A Texas Character : Charlie Wilson
January 4th 2009
I watched the movie Charlie Wilson’s War on HBO the other night. The movie is about an unlikely trio, consisting of the hard drinking and womanizing US Representative, an out of favor CIA operative, and a female Houston philanthropist, who joined forces to secretly bankroll the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union.
Russian troops had superior weapons, most notably helicopters that could rain destruction on the freedom fighters below. The war went on for years and there were so many casualties, especially among the children. The movie helps the viewer understand the wide-ranging and long-lasting implications of this little-known episode.
This morning I saw The True Story of Charlie Wilson’s War on the History Channel. This was more interesting than the movie. Born and raised in Trinity, Texas, Wilson joined the Navy after graduating from college. Then he went to work at the Pentagon. He was an avid anti-communist.
Once elected, Wilson made a name for himself. In his Washington office, he surrounded himself with beautiful young women, who became known as Charlie’s Angels. He loved whiskey and the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1980s, which almost cost him his office. He might have continued with his life of debauchery, but he was stricken by reading an account of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan, which was now occupied by the Soviets.
Wilson had just been named to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, the group responsible for funding CIA operations. He decided to use his position, through a series of backroom deals, to steer billions of dollars to the Afghan rebels. Eventually, Rep. Wilson became part of what was then the largest covert operation in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. Charlie Wilson became an ally of a CIA agent Gust Avrakotos and Houston philanthropist Joanne Herring to bankroll the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union.
The US would not give the Afghans American-made weapons that could cause an incident with the Soviet Union. Ever resourceful, Charlie found a way to raise and route funds to the CIA to fund the purchase of Russian-made Stingers from the Saudis. In fact, the Saudis matched each dollar spent with one of their own.
With weapons that took away the Russian’s air superiority, the Afghans reclaimed their land. Unfortunately, the US did not follow through to help the war-torn nation rebuild their country.Those very freedom fighters that were armed by Charlie Wilson turned those same weapons against America within a decade.
