Review of Charlie Wilson's War (2007) by Melissa N — 22 Dec 2014

This movie is based on historical events. Tom Hanks plays Congressman Charlie Wilson who worked behind the scenes to fund and smuggle anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghanistan anti-communists fighters.

Afghanistan had been an isolated country with almost no natural resources. Most of the country was a desert and no one had paid any attention to it for almost 100 years. England and Russia had briefly tried to get control of the country in the 19th century.

When both countries realized there was nothing there they left it as a buffer state between British India and southern Russia. Afghanistan was so isolated that the people there didn't even realize that World Wars I and II even occurred.

This was a country were every adult male carried an automatic weapon. The English had left several Stein guns in Pakistan and India after World War II. The Afghanis learned how to make these in backyard gunsmith shops.

For some reason the Communist in the Soviet Union decided that the United States was planning an invasion of southern Russia from Afghanistan so they decided to invade and set up a Communist government in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was no eastern European country where the people are unarmed and easily subdued by the Red Army. The Afghanis fought back and the Russians tried to kill them all. Instead millions of them fled to Pakistan.

In the movie Charlie Wilson goes to Pakistan and sets up a smuggling network to smuggle arms from Egypt and Israel paid for by American and Saudi Arabian money. The one thing that the movie left out was President Reagan.

It was President Reagan that authorized providing Stinger Missiles to the Afghanis. Charlie Wilson was a Democrat and was vital to getting Democratic support for Reagan's plan to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

This movie is a reminder of how dangerous the old Soviet Union was. At the end of the movie the Congress decides to spend no money to rebuild Afghanistan and the Taliban is allowed to win a civil war to take control of Afghanistan.

The 9-11 attacks and the current war in Afghanistan are not mentioned in the movie but the implication is that had we spent a few million dollars to rebuild Afghanistan these events may not have happened.