To me he did nothing impressive except use U.S. tax money to fund U.S. imperalism and to help the oil idustry who ten years latter would benifit form the taliban controlled Afganstan. That money could have gone to help U.S. citezens .
P.S. I am a liberal and I think that he should be in jail for mismangment of U.S. funds
Well said. Afghanistan is an example of a country that died when the moslems invaded it long ago.
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You have to understand the politics of the time. During the Cold War our government and people were terrified of Communism, as we should have been, and we were willing to do anything to stop the spread of Communism. Even if that meant supplying arms to radical Islamic fundamentalists. The Soviet Union was the bigger threat at the time, it was only logical that we take the course of action that we did.
"If you rob a man of everything, he is no longer under your control. He is free again."
Charile Wilson was an idiot who fell for Zia's lies. Zia-ul-haq was a tyrant and a religious extremist. And it wasn't no secret...in fact it was a very well known fact throughout the world. The people of pakistan celebrated in joy when he died in 1988. A lot of the religious extremism and other *beep* in pakistan and afghanistan as well can be traced back to this idiot. To this day we're suffering from the after effects of the decisions made by this fascist.
I haven't read the book but the Charlie Wilson portrayed in the movie comes off as a naive bleeding heart liberal. He ended up wasting a lot of money and arming a nation controlled by religious nuts and backward ass tribal lords via a power hungry sadistic dictator.
It's fairly scary how if you research Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan among other places the word Mujahideen keeps popping up. Perhaps what should frighten us even more is that just as Charlie Wilson was duped into thinking that helping these maniacs would be a good idea, somehow NATO found itself helping similar scum in Bosnia and Kosovo. I think the media did a great job of misleading and not being honest with the public during all of this don't you?
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The film opens with Dan Rather's hyperbolic "reporting" (disinformation)-- a perfect opportunity to touch on media complicity in all this -- and promptly drops the ball.
Charlie Wilson is a fncking bastard and this glorified one-dimensional tripe made me so sick I through the DVD in the trash after watching it.
If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.
Charlie is no hero. He's in fact a criminal. Because of his behavior (doing coke and whatnot), not because of his mismanagement of US funds.
He did what he did to get russians out of afghanistan, but as careless as he is. US irresponsibly pulled out of afghanistan (and other middle eastern countries) to the fundamentalist nutjobs killing in the name of God.
If they stood back with the fundamentalists nutjob to keep them in check. To avoid the massacre that ensued during 3 decades including 9/11.
You reap what you sow I guess. Do you really think they hate you for your freedom?
Todays allies are tomorrow's enemies and vice versa.
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