“Charlie Wilson’s War” - A Review
I speak to many people all over the world. Some know about the situation in Zimbabwe, some lived there, and even more lived there before it was Zimbabwe. One such soul mentioned the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” to me and it piqued my interest.
First a very brief synopsis from IMDB: “In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson is a womanising US congressional representative from Texas who seemed to be in the minor leagues, except for the fact that he is a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. However, prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the plight of the people that are suffering in the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of the maverick CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, Wilson dedicates his canny political efforts to supply the Afghan mujahideen with the weapons and support to defeat the Soviet Union. However, Charlie Wilson eventually learns that while military victory can had, there are other consequences and prices to that fight that are ignored to everyone’s sorrow.”
So I watched it last evening. I wasn’t sure whether I was angry or cheated when it finished.
I do realise that it is a true story, and that I find all the more shocking. I knew that the Russians were being financed by the CIA/US and then the tables turned and the financing went to the opposing side - and the deaths are unacceptable.
The duplicity is unacceptable. And I fail to understand the political kudos in such an action.
Just what did the US gain by playing the two ends against the middle? A few friends?
And today, the main players in the “Axis of Evil” were, to begin with, sponsored by the West…
As was said in Frankenstein: “I have created a monster.”
The writer got it right when he saw the opportunity to highlight the injured children. Because that, I believe, is what it is all about. The next generation. If they grow up with the hatred and loathing that we might feel - or, indeed, DO feel, then this world is in for a seriously wild ride.
And when I compare this film to the sanctions that Rhodesia fought under, I shake my head. Super powers were financing the terrorists, and democracies were starving the Rhodesians - how brilliant were our sanctions busters? How on earth did we sustain hit after hit after hit and so very nearly have it beat on the ground?
For what? To allow the do-gooders to hand the country to a man who took just a few years to break the country’s spirit, break its economy and deride its people…
Unfortunately stories and pictures in the press and on the internet do not have the same power as a movie, a documentary or the like. Have you ever seen “Beyond Borders”? A brilliant movie - but one which rubbed the heart raw with the abuse that the human body, the human mind and the human race takes at the hands of despots, dictators and megalomaniacs. But I digress…
Will there ever be a book or film about the truth how the West handed such a brilliant country to its destroyer - and how they tried to tell the world that what they had done was right? Somehow I doubt it. The West will never allow a film to be shot from within its midst that shows them in the worst possible light.
And any movie shot outside of the West that attempts to tell the story honestly, truthfully and with conviction (use the word advisedly) will be ridiculed - even if it made it to foreign shores.
Thatcher, Carter, Kissinger, Wilson - and so many others. The blood is on their hands - but they don’t see it because they are wearing rose-coloured spectacles to begin with, and are so busy counting their money, that they seldom see their hands. That, and the fact that they are without any conscience…
I think that the makers of “Charlie Wilson’s War” deserve a medal - and they should be already writing the script for another foray - on the truth behind Zimbabwe.
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