Charlie Wilson vs Osama bin Laden

The movie Charlie Wilson's War is good light hearted entertainment which can also trigger a serious discussion about a pivotal and painful event in recent history. It is based on a book which records the true story, a sober, almost unbelievable account of one man's power to earmark billions of dollars with the help of the Speaker of the House whose motivation was to protect a "good buddy" from embarrassment.

Charlie Wilson, described by Molly Ivins as a "pussy hound" is a swashbuckling, heavy drinking, dope sniffing all American Texan that the guys in the bar can admire.

When told stories of the Soviets cutting the throats of children and bayoneting babies in the wombs of Afghan women, Charlie appropriately weeps.

After brief moments of culture at the Kennedy Center he works out sexually in his well placed Washington apartment. We cheer for Charlie and hope that he'll stay sober and score big.

Meanwhile, between his chosen projects of passion, Charlie masters the earmarking game, pinpoints a devastating Soviet military weakness, and launches a "Stinger Missile" manufacturing, distribution, training and deployment movement that turns the tide of the war.

Instead of building a huge embassy in Kabul and digging in, the Soviets pull out. Trained by Charlie's well financed Pakistan Intelligence Service, the Taliban march in. They are fundamentalist idealists who don't cut throats and use bayonets on women. For dressing improperly they stone their women to death.

As a postscript to the obligatory happy ending the movie infers this latter part of the scenario above by shocking the smug audience with a phrase including that FCC forbidden four letter word: "And then we fucked it up."

To explore this last confession further you are invited to play the IF game:

-If the autocratic House leadership had not granted such awesome earmarking appropriation powers to Charlie Wilson, there would have been no covert Czar conducting foreign policy with Pakistan.

-If there had been no federally endowed "money-bags Charlie Wilson" to hand feed the Pakistan Intelligence Service, the Service would have never been able to create the Taliban.

-If Charlie Wilson had not been able to finance the production and target the delivery of a large number of "Stinger" shoulder mounted missiles, the Taliban would have never become an effective modern fighting force.

-If the Taliban had not successfully forced the Russians to withdraw and then defeated all internal foes to overrun Afghanistan, there would have been no anti-western, anti U.S. nation willing to welcome and coddle Osama bin Laden.

-If Osama bin Laden had not been able to establish a protected sanctuary under the umbrella of the Taliban, bin Laden would have had no headquarters for training assassins and planning violent terrorist attacks.

- If bin Laden had had no secure base in Taliban controlled Afghanistan he would not have been able to successfully launch the attack on the World Trade Center.

In conclusion, consider the fact that the U.S. has the most powerful government apparatus the world has ever seen. If any organ of this complex and gigantic machine is treated as a toy or corroded, or distorted or corrupted the consequences can be devastating. Foreign policy left in the hands of one patriot with tunnel vision can spawn decades of conflict and misery. A more traditional process to end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would certainly have taken more time and been less exciting; however, a wider debate, even if limited to the members of the Intelligence Committee, might have prompted some answers to these questions:

-Who are we training to replace the Soviets in Afghanistan?

-Which factions do we consider to be the best possible allies?

-What is the ideology and outlook of the strongest military faction?

-Would anything more than the national American ego be injured by a continuing Soviet occupation?

-Is it not possible that such an endless occupation of a vast land with a hostile population could bleed the already weak Soviet economy into total bankruptcy?

Comments

[factanonverba]

You ask if is it not possible that such an endless occupation of a vast land with a hostile population could bleed the already weak Soviet economy into total bankruptcy?

Perhaps but not in the time frame of the mere decade that Charlie Wilson's did. The Afghans were hopelessly losing the war. They were literally fighting tanks with stones and sticks and their Hind gunships were winning the war. We were acquiescing in a genocide. Should our response to the Soviets been overt rather than covert? Absolutely. The same holds true today for Darfur.

[realpolitic]

American foreign policy is often short-sighted and motivated by response to crisis. When we act to influence an event it usually takes greater action later to steer the forces we have let loose. It would be difficult to forsee a force like the Taliban. But we should learn a democratic response is often not the first instinct of those we choose to help.

[Spookcatcher]

Thank-you for this commentary. Huffpost would not let me write a blog stating the same "charactor" of who he is and outlining this dispicable CIA person, who represented East Texas under the guise of being a U.S. Congressman. Unfortunately, there are still MANY holdong "offices". Thankfully, CIA Prisoner Torture Chief in Vietnam/IndoChina and a Bush Family facilitator, Rob Simmons (CT) finally (Nov 2006)was defeated and is out of Congress, albeit too late to protect us from his expertise in the Rendition and Torture Program. He has been proposing and backing numurous "Nazi" type laws. Charlie Wilson and these people are Traitors and serve their masters, that is why they hold their "oaths to secrecy" and allegiance to agency (secret society) as the Supreme Duty, and NOT to the Oath they only take subsequently to Our U.S. Constitution!

[clevelandchick]

Thank you Rep. Owens, the perspective and historical lesson is much needed at this time. I will most definitely forward this on.

[TheDude1369]

have anyone considered that the narrative of the story was to make charlie the central fiqure. heelooo, it ain't REAL HISTORY. do you think it could be so simple? just maybe charlie was a PATSY, do you really think he would have been allowed to do this without a guiding hand? remember iran-contra? get it?

