anything about it, you could get that a single congressman was solely responsible for getting the money to fund the arms shipments.
The movie never mentions Carter, but the CIA agent helping Wilson does point out the enormous damage that Stansfeld Turner did by gutting the CIA’s HUMINT.
The doesn’t mention that the Democrats controlled Congress, yet it does mention Tip by is nickname only, and Murtha’s ethics problems, which were swept under the rug via political favors (votes for appropriations).
Wilson’s cocaine parties were under investigation, and they movie specifically points out Giuliani as the prosecutor, and implies that he’s on a witch hunt by finding ever limo driver Wilson has used.
The movie does tend to suggest that Reagan/Bush (I’m not sure exactly the date when the committee was discussing the reconstruction funding) didn’t know anything about Afghanistan. One of the congressman said he heard the President ask, “Are we even still over there?” This more or less was shown to back up the claim that Wilson alone was responsible for the funding, and that the CIA was only working with him for support.
There were only 2 scenes really that insinuated that we started Al Qaeda. When Wilson got the Senator (forgot his name, but was the chairman of the appropriations committee that dealt with covert operations) to fly over and view the refugee camps, he stirred the crowd up with religious jargon, and got them all yelling Allah Akbar...and it showed thousands of them yelling it. I think that was probably a bit overblown. Then second scene was at the end when Wilson and the CIA agent were discussing the continuous funding, and that we would have more problems on our hand if we didn’t fund them....followed by a quote by Wilson that we did a good thing, then f*ucked it all up.
It’s very much a pro-Wilson movie, but not an anti-Republican movie. Unless you know anything about the makeup of congress at the time, or who was exactly president when the Soviets invaded, you won’t know which presidents the movie refers to. I can promise that 95% of the people watching will have no clue who Stanfeld Turner was, or what he did to damage our human intelligence...along with Senator Church and President Carter.
I would recommend seeing it, just for the humor between Wilson and the CIA agent. Hanks did a great job in this, as usual, and I hope the movie does well. It was worth seeing.
First the article says one thing, then the other. Which is it? Biased in its present form, or not?
Hmmm...This is the same person Bill O'Reilly recently submitted was a patriot for staving off the pavoratzi. I wonder why he did that?
FWIW the guy that wrote the book that the film is based on is George Crile. This the same George Crile who slandered General Westmoreland (R.I.P.) in a “60 minutes” program that ended up in a headline court case.
The History Channel did a show last night with the real characters....I thought it was pretty good...The Wealthy AntiCoomunist TX Lady is obviously the dynamic leader and is to me the most interesting person....Charlie was what we now call a Lieberman Democrat, a Strong Pro-American and Social Liberal.
Well, I watched that show too and you wonder if Ronald Reagan was involved at all. I don’t believe for one second that Afghanistan beat the commies because of one man. The US was involved alot more that just Charlie Wilson’s involvement.
We didn’t just “leave” Afghanistan. There was a lot of other things in the world and area that went on. Not long after the commies left, Saddam invaded Kuwait and I think that took our eyes off Afghanistan. What happened not long after the first Gulf war? Bill Clinton became president. Enough said!
Will it take another clintoon for us to get the House back?
I too, watched the History Channel’s slant on Charlie Wilson and was glad that I did. It saved me from even entertaining the thought of going to see it in the theaters or buying it when it comes out on DVD.
In my opinion, it should have titled “Joanne Herring’s War”. She played Charlie Wilson weaknesses like a fiddle which led Wilson to play ANOTHER liberal (Doc Long) who held the purse strings to the needed funding.
While Wilson was driving around in a drunken stupor and ending up in a hit and run, she was in Paris setting up things up to bait Doc Long with all the things it takes to entice any corrupt politician, wine, women and excess.
In the end, who really defeated the soviets in Afghanistan? It was same man who broke the back of the Soviet Union and communism...Ronald Reagan.
The acting might be good in this ludicrous depiction of Hollywood’s version of history but it should be labeled “For Entertainment Purposes Only”.
I am sure you’re right about the US involvement, for the TeeVee version I imagine that you just cannot have too many R heroes, hence the lovable Rogue Demo.
I need to do some background on that period, I do remember that Carter and Teddy K were trying to get the all important Soviet presidential endorsements during the ‘70s, as well as Carter’s mighty Olympic boycott.
I watched it too, but got interrupted for about 10 minutes. I was surprised that whoever made the documentary(?)didn't attack Reagan, and was relatively hard on Carter. (Thinking people can never be too hard on Carter.) "What happened not long after the first Gulf war? Bill Clinton became president. Enough said!"
And we went to war in southeast Europe on the side of the 'slimes who showed their gratitude by killing us on the Cole, the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania to name a couple of events.
I’ve seen the movie and read the book, do read the book.
The two scenes you mentioned in no way insinuated any AQ connection. When Charlie took Doc Long (congressman from Louisiana) to Pakistan they really meet a group of Muj. warriors on the border and he gave a speech and they cheered wildly. No AQ.
At the end of the film Charlie tried to keep things moving forward, but both his friends in congress or the Administration lost interest, just a fact, but no AQ.
The real story is how one off the wall obscure congressman actually directed US foreign policy and pushed it in to war.
I loved the story and the movie did the book justice as good as a movie can.
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