Posted by TAB
Posted on 12/21/2007 7:32:45 PM PST by flattorney
Saw the film yesterday. My general impression was most of the stupidity was during the Carter administration. The early part of the movie with all the exposition of the government's foibles can be laid at the foot of Carter. The writer uses the CIA agent (great performance by Phillip Seymore Hoffman, very funny) at the end to say that we traded one evil, the soviets, for the unknown evil of fundamentalist moslems.
I didn't think this was as heavy handed as West Wing, and we both found the movie entertaining and interesting since we've been reading it was close to actual story.
Excerpt - Possible right-wing fantasy about Hollywood: A year ago, the lockstep liberals who run the movie studios received a directive from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ordering them to finally make some films about the Iraq-Afghanistan catastrophe. The moguls dutifully complied, bankrolling top directors and Oscar-winning stars to make serious, worthy films eviscerating the Bush Administration's war policy. The laugh, for the right wing, (a.k.a. The Intelligent Majority - TAB) is that nobody went to see these movies. In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, Redacted — together, in their entire theatrical runs, they earned only about what Will Smith's I Am Legend did on one day last weekend. Even if you throw in Jamie Foxx's Saudi Arabia-set action epic The Kingdom, the total box office take of the war-on-terror films doesn't match the earnings of, say, Fahrenheit 9/11.
Okay, there was no Democrat politburo instructing Hollywood to make anti-war movies — at least, not that I know of. And not every showbiz liberal agreed that the jihadist insurgency should be indicated with a finger that was wagging, pointing or raised. Some of them — Tom Hanks, writer Aaron Sorkin, director Mike Nichols — thought they should do what they do best: turn it all into comedy. The result, Charlie Wilson's War, is that seemingly impossible object these days: a picture about war and politics that has manages to be both rational and inspirational. It is also the year's funniest smart movie.
Companion Time Magazine Article
Charlie Wilson Regrets Nothing
By Sandra McElwaine - Thursday, Dec. 06, 2007
@ @ @ @
Charlie Wilson's War, Pro Iraq?
The Conservative Voice by Randall DeSoto
December 20, 2007
For everyone who’s believed that Hollywood can only put films with strong anti-war, anti-conservative messages now-a-days (Valley of Elah, Rendition, Lions for Lambs), Charlie Wilson’s War will encourage your faith that Tinseltown can tell the other side too. I went to a screening of Wilson’s War in Los Angeles earlier this week, after which the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (of West Wing/American President fame) participated in a Q&A with the audience. I assumed going into the movie that somehow there was going to have to be at least some slight positive wink to the United States’ role in helping to cause the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the late ‘80s. The American support of the Afghani Mujahedin fighters in their struggle was arguably the most successful covert war operation in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find, far from giving just the slight wink, quite the opposite was true. The movie must be seen as pro-war, when the cause is right, and certainly pro staying until the task is done, which has application in our current fight in Iraq.
This theme of not just winning the war, but winning the peace came through strongly at the end of the movie. I believe many in the audience (of over 300) probably were shocked that such a message could be put out by a major Hollywood studio (Universal) at this time. The film in fact closes with the words of Charlie Wilson, the Blue Dog Democrat from Texas who procured funding for the war on Capitol Hill and championed the Afghanis’ cause. “These things [regarding the victory in Afghanistan] happened and these were glorious and they changed the world…and then we [expletive] up the endgame.” The film makes clear, the main problem with our effort in Afghanistan in the 80's, was that we didn’t follow through and help stabilize and rebuild the country, so radical elements were able to come in and take over. During the Q&A after the film, a member of the audience asked Aaron Sorkin somewhat incredulously about this message. (I wrote the interchange down after the event and think that I have captured it word-for word, and definitely the points made by each.) The audience member said, “I believe that one of the main themes of the movie is, that the United States is good at winning wars and then we pull out before the job is done. Is that that right?” Sorkin responded, “Yes, that’s right. That’s a main theme of the movie.” The questioner followed up more hesitantly, “Well, doesn’t that fly in the face of the popular opinion in the country about the Iraq War right now?” Sorkin responded, “Yes, it does.” He then qualified his answer slightly saying the situation was complicated and things in Iraq didn’t seem to have turned out well, but really didn’t back down from his initial response.
