CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR — ReThink Review

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR is the true story of, you guessed it, Charlie Wilson, a Texas democrat in the house of representatives who was known primarily for his womanizing, drinking, and his talent for repeatedly getting re-elected despite rarely accomplishing anything of note. But in 1980, these dubious traits helped him create Operation Cyclone, the biggest, most expensive, clandestine war in American history, which secretly funneled billions of dollars in arms to Islamic holy warriors, known as mujihadeen, who successfully threw the Russian army out of Afghanistan and helped bring about the end of the Cold War. And everyone lived happily ever after. Or not.

For more ReThink Reviews, go here http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B5DFC2A5707C5EBB

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Charlie
• Wilson
• Afghanistan
• Soviet
• Afghan
• war
• tom
• hanks
• julia
• roberts
• mujihadeen
• al
• qaeda
• taliban
• stinger
• philip
• seymour
• hoffman
• mike
• nichols
• aaron
• sorkin
• cold
• jonathan
• kim
• political
• movie
• review
• ReThink

[biggiejeffrey]

So...what you're saying is that we brought 9/11 upon ourselves, even though Bin Laden, who is a BILLIONAIRE himself, could have used his money to rebuild Afghanistan and bring it into the 21st century. But, instead, chose to use his cash to build opium farms, turn kids into terrorists, and...oh, yes...CAUSE 9/11 ALL BY HIMSELF, you IDIOT! This sort of "blame-game-for-9/11" was stupid the first time I heard it from Falwell & Robertson, and it's just as dumb coming from you liberals, too!

[jsjkim]

What i find fascinating is that people don't seem to understand that foreign policy decisions have consequences, and how you treat another country can come back to bite you in the ass. It happens all the time. But no country has ever gone to war with another country because of the presence of gays in that country.

[NickB1967]

Hey, the Taliban took power in 1995, Cinton sat by and did nothing.

[jsjkim]

Right. And the US pulling all assets out of Afghanistan when the Russians left caused a horrific civil war that wrecked the country further, and the US didn't give a damn. Do you think defeating the Russians in AFG was worth 9/11, an Afghan civil war, and the current Iraq and Afghan wars?

[NickB1967]

I take it Jonathan Kim would have preferred Soviet victory. Ugh.

[jsjkim]

I'm sure there was a way to beat the russians without creating al qaeda, creating a civil war in Afghanistan, empowering fundamentalists, and creating the impetus to start both the AFG and iraq wars, which have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

[idesofmarchUNIAEA]

google zbigniew brzezinski le nouvel. google zbigniew's memo to carter Christmas of 1979 see ubl's fatwa 1997'98 "We will take you down economically so you can not make afghanistan a play ground for war, no more". google charlie wilson gulbuddin hekmatyar. Dy'a think ubl was pissed? How many millions of refugees into pakistan? How many killed in 10 years of a created war? THINK!!! SEARCH NOW BEFORE THEY ARE REDACTED OR CRUBBED.

[NickB1967]

@jsjkim: YES. The Islamunist tin-horns are frankly easy compared to the Soviets. I don't recall an Islamunist Sputnik, do you?

In other history, we had to build up the Soviets to beat the Nazis. Realpolitik (ray-al-paul-eat-eek) is messy. It is all too easy, on the other hand, to engage in after the fact naysaying.

[NickB1967]

@CocteauDalighari: You got me there. I enjoy your sarcastic wit.

[NickB1967]

@jsjkim: Sorry, no. In other history, we had to build up the Soviets to beat the Nazis. Realpolitik (ray-al-paul-eat-eek) is messy. It is all too easy, on the other hand, to engage in after the fact naysaying.

[louiseobrien2010]

@NickB1967 Actually, Bill Clinton organised for both Iraq and Afghanistan to be bombed during his second term in office, this is the sort of thing that causes wars. But of course we had to have 9/11 because a war had not started.

[icannotfly]

@biggiejeffrey money doesn't matter without training, and where do you think he go that?

[CocteauDalighari]

@NickB1967 Actually, Clinton began funding the Taliban, to the tune of $10 million/yr, to keep "peace" in war-happy Afghanistan; funding that ended only on Sept. 12, 2001. So, you see, Clinton did not sit by & do nothing: his Repo. opposition sat by & did nothing.

[wblackledg]

As much as Hollyweird and Sorkin tried to make this a See I told you so, The conservatism of this wonderful film bleeds through liberal packing. Perhaps a better president would have kept the Taliban and Bin Laden from filling the void in Afghanistan instead of spending this time turning White House Interns into Human Cigar humidors. If a lowy Texas congressman could find time from getting his boogie-board waxed to do his Job then so could a certain Arkansas President.

[Remus0387]

the senators, charlie's colleagues said they don't care about building houses or roads for afghan civilians they were only there to stop the soviets. Or Gust saying now every extremist is rolling into kandehar to make a name for himself. The U.S may not have directly create Al Qaeida, but they didn't stop it either, so don't give me this malarkey about this would happen eventually, no if the right decisions were made, many of the consequences of our time could have been avoided.

[Remus0387]

So many people are unwilling to even admit the slightest idea that america's handling of afghanistan after the routing of the soviet army was in part instrumental in allowing the islamic fundamentalists to take control and create organisations like al qaeida and the taliban. Yes Osama bin Laden was a billionaire, but he was the black sheep of his family, his clout has been far exaggerated, so i don;t buy that al qaeida would of sprouted up regardless of what the U.S did. As you see in the film