Almost everyone on this thread is confusing the current party divide with what existed in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Back then, the “Yellow-Dog” southern Democrats wanted to kill communists. The rest wanted to maintain a balance of power to restrain American “excess”.
Charlie Wilson cobbled together an improbable alliance; Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Israel and Pakistan into a coordinated effort to ship Soviet-made weaponry into Afghanistan, so Americans couldn’t be blamed. Give the guy some credit.
Historical timelines are very important. Reagan supported the covert effort, of course. The Russians retreated in 1989, during GHWB’s admin. Trouble was, the supply lines took many months to change from weapons to humanitarian goods. It was donkeys carrying rockets over the Khyber pass.
Pakistan supplied 5,000 troops for Desert Storm, so relations were good, then with GHWB. From Wikipedia: “During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s Pakistan was a crucial US ally, but relations soured in the 1990s, when sanctions were applied by the US over suspicions of Pakistan’s nuclear activities” (obviously, the Clintons did that). You have to imagine the shock, the death-dealing betrayals and the economic bombshell this was to the only supply route into Afghanistan after this Clintonian super-gaffe. Pakistan ended up siding with the Taliban! GWB immediately made restoring relations with Pakistan a priority upon taking office.
The movie is as fair as anything to come out of Hollywood in a long time and should be enthusiastically supported by Freepers, and by the way, did not bomb, coming in with over $9 million.
During the 8 years of the Clintons, warring tribes destroyed Kabul, then the the Taliban emerged victorious around 1995 and became the most brutal anti-woman regime in the world and host to Osama. Congratulations Hillary.
I highly recommend the movie and then reading the book before denouncing the movie based on hearsay and branding certain people.
See post #34 by RetSigman on details of who was mostly responsible for “cobbling together” the “alliance of the willing” to support the mujahideen, for their own different reasons - for some it was along the lines of “enemy of my enemy is my friend... for now”, but that’s a good enough rule for us as well as for them. That’s what is also usally meant by “countries don’t have permanent enemies”. And the leadership of Democrats - thus keepers of the purse strings - since the 1970’s has been invariably more and more “liberal”, “progressive” and radical anti-American, whether it were “Yellow Dogs” or, as it is now (since November 2006) the “Blue Dogs” that gave them the majority in Congress.
And you are absolutely right about Clinton’s role in 1990’s break in supplies to Afghanistan because of his mishandling of Pakistan, which led to ISI’s de facto establishment and support of Taliban and is still biting us to this day. He tried to mask his weakness in foreign affairs by looking strong with his toothless “sanctions”. Later he completely bungled the Balkans the same way - again, trying to show strength while in reality showing how impotent he really was. And now he is talking about resolutions as “only threatening” Saddam but not actually “going to war” with him - might be a new entry under “weak” and “impotent” in encyclopedia.
I wonder where all the “peace dividend” - that Clinton inherited, even with $27 billion giveaway to Yeltsin and Russian oligarchs for “stability” that wound up in Swiss bank accounts - go, that even a little bit of it could not be used to support native Afghanis (whose factions often fought for power against each other) being taken over by much better organized Mullah Omar’s Taliban which was supported by Pakistan’s ISI and mostly Sunni Muslims from Arabian Peninsula and Africa, including Osama bin Laden who took the credit for defeating the Soviets.
Unfortunately, when “they” mention “abandoning” Afghanistan after they defeated the Soviets, “they” mean Reagan and Bush, not Clinton or congressional Democrats that wouldn’t spend the money on humanitarian support post-Soviet defeat.
You often hear the same tones today about “wasted money” in Pakistan and some other parts of the world, but I digress...
What irks about this movie is how it was made (edited), how it’s marketed (see post #82) and how - for people who don’t already know the real history, politics and and geopolitics of the period - the history is made to look like... quite different than to you and me. I am sure it’s entertaining, but I don’t see a reason for this movie to be supported just because it’s not outwardly distorting real history - it just doesn’t tell you the whole and true story (maybe touching on it in places, for literati, those “in the know”) - only providing audience a peephole view of it, while allowing to easily build a lie on top of it later on.
We should not be gleeful that they made a movie where they simply failed to smear us (and that, due to threatened possible legal action, as they advertised it as “based on a true story”). I don’t think libs should be rewarded just because they have been thwarted in complete misrepresentation of significant historical events at this time. And they will have plenty of chances to show this (and their point of view in “director’s cut” if they choose to) on DVD rentals and sales, pay-per-view and pay-cable channels to a wide audience next summer and fall, during election season.
That’s why I thought that this IBD article put a small but correct and important emphasis on the true story of events in Afghanistan, not the story of Charlie Wilson winning “his war” and causing the fall of Soviet Empire (”A stiff drink. A little mascara. A lot of nerve. Who said they couldn’t bring down the Soviet empire”).
“The movie is as fair as anything to come out of Hollywood in a long time” - probably, but that’s not saying much for the movie or, especially, Hollywood - it’s like saying, “it was not the usual stinker”. If Hollywood needs our support (which they didn’t seem to care about, at least until recently), they have plenty of talent to do much better than this (and not forced into it, to boot), they shouldn’t be graded on a curve.
Excellent clear-eyed view of things. The History Channel documentary should also be seen as a balance to the movie which is...wait for it......... a movie.