This is Aaron Sorkin! The creator and show-runner for West Wing. Writer of The American President. That show and that movie pilloried Republicans and their conservative views on a regular basis. Yet in this current movie, the main heroes are Charlie Wilson--right of center, played by Tom Hanks; Joanne Herring—a far right of center Texas socialite and self-professed born-again Christian woman (albeit with questionable sexual mores in light of her profession) who gets Wilson involved with the Afghanis’ cause, played by Julia Roberts; and Gust Avrakotos, a communist-hating CIA agent, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Herring’s main motivations for getting involved in the Afghani fight are both for humanitarian purposes and to defeat the communists in their bid to dominate the Middle East. Her views are presented in favorable light, and therefore must be the right reasons to go to war. President Bush offered the same justifications for going into Iraq (in addition to preventing Saddam from acquiring weapons of mass destruction), though the enemy in this case were terrorists rather than the Soviets. Additionally, in many ways, both the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, can be understood as getting the endgame right from mistakes made in the late 80’s and 90’s, thus righting what Wilson said we did wrong before. Further building the case that this movie can be seen as sympathetic to current Republican-led actions in these two countries is that Congressman Jack Murtha’s ethics problems that he experienced in the early 80’s come up twice during the film.
The main critique, from a conservative standpoint, is that Ronald Reagan’s role in supporting the Mujahedin fighters is all but ignored, minus a picture of him being prominently shown in the background during a scene and a mention of a Republican President being in power at the time. If we in the audience saw these connections to our current military efforts initiated by a Republican President, and Sorkin acknowledged as much, the correspondents who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press could make the same intellectual leap too, and they nominated the movie for five Golden Globes including: Best Picture, Best Screenplay (for Sorkin), and best actor nods for Hanks, Roberts, and Hoffman. All these actors are previous Oscar® winners. Sorkin has won numerous Emmys®. The film’s director, Mike Nichols won an Oscar® for The Graduate in 1967. It doesn’t get any more Hollywood establishment then these people, and they all signed on to do this project and obviously delivered solid performances.
On balance, Charlie Wilson’s War can be viewed as the first big budget, studio film to place our current military actions in a positive light in a long time. So much for completely writing Hollywood off.
Randall DeSoto is a freelance writer and author of the new book We Hold These Truths, which addresses how leaders have appealed to beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence throughout our nation's history. It is available through Xulon Press and Amazon.com and soon bookstores nationwide.
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/29855.html
Posted by TAB/MAR
I’m to tired to go into this thread. But thanks for the ping.
Sorry that IS the battlefield I was talking about. I’m not making anything up, I don’t give a rats ass what you believe, anybody who actually can read English and isn’t looking for a stupid reason to get mad can see that’s exactly what I meant. I do know what I said, and I know what I meant, and you’re wrong. I never said anything against the military, and there’s nobody on this thread that agrees with you. I know what I said and I am living with the fact that you have gone out of your way to misinterpret it because you wanted to get angry at somebody. Too bad you live such a pathetic shallow life that you have to try so hard for such a pointless goal as getting mad at somebody over something they didn’t say.
Have a nice life sometime.
I was waiting for but didn’t see any mention of 9/11 or Al Qaeda. I was very happy NOT to see that.
There’s something perverted to suggest that in helping the Afghans we fueled radical Islam. I see how they reach their conclusion, but it seems over reaching.
I'm sorry my friend but that is not true. I agree with him! Your "...can’t really blame us for abandoning a lost battlefield." can only be translated as us having lost on the battlefield. If that is not what you meant to say then the right thing for you to have done would have been to admit the error and apologize rather than try to spin what you said into something else as you have done.
