Posted on 12/25/2007 12:58:28 AM PST by CutePuppy
Reagan's War, Not Charlie Wilson's
Media Bias: Hollywood would have us believe that Democrats defeated the evil empire in Afghanistan, and that President Reagan played only a minor role and even helped pave the way to 9/11.
If you think Hollywood's idea of a Christmas movie being one about the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan is strange, even stranger is the plot line. "Charlie Wilson's War," which opened Friday, manages to reduce the president who won the Cold War to a background footnote.
Charlie Wilson was a pro-abortion, Equal Rights Amendment-supporting congressman widely known as "the liberal from Lufkin." To his credit, he did play a role in facilitating support to the Afghan mujahadeen. But it is he who should be the historical footnote.
In his book, "Ronald Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime," Lou Cannon notes how Reagan "expressed revulsion of the brutal destruction of Afghan villages and such Soviet policies as the scattering of mines disguised as toys that killed and maimed Afghan children." He did not need much convincing to aid the Afghan resistance.
Cannon credits Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle and CIA Director William Casey with allaying any concern that providing Stinger missiles to the mujahadeen might lead to the missiles' capture and copying by the Soviets. Also involved, says Cannon, was a bipartisan coalition "led by Texas Democrat Charlie Wilson in the House and New Hampshire Republican Gordon Humphrey in the Senate."
So you have at least five players, including Reagan, involved — four of them Republican conservatives. Ikle notes: "Senior people in the Reagan administration, the president, Bill Casey, (Defense Secretary Caspar) Weinberger and their aides deserve credit for the successful Afghan covert action program, not just Charlie Wilson." So guess which one Hollywood makes a movie about?
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(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
....my wife is better looking than that when she goes to the grocery store.
Thanks for the the Christmas "coffee sprayer" of the morning!!
Figures.
Never would mistake that for a “movie star.” Her hair looks DIRTY!
In her role in PW she was 23. 90% of the women out there were gorgous at 23. It’s now 17 years later, she’s 40 and she doesn’t even have good acting skills to fall back on. If here accent was supposed to be Texan then why was it so New Englandy? This movie is just a liberal attempt to take credit for the victory Reagan gave to this country.
Eh, I couldn’t drink Sierra Nevada for the sole reason it would remind me of the envirowhackos everytime I took a drink (Sierra Club).
Three other threads about the movie and History Channel documentary if anyone is interested in perusing the comments there on.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1943083/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935245/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1943812/posts
LLS
gotta disagree there. i saw her in a NYC restaurant a few years ago. You might not like her politics, but she is absolutely a total babe in person. IMHO
if the lib/dem anti-american lefty sorkin wrote it.....it is nothing more than lib/dem shi-ite!!!!!
LLS
(REPOST)
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”.
17 posted on 12/23/2007 7:40:49 AM EST by RetSignman (DEMSM: “If you tell a big enough lie, frequently enough, it becomes the truth”
Better to quote Kengor than Cannon, from The Crusader, p. 231: "Once president, his administration worked hard to get weapons to the rebels, which included shipments not just from Washington but from sympathetic nations like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan. CIA director Bill Casey jetted around the world prodding nations for aid and arms; he reprimanded foreign leaders when the weapons were not up to par, once in April 1981 telling a stunned Anwar Sadat that the material being supplied by the Egyptians was "garbage."....
...Making his point in a heated reprimand of Gorbachev, Reagan then asked the general secretary angrily and pointedly:"Are you still trying to take over the world?!" Gorbachev was visibly shaken, staring at Reagan in silence, mouth agape, with a stunned expression.
Reagan arms control director Ken Adelman, a witness, called Reagan's words in that exchange the most "harsh indictment of Soviet behavior ever delivered to the top Soviet man."
In the movie version that I saw...James Bond took care of it while romancing a blond and crashing a C-130!
My parents went to see this yesterday...and after reading this, I’m glad I didn’t go see it with them.
On the flip, Sorkin ironically makes a strong case for Nation-Building in Iraq.
I would love if Tom Clancy wrote a screenplay for a movie based on William Casey. What a great man. This would be a movie about the CIA and the Reagan years worth seeing.
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