Charlie Wilson's War

This was a fascinating film to see over the holidays, in a town that’s filled with bible-thumping ultra-conservatives who didn’t realize that they had been had until the closing moments of the film - but wait - this is Newnan Georgia - 50% of them probably didn’t catch the twist. I did however hear some grumbling from a few who seemed to feel betrayed by what they expected, which was a movie about a good ‘ole boy who makes it to congress, and then really sticks it to those terrorists. Gotcha!

Democrat Charlie Wilson is certainly an “interesting” character - and he’s played to perfection by Tom Hanks. Part-time party boy, part-time alcoholic, full time sex fiend - and in between all that good clean American fun he connects with a rogue C.I.A. officer named Gust Avrakotos. Key and also central to the plot is Julia Roberts as Joanne Herring, a case study who would make for an interesting film all by herself. Born wealthy, she did an excellent job of staying that way via four rich ex-husbands. With that cache’ of wealth, she was able to buy influence in Washington, most notably with Charlie Wilson.

Wilson, with the aid of Herring and Avrakotos, takes it on himself to take control of the Afghan rebellion that followed the invasion of that country by Russia in the ’80’s. With no congressional oversight, or even awareness by the President - Wilson builds a mammoth budget that gets funneled through Israel and Pakistan, and finally to the mujaheddin fighters - arming them with the weaponry needed to not only defend themselves against the Soviet air power, but to turn the tide of the war entirely, resulting in exactly what Wilson hoped for - the Soviet’s own version of Viet Nam. Events after the defeat in Afghanistan raced through the soviet empire, and it is thought by many to have been the key to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Wilson surrounded himself with the most beautiful staff in the nation’s capitol - referred to by most outsiders as “Charlie’s Angels.” He had more endearing nicknames for them all, including “Jailbait” for one of his younger staff members. One of the more famous quotes from the real Charles Wilson, and used in the movie regarding his rather vivacious staff - “You can teach them to type, but you can’t teach them to grow tits.” Though not shown in great detail in the movie, Wilson’s love for his decadent lifestyle rivaled that of Hugh Hefner - and official visitors to his home in D.C. were rather shocked to find that the bedroom was the central focus of the townhouse, complete with a hot tub at the foot of the bed and a pair of handcuffs dangling from a towel rack.

The film does an excellent job of portraying what happens when a lot of power meets a lot of money and a lot of covert influence. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant as always, and his one liners probably steal the show several times throughout the film. This movie is cleverly disguised as good entertainment - but at its heart are the lessons in history it teaches. It’s well that we remember that without any oversight, a single politician was able to impact a region in certainly a positive manner at the time - but the long term ramifications of Charlie Wilson’s war are still being felt today - from our agreement to look the other way as Pakistan became a nuclear power, aided greatly by massive amounts of cash floated into the region to prop up the fighters in Afghanistan - to the deadly lesson learned that after turning our backs on Afghanistan as soon as we had used their fighters as cannon fodder to fight our proxy war against Russia, these same now well armed, well trained and battle hardened rebels went on to form both the Taliban and Al Qaeda - the rest of which, as we now know, is not such a pleasant history after all.