[jdm58]

Was aiding the Taliban a bad thing, given the context of the times? It's the scenario that followed the liberation, that is the tragedy, and it wasn't all due to our involvement in Afghanistan. Had Saudi Arabia allowed Bin Laden to bring his mujahedin home to fight Sadaam during the first gulf war, instead of relying on the US military, things might have been entirely different. With the mujahedin off to fight for Kuwait, perhaps the Taliban would not have been able to establish a lasting presence, and would have dwindled to a lesser opposition party in Pakistan. But Bin Laden and his Wahabi extremism was a threat to Saudi Royal power, and they didn't want him to come home. The US, always interested in a good fight if oil is at stake, got it's foot in the door, for both the first and second wars in Iraq. Bin Laden repeatedly claimed that the US military bases in Saudi Arabia were to blame for his attacks on the USS Cole, our embassies in Africa, and 9/11.
In Saudi Arabia, the "chickens have come home to roost", as it were, resulting from their lack of foresight. Wahabi and Shiite extremists are huge threats to their national security, keep their country in the throws of turmoil and repression in the name of religion, and the AlSauds don't dare try to stop the fanatics, less they become targets themselves. The BIG IF? what would have happened IF we had just waited, let the Afghanis fight the Soviets, the Arabs fight it out amongst themselves, and minded our own business? It is likely that Bin Laden would have died fighting Sadaam, and 9/11 would never have happened. Tragically, IF we had to pick a fight, why couldn't we have freed Tibet from China? The human rights violations are just as severe. Was China less of a threat than the USSR? Given their population, their military industrial complex, our economic dependence on trade, and the impact on global warming from their industrialization, perhaps that would have been the better fight.

[appleknocker]

All discussion of US intervention in Afghanistan seems to start with the fight against the Soviet occupation. But what was the US role (if any) in instigating the anti-communist uprising that led to that occupation? To what extent was that uprising motivated by the communist regime's granting rights to women? Is it possible that most Afghans (at least the female half) were better off under the communists than they have been at any time since?
These are not rhetorical questions; I'm genuinely curious and would be grateful to anyone who can provide informed, honest, non-ideological answers. Anybody?

[Boobaloo]

Osama didnt attack us because Russia lost a war, he attacked us because of our foreign policy in the Middle East.

1.Israel.
2.The destruction of Iraq.
3.American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, considered Muslim Holy Land.

Bin Laden was very clear, why do American politicians insist on obfuscation?

[TekBoss]

"And then we fucked it up." pretty much sums it up for me.

[wadenelson1]

Oh, but you miss the point!

This was glorious PAYBACK for the Russians supplying AK's and SAMS to the North Vietnamese.

Forgive your enemies? Hell no. Seek revenge, decades, even generations later just like the non-Christians. An eye for an eye.

Like the current quagmire, we couldn't win that war either (Arms are no match for ideology) but in Afghanistan we could sure as hell siphon a few thousand gallons of Russian blood by supplying the mujahadin with Stingers and all our other neat toys.

We got even all right. Right up to 9-11. All because of a proxy war the idea of which Republicans adored.

[mckinley]

Great post, Mr. Owens,

I was watching The History Channel's documentary on Charlie Wilson -- I cannot imagine a movie being more exciting than the reality(!) -- and I had that "Hey, wait a minute...!­" feeling through the whole thing.

Thank you for spelling out the true results of Charlie Wilson's (albeit well-meaning) subterfuge. And as you say, the secret nature of his support caused choices to be made that might not have been made in the sunlight.

[epotruchyeahright]

Eventually, the Soviets would have become as bogged down in Afghanistan as we have been in Iraq. The Afghans would have gotten money from the Saudis, Iran, or even Saddam Hussein to conduct their war against the Soviets. This was about "killing Russians" when the war was cold by using the Afghans as their proxy. They even went so far as to persuade Israel, which held the biggest stockpile of Russian guns in the world, to sell those guns so that it would not look like the Americans were behind it, which would enflame the Cold War into something we weren't prepared to face.

Wilson, a Democrat, was a pawn of the ultra-conservative early neocons in Texas, and he was addicted to pu$$y and booze.

However, if we had stayed out of the way, I believe the Taliban still would have grown, especially if their money had come from the Saudis. Our big mistake was, as the CIA agent said in the movie, not completing the job by helping Afghans to rebuild. Wilson couldn't even get $1 million, after the billions spent on war, to rebuild schools. "No one gives a shit" about the kids, the schools, or the Afghans, really, Wilson was told. It was all about defeating the Russians.

I think it's always better to stay out of the affairs of other countries. Vietnam should have been our lesson in Afghanistan.

[akoop]

A classic tale of unforseen or unintended consequences. It is not such a great revelation that we (the USofA) have for many years engaged an a foreign policy based on convenience and expediancy. The short term gains employing the 'eastern' philosophy of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' has proven time and again that the enemy of my enemy may in fact turn out to be a more formidable enemy in the future.

Instant gratification and short term gains are the underlying motivation for supporting insurgencies of democratically elected governments and military tyrants.

The real return to 'American values' will be the adoption of foreign policy based on democratic ideals, national sovereignty (theirs and ours)and an understanding that we are members of and not owners of the world.

[khyber900]

The premise and facts of Congressman Owens' post are not correct. The Taliban did not cause the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud was the real player that did the heavy lifting and shed the blood to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The US did not fund the Taliban. Pakistan did (with US funds). Pakistan created the Taliban as a Pashtun ally in order to retain influence in a post-Soviet Afghanistan. The Taliban emerged at the tail end of the Soviet occupation and did not do very much. However, as Massoud was not a Pashtun (he was Tajik), the Pakistanis saw an opportunity to create and foster a mujeheddin group that could seize power in Kabul and the southern part of the country with the support of the Afghanistan's Pashtun majority. The purpose of Pakistan's policy to create and promote the Taliban was to keep Afghanistan out of Iran and India's sphere of influence.

The mistake the US made was allowing Pakistan to support anti-western Islamist radicals instead of fostering Muslim leaders that favored moderation and modernization.

[dolphy]

Why do we think that we can screw people without any bad karma coming back to bite us on the ass?