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Charlie Wilson’s War
Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts
They made a desert and called it Peace. - Tacitus
He was known as “Good Time” Charlie Wilson. A visitor to his Congressional office was always greeted by leggy, beautiful young women nicknamed “Charlie’s angels.” When a friend would ask why he only seemed to hire hot bimbos for his office staff, Charlie would reply, “You can teach a girl to type but you can’t teach her to grow t@ts.” This hard-drinking, hedonist, east Texas politician was legendary among his fellow Congressmen for his skirt chasing and to gain that kind of reputation in our Capital you have to make Huey Hefner, Wilt Chamberlain, Scott Baio, and Russell Crowe look like choirboys. There was the former Playmate, the belly dancer, the Houston socialite, and no one could forget the former Miss World contestant who crawled in and out of Charlie’s bed. Always ready with a joke and a slap on the back, the loud-mouthed Congressman was one of those guys that even his enemies could not help but like. Even though he was on the House Appropriations Committee, most Americans outside his Congressional district had never heard of him until he was caught in a hot tub in the aptly named Fantasy Suite at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with two showgirls and a healthy supply of cocaine. It was the kind of scandal that would have destroyed most politicians, but not “Good Time” Charlie. His Bible belt constituents reelected him again and again. In the height of irony, Charlie even got placed on the Ethics Committee. When asked by a reporter how someone like himself could possibly be on such a body, Charlie smiled and said, “I'm the only one of the committee who likes women and whiskey, and we need to be represented."
But to think that Charles Wilson was just a playboy is to underestimate the Texas Congressman. While he played hard, he also gave all he could for the people who elected him. Like his district, he was a fiery anti-Communist and when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, he was incensed. It was through his relationship with a rich oil man’s wife that he came to learn of the Mujahedin, the freedom fighters that were resisting Russian occupation. Wilson was appalled by stories of Soviet helicopter gunships destroying villages and thousands of refugees fleeing for their lives into Pakistan. As a member of the House Defense Appropriations Committee, the Congressman decided he had to do something. What resulted was the largest CIA operation ever conceived. For Wilson, who had graduated from the Naval Academy but never served in combat - something that embarrassed him throughout his adult life – this was his war, his chance to give to his country. In some people’s eyes, Charlie Wilson’s war would be the death nail to the Evil Empire and in others what he facilitated would be the roots of the blowback that would return to our shores on September 11th.
Charlie Wilson’s plan was complex and involved circumventing Congressional and CIA bureaucracy and oversight that might have destroyed his plan. With Ronald Reagan in the White House openly battling Congress over funding of the Contras, Wilson worked quietly behind the scenes with his "black appropriations” spending. He was able to get the Saudi Arabians to match any funds that he would secrete to support the rebels and established a smuggler’s road for arms and foreign fighters. For protection of the Arab countries involved and to keep reporters from getting a bead on what was happening, it was important to make sure that any weapons delivered to the Mujahedin bore no marks or indication of their origins. In the Arab world, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was not framed as a battle between the forces of democracy and communism, but rather it was a holy jihad, an infidel occupying Muslim lands. (Sound familiar?) Yet, Charlie Wilson was not willing just to remain in Washington D.C. He made several trips to visit Afghani fighters and refugees in Pakistan. There were many moment of culture shock between the boozing American that often had a bosomy, young woman in extremely tight clothes in tow and the conservative Muslims recipients of his aid. With the Mujahedin as our surrogates, the United States fought its largest secret war in its history. Pakistan's military leader, General Zia ul-Haq, as the last Communist soldier left the country stated, "Charlie did it."
But what did he do? Hundreds of thousand of weapons had been smuggled into the country, thousands had been trained in terrorist tactics, and 28,000 Soviets were dead. The Evil Empire was in shambles due to internal problems, but so too was Afghanistan. Kabul, the capital city, was in ruins. Three hundred thousand fundamentalists and foreign fighters had weapons and with victory achieve, we just walked away. The country spiraled into civil war over the next decade-and-a-half and when everything was said and done Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were the winners, especially after the 6’5 Arab survived a cruise missile attack launched by the Clinton administration. The same thing that incensed Ben Laden in Afghanistan, infidel soldiers in a Muslim country, became a recruiting tool when U.S. troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War. Blowback.
Fans of “The West Wing” will recognize Aaron Sorkin’s snarky, witty humor fingerprints all over this film. Everybody’s favorite good guy Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson. Like what John Wayne did in The Searchers, Hanks takes his well established movie persona and gives it darker bent and only hints at the unforeseen result of Charlie’s actions. Julia Roberts plays socialite Joanne Haring, Charlie’s weekend girlfriend and the 6th richest woman in Texas. Character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is on board as CIA agent Gust L. Avrakotos, who is Charlie’s go between as he works with the agency and the rebels. The movie opens with Charlie knee deep in a hot tub full of strippers and cocaine as Dan Rather appears on the television talking about the Afghan rebels who are fighting their Soviet occupiers. Rather’s 60 Minutes report peaks Wilson’s interest into learning more about the situation. He is soon knee deep in, well, more hot chicks, but also the politics of an entire region.
Unlike most political movies, that usually get bogged down in their history, Sorkin keeps things moving along and should get an Academy Award nomination out of the film. Charlie Wilson’s War is like an all-star edition of “The West Wing.” Director Mike Nichols and Tom Hanks are as solid as always. Julia Roberts is just Julia Roberts. She pops up just to let the audience know that she exists and is not a total has been. This movie will not go down as one of Hanks’ classics, but rather a grade just slightly below that.
Watching the film, I could not help but be reminded that George W. Bush is arming the nation of Iraq so that certain tribes defeat other tribes and militias we view as enemies. I was also reminded that while the President foams at the mouth about Iran funneling weapons into Iraq to kill American soldiers, but we did the same thing to the Iranians, providing the Iraqis with weapons to kill them while Reagan and Charlie Wilson were around Capital Hill. As much as George W. Bush believes we will be there forever, eventually we will have to leave and an armed camp will still remain. The weapons we passed out will not go away. Dirty faced children will grow up in the rubble we leave behind. Maybe before we give one more rifle or train one more fighter, we should listen to Charlie Wilson when he said, “As usual, we come in change the politics and leave. But you know what? That Ball? It keeps bouncing…even after we’ve left.” We made a desert and called it peace in Afghanistan in the 1980s and that same ball is now bouncing in Iraq.
Verdict: An Extremely Good Hanks Film