Charlie Wilson's War
Book review....
Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
Author: George Crile
Amazon info
Full title: Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
No, I didn't see the movie - and have no plans to, as the book tells an excellent story and I didn't see any extraneous bits or parts of the story crying out for additional dramatization. In fact, the story is fascinating - how one man could do so much to involve the US in a fight against the Soviet Union. The cast of memorable characters includes both Charlie Wilson (Congressman) and Gust Avrakotos (CIA) and others who shared a passion for fighting Communism on any and all fronts.
Whether this was a good battle is hard to say. Certainly the US was instrumental in providing the Soviets with a "Vietnam" experience of their own. Furthermore, the Soviets never admitted to their people that they were at war and when that facade crumbled it did seem to trigger the overall collapse of the Soviet Union and puppet governments (although there are many many other factors). However, the wonderfulness of the ending of the Cold War has to be balanced against the hundreds of millions of dollars in high tech weaponry we provided to radical jihadists. While the book discusses this issue, I don't think it really covered it in enough depth, although arguably it was outside the scope of the book - which is really the story of how Charlie and Gust made this resistance happen.
One key lesson that jumped out at me was the role of Iran-Contra in this story. Iran-Contra was the headline story of the times - both in its initial incarnation of outrage at US support of the Nicaraguan dictator but then later of an arms-for-hostage deal. Because all the attention was focused on Iran-Contra, Afghanistan flew under the radar (until the last stages). It appears that the American news media and American public can only focus on one issue at a time. In addition, Democrats who were against the Reagan administration's plans in Central America saw Afghanistan as a way to show they were "tough on Commies" - so Afghanistan had a very natural base of support among a group that usually wouldn't be that supportive of covert military actions in other countries (liberal Democrats).
Excellent book - well worth the read. Recommended to all.