SAD!
To me it’s an obvious chain, I talked about us abandoning a country (Afghanistan), he mentioned us abandoning a different country (Vietnam), I said I didn’t consider Vietnam an abandonment because we lost that war and a battlefield (the nation of Vietnam) where you lost isn’t really abandoned. Now I suppose a reasonable person could be mistaken there and raise a reasonable objection, like you did, which gives room for a reasonable explanation. He lead with yells (post 56 almost all caps), I stayed reasonable in my reply (post 61) which adds that the reason we lost is that we never wanted to win. A reasonable person could conclude from there that I wasn’t blaming the military, his reply then leads with insulting me and claiming I’m blaming the military, the need to use insults clearly shows he’s not being reasonable. I clarified that I didn’t blame the military. He then brought back my sentence he was complaining about, I explained it to him, then he called me a liar. Now that he’s called me a liar I have no need to try to be reasonable, he can go $%^& himself with something wide, scratchy and unlubricated. I tried to be nice, notice you and I had a polite conversation on the subject, one where I re-iterated that my blame for the loss in Vietnam does NOT go to the military, but he didn’t want to be nice, he wanted to shout insults, %^&* him.
You want sad, take it up with the guy that started the insults. I didn’t spin anything, he misunderstood it and turned into a flaming asshole about it. I can deal with misunderstanding, it happens, nobody’s perfect. But don’t don’t start shouting, don’t start insulting, and WAY don’t call me a liar because of YOUR mistake. I won’t take kindly to it, and I SHOULDN’T take kindly to it.
I can understand misreading something, I can understand objecting to what you think is said. What I will not ACCEPT, much less even attempt to understand, is calling the person a liar after they explain it to you. And I will not, under any circumstances, apologize for being called a liar. I will apologize to you and only YOU for making what was apparently a misunderstandable sentence. I have never blamed the fighting man in the field for the loss of the Vietnam war, will never blame them for that, and share your disdain for anyone that does, if that’s what you thought I said then I’m sorry for my poor sentence structure, I have never thought something like that much less said it.
See I can and will apologize for mistakes, when someone comports themselves in a manner that deserves respect. The one that called me a liar can get bent. And yes I did read the Giap quote, and agree. I think the fact that it took two weeks of saturation bombing to get the North Vietnamese to sign a treaty that had functionally been on the table for 6 years is one of the saddest things in American politics ever. Every single American soldier that died during that 6 years is a tragic waste of life. LBJ had the ability to win the war outright in 1967, instead he ceased bombing as a show of good faith. Of course it doesn’t stop there, Nixon had the ability to win the war outright in 1968 by resuming the bombing the minute he took office, instead he negotiated a sissy peace that the Democrats wouldn’t defend so we wound up fleeing the country. Sad stupid politicians all the way around.
With regard to winning the war, the ability to win the war was within our capabilities during any 6 month period you might chose to name between July of 1965 and September of 1970. The only thing lacking was the POLITICAL will. Something for which I will NEVER forgive the likes of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Jane Fonda and many others of that ilk!
How old were you in 1975?
There’s a lot of people who are burning or will burn in hell for turning what should have been a quick easy war (as much as any war can be) into a long protracted loss. Treasonous press, stupid politicians, and top level commanders (aka politicians with uniforms) without the balls to tell those politicians to stop wasting lives.
He called me a liar, that’s not correction, that’s calling me a liar. And the fact that he wouldn’t accept my explanation clearly demonstrated that he’s not my better. And if you didn’t like the posts maybe you should have stopped reading them, take THAT correction from your better.
Oxygen
DNA
You've got a pretty big carbon footprint.
Yawn. How boring a life you must have, to show up to an argument that’s already been settled and decide you need to start throwing some insults. Go start a flame war with somebody else, I’m not interested.
Posted by TAB
“Indiana Wilson Bond” - TAB
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