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We watched this on DVD last night, I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.
Charlie Wilson's War (2007) is a biographical drama film recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-TX) who partnered with "bare knuckle attitude" CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen in their resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The film is adapted from George Crile's 2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. It is directed by Mike Nichols, written by Aaron Sorkin, and stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Om Puri, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Ned Beatty and Emily Blunt. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, including "Best Motion Picture", but did not win in any category.
The film shows Charlie having a very gregarious social life of women and partying, including having his congressional office staffed with young, attractive women. The film also shows how the partying causes a federal investigation into allegations of cocaine use by Charlie, conducted by then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani as part of a larger investigation into congressional misconduct. The investigation results in no charge against Charlie.
A friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring, encourages Charlie to do more to help the Afghans, and persuades Charlie to visit the Pakistani leadership. The Pakistanis complain about the inadequate support of the U.S. to oppose the Soviets, and they insist that Charlie visit a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp. (This and other Afghan scenes were filmed in Morocco) Deeply moved by their misery and determination to fight, Charlie is frustrated by the regional CIA personnel's insistence on a low key approach against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Charlie returns home to lead an effort to substantially increase funding to the mujahideen.
As part of this effort, Charlie befriends the maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mi-24 helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's elite Special Activities Division, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers. As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury persuaded President Ronald Reagan to provide the Stingers to the Afghans: "Ironically, neither Gust nor Charlie was directly involved in the decision and claims any credit."
Charlie follows Gust's guidance to seek support for post-Soviet occupation Afghanistan, but finds almost no enthusiasm in the U.S. government for even the modest measures he proposes. The film ends with Charlie receiving a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but his pride is tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences his secret efforts could yield in the future and the implications of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan.
Governmental criticism and praise....
Reagan-era officials, including former Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle, have criticized some elements of the film. The Washington Times reported that some have claimed that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and ultimately produced the September 11 attacks. Other Reagan-era officials, however, have been more supportive of the film. Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst and White House speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union." "Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan," Johns wrote, "proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments.Connections to September 11
While no specific reference to the September 11 attacks is made in Charlie Wilson's War,the film depicts the concern expressed by Charlie and Gust that Afghanistan was being neglected in the 1990s, following the Soviet troop withdrawal. In one of the film's final scenes, Gust dampens Charlie's enthusiasm over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "I'm about to give you an NIE that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar."
George Crile, author of Charlie Wilson's War, the book on which the film is based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country -- and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players. It is ironic that a man who had almost nothing to do with the victory over the Red Army, Osama bin Laden, would come to personify the power of the jihad."
While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not supplied until the second Reagan administration term, in 1987, and their provision was mostly advocated by Reagan defense officials and influential conservatives. Dates supplied on the film seem to reflect an accurate recounting of the provision of these missiles.
Reception in Russia
In early February, it was revealed that the film would not play in Russian theaters. The rights for the film were bought by Universal Pictures International (UPI) Russia. It was speculated that the film would not appear because of a certain point of view that depicted the Soviet Union unfavorably. UPI Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that the film would not make a profit." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War