Thoughts on “Charlie Wilson’s War”

I usually constrain myself from controversial topics. But, this movie provoked my thoughts and made me to write this post.

Last Sunday was extremely boring. None of the recent movies were appealing, so was just searching at the top lists of my favorites like Tom Hanks , Di-caprio …and finally zero downed with a slightly older Tom Hanks  movie - “Charlie Wilson’s War”. The details the movie gives us about the United States involvement with Afghanistan in the late 70 and in 80's and about how the governments operated behind the scenes is an eye-opener and well worth knowing more about. I am wondering how I missed this movie so far !

The story is about how the Russia invaded Afghanistan – why an ordinary Congressman Charlie Wilson got into the support operation of Mujahedeens – and how he influenced the CIA budget (for supporting the Mujahideen troops) from just a $5M to $10M initially, and then went on over a billion dollars!!!. And all these money were used to train the Mujahedeens  with mighty arms and high-end war techniques., to fight against their common rival –  Russia.

Soon, Mujahideens were no longer only Afghans, many people from countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia joined the their troops. As the US was feeding their hunger and anger, Afghan forces blown down thousands of Russian jets and tankers. And at one point of time, mighty Russia admitted their defeat and drawn out of Afghanistan.

After Russia’s exit, Charlie instisted America to continue funding Afghanistan to educate them and build employment and infrastructure for the country. But, the then US government was least bothered on his request and they too pulled-out of Afghanistan. That’s one of the greatest mistakes!  :(

 As both the Russia and America evacuated from Afghanistan, thousands of Mujahideens were left with loads of arms and no enemy to fight :P !. They separated into multiple troops within them and started fighting against India and many countries, even against the US . Not to forget, that was the time when the Kashmir border issue became terror! (it was not such a big issue before the end of the cold war)

The world, especially India is bearing the pain for the mistakes of the US-USSR Cold war. I suppose the Russians are now happy. But It’s India paying the price, Pakistan is paying, Afghanistan is paying… And more importantly, the United States is also paying..... If US didn't start funding Mujahideens or at least did not move away immediately after the cold war (without fulfilling Charlie’s full vision of educating and creating employement/infrastructure in Afghanistan), there would have been no Al-quida today and no 9/11 !!!

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Pon Paulraj