Posted by TAB
- - When and where: 6 and 10 p.m. Saturday, 6 a.m. and noon Dec. 28, History Channel
If there's a fact- based movie heading to theaters, the folks at the History Channel will find a way to do a documentary based on it. So it is with The True Story of Charlie Wilson, a two-hour documentary premiering at 6 p.m. Saturday, timed to the release of Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Wilson is the Democratic Texas congressman credited with singlehandedly helping Afghanistan's mujahedeen rebels defeat the Russians during a 10-year war in the 1980s. The documentary offers a comprehensive look at Wilson's career and his involvement in events.
"Singlehandedly" is a stretch, since no man is an island, and certainly no politician bent on spending billions in taxpayer money. Still, he did spur the CIA to undertake the largest covert operation in U.S. history. Wilson's nickname on Capitol Hill was "Good time Charlie," thanks to a penchant for booze and pretty women. Once he threw himself into supporting the rebels, he schmoozed and wheedled colleagues into providing the money to arm the mujahedeen, who were routinely being mowed down by Soviet helicopters.
But the most interesting parts of Wilson's life were stateside, starting with a childhood when his dog was killed by a neighbor who happened to be a politician. Did Wilson get mad? Yep. Then he got even; he ran for the neighbor's local council seat and beat him, with the help of disenfranchised black voters. In the coming years Wilson would face a number of personal battles, not only with booze but with the CIA, which first dismissed him as an interloper. There was a controversial car crash, health problems and FBI investigation into his drug use. But mostly there was Charlie trying to convince people that the fight in Afghanistan was of vital importance to America. Indeed, only 11 months after the Soviets fled the country, the Berlin Wall came down. Wilson, it seems, played a key role in the demise of the Cold War.
The True Story of Charlie Wilson is filled with archival footage of Wilson on Capitol Hill and rebels fighting in Afghanistan. There are also insightful interviews with Russian military officers, and key events are re-created in docudrama fashion, such as the hot-tub party at a Las Vegas hotel where Wilson first became interested in the mujahedeen. Still, two hours is a bit much. It seems like we're watching some of the same footage over and over and, despite comments from a host of Charlie's friends, when we listen to Wilson during his one-on-one interview for the show, he's not that charming. A nice guy, sure, but hardly a legendary bon vivant. That said, the History Channel gives us a chance to encounter the man behind the movie myth. Tom Hanks will no doubt make him slick and appealing on the big screen. On the TV, we discover him to be both more and less than his reputation.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/dec/20/pearson-the-true-story-of-charlie-wilson/
Posted for FlAttorney by TAB
This needs a Jack Murtha ping
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1489385/posts
My Enemy’s Enemy by George Crile
My Enemy’s Enemy: The Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History — the Arming of the Mujahideen by the CIA
In the early summer of 1980, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson walked off the floor of the House of Representatives into the Speaker’s Lobby, a rich, wood- paneled room that stretches along the full length of the House floor. A Teletype at one end spewed out stories from AP, UPI and Reuters. Wilson was a news junkie, and he reached down and began reading a story datelined from Kabul.
(much, much more at thread)
I haven’t read the book, but I get a very strong feeling that the film is part of the ongoing lefty revisionism of all of our history, which states that basically every good thing happened in spite of conservatives and Republicans, not because of them. Regardless of the facts. “New” facts will be supplied to replace the old.
For example, we’ll know that the global warming movement has officially been completely exposed as a fraud when we see it starting to get blamed on Republicans.
The last thing I want to see after a week on FR is a political movie. I’m going for pure escapism, National Treasure.
Texan. It figures.
Aaron Sorkin wrote it, so it’s lefty drivel. May it bomb at the box office.
SOOOOOO, we have Charlie Wilson and a ROGUE CIA to blame for arming Osama Bin Laden???
The book was great. I’ll probably see the film.
I hope someone is telling the true story, because Hollywood damn sure won’t.
Very good and detailed two page biography of Mr. Avrakotos published after his death in the Boston Globe. - TAB
WASHINGTON -- Gust L. Avrakotos, 67, the CIA agent in charge of the massive arming of Afghan tribesmen during their 1980s guerrilla war against the Soviets, died of complications from a stroke Dec. 1 at Inova Fairfax (Va.) Hospital. Mr. Avrakotos, who ran the largest covert operation in the agency's history, was dubbed ''Dr. Dirty" for his willingness to handle ethically ambiguous tasks and a ''blue-collar James Bond" for his 27 years of undercover work. In the 1980s, he used Tennessee mules to bring hundreds of millions of dollars in automatic weapons, antitank guns, and satellite maps from Pakistan to the mujahideen. Working with former Representative Charles Wilson, a Democrat from Texas, Mr. Avrakotos eventually controlled more than 70 percent of the CIA's annual expenditures for covert operations, funneling it through intermediaries to the mujahideen. As a result, the tribesmen drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and the long Cold War shuddered toward an end.
TAB
On the subject of good movies on political topics, I'd love to see an honest film made
of My Grandfather's Son by Justice Clarence Thomas. No lib would do it, tho - it'd
have to be a Mel Gibson production . . .And since Justice Thomas is a Catholic as Gibson is . . .
I have not seen the movie but I assume that it is slanted to the left but nearly as slanted as “Redacted” and “Lions for Lambs” and some of the other recent war movies. I predict it will do much better at the box office than those movies, putting the lie to the idea that public will not go to see war movies.
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.
Posted by TAB
I watched most of the History Channel documentary.
IMHO, it was pretty good and showed Wilson “warts and all”.
The most amazing thing was hearing Aaron Sorkin actually sounding
(for the most part) as a reasonable, mainstream guy when assessing
the totality of Charlie Wilson.
Hearing someone like Sorkin making even a bit of sense had me wondering
if I was having a stroke!
bump
He was also known as "Coke Charlie" --often had "white powder" on his nose! I couldn't stand the jerk!
We have a good congressman now--Kevin Brady (R).