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“Charlie Wilson’s War” - Directed by Mike Nichols. Written by Aaron Sorkin, adapted from the book by George Crile.
“Charlie
Wilson’s War” begins and ends with America’s clandestine establishment
honoring Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks)
for his successful efforts to deliver U.S. aid and arms to the Afghan
mujahideen in their war against the Soviet Union during the 1980s.
As
the camera focuses on Hanks, his face does not show the anticipated
reaction of pleasure and pride. Instead, Hanks’s Charlie Wilson
projects an enigmatic expression of painful contemplation, as if he
were wondering whether the ally he helped create was worse than the
enemy he helped defeat.
It’s
an essential question, but one this film only hints at. The director
and screenwriter would rather cast a sympathetic, even heroic, light on
Charlie Wilson, a back-slapping Texas politician and foreign policy
hawk.
Wilson
is a political lightweight who treats his term in office as a permanent
frat-party until one day, lounging in a Las Vegas hot tub with
Playmates and strippers, he notices a television account of beleaguered
Afghans at war with the Soviet army. Moved by the plight of these
plucky Afghans, Wilson emerges from the tub a changed man. He discovers
his life’s purpose - to heat up the Cold War - and thereby, according
to the filmmakers, grows in moral stature. His is a Shakespearean tale
of personal redemption: Prince Hal transforming himself into King Henry
V.
Wilson’s
military fantasy takes a crucial step toward reality when he finds a
loose-cannon CIA operative (played superbly by Philip Seymour Hoffman)
who is frustrated by the lack of gung-ho aggression from his agency
bosses. Also on this crusade is a wealthy Texas socialite (played by
Julia Roberts), who seduces Wilson sexually and politically and who
raises an Afghan war chest from rich reactionaries.
With
money from Congress and assistance from the CIA, plus the connivance of
arms dealers and shady politicians from Israel, Egypt, and Saudi
Arabia, Wilson’s plan goes into operation, while Pakistan becomes a
funnel for the United States.
And
so, in a short time, the prayers of the mujahideen are answered - not
by Allah, but even better - by a congressman who can bring them
sophisticated weaponry and millions of dollars. U.S. aid flowed at an
estimated $600 million per year. Reactionary Islamic forces in
Afghanistan, once they are well armed, ultimately push a defeated Red
Army back to the Soviet Union.
This
is a scenario written to provoke cheers and applause, and it does. The
story offers little choice since it allows only a simplistic dichotomy:
on one side, bad Russians who maim and shoot down children; on the
other side, good Afghans and Americans who protect and care for injured
children. Present a war in this way, and audience sympathy for the Afghan
cause is guaranteed.
What's
more, the humor and irony of the dialogue provide comedy that diverts
attention away from the substance of the dialogue. The verbal sparring,
wit, and the punchlines masterfully set up by the screenwriter, Aaron
Sorkin, causes the audience to laugh at doings that would seem
worrisome if presented straightforwardly.
Yet,
almost despite itself, “Charlie Wilson’s War” raises some troubling
questions. Perhaps the pivotal moment of the film takes place in
Wilson’s apartment during a victory party to celebrate the Soviet
Union’s defeat and America’s triumph in Afghanistan. Charlie
Wilson’s
CIA partner tells him a curious story of a Zen master. According to the
tale, whenever something occurs, whether beneficial or harmful, the Zen
master, when asked his opinion, blandly replies, “We’ll see.”
As
the tale continues, it happens that misfortunes become advantages, the
advantages turn into misfortunes, and so on. The point of the story is
that no single event can be judged by itself but must instead be seen
as part of a chain of events with unpredictable outcomes.
Wilson
responds quizzically; the CIA agent offers no explanation, and the film
moves on. That dropped ball is left for the audience to pick up, if it
can.
The
screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, deliberately omitted the subsequent history
of Afghanistan and the horrendous results of Charlie Wilson’s war. For
instance, reference to the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York
City and its link to the Afghan/Soviet war, a reference that appeared
in one version of the script, was ultimately cut. Sorkin has said that
he trusted to the viewers’ intelligence and “did not want to hit the
audience over the head” with some political message.
Of
course, the issue is not to prevent the audience from being hit over
the head but to prevent the audience from using its head. Had “Charlie
Wilson’s War” told the story of Afghan history following the Soviet
withdrawal, Wilson’s (that is, America’s) victory party would not have
been so belligerently joyful. The audience, at least, would not have
shared in the celebration, because in that victory lay the seeds of
misfortune and tragedy for the United States and Afghanistan itself.
Civil
war continued in that country among the warlords and bandits who had
received U.S. weapons. One of them, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a U.S.
favorite, shelled Kabul and reduced much of the city to ruins.
In
the 1990s, the Sunni Muslim Taliban came to power and established and
enforced the most reactionary version of Islamic law. In 1998 Taliban
forces attacked the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and in two days
killed an estimated 8000 civilians. The residents of this city were a
minority ethnicity and had been declared “not Muslims.”
The
holy war against the Soviet Union also drew militant reactionary
Muslims from all over the Middle East, including a Saudi named Osama
bin Laden, who created al-Qaeda. Bin Laden later continued the war by
organizing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
This
is the history that “Charlie Wilson’s War” would rather its audience
not remember, much less consider.
Toward the end of the film a scene is added, showing Wilson’s
failed effort to convince his fellow Congressmen to appropriate money
for the peacetime rebuilding of Afghanistan. The audience is expected
to understand (simplistically) that had Wilson’s advice been followed -
had schools, roads, etc. been built – the subsequent tragedy of
Afghanistan would have been avoided.
The
film would also have its audience forget the ugly role of the United
States in other Cold War adventures of the 1980s. This includes support
to the Contra war to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua
and the war that the U.S, orchestrated on behalf of the oligarchs in El
Salvador - which included numerous massacres and the torture and murder
of political opponents.
If
the film condemns – rightly - the Soviet Union for targeting children,
what of the children and civilians killed in Vietnam when the United
States destroyed villages, dropped napalm, and committed massacres? Did
My Lai never happen? And what of the present war in Iraq, where
thousands of children and civilians have been blinded and maimed by
U.S. bombs?
In
“Charlie Wilson’s War,” democracy is also damaged. According to the film, the decision
to turn Afghanistan into a full-fledged war was made in secret by
government agencies behind the back of the American people. Wilson’s
conniving and manipulation is presented as a virtue, something the
audience should applaud.
Mike
Nichols once directed a reasonably good antiwar movie (“Catch-22”), and
Aaron Sorkin has written stirring paeans to American justice and
democracy (“A Few Good Men,” “The American President,” and, of course,
the television series, “The
West Wing”). Their new film,
however, merely hints at a counter-narrative critical of men like
Charlie Wilson. That critique
lies dormant, undeveloped. To consider the legacy of Wilson, a legacy
that leads directly to al-Qaeda, Sept. 11, and the U.S. war against
Afghanistan, well, that would spoil all the fun. It would interfere
with the box-office appeal of feel-good patriotism.
“Charlie Wilson’s War” conforms to
the overarching myth of America’a great nation that is a force for good
in an evil world. The ills America brings and the harm it creates
results only from mistakes - good intentions gone wrong - but never
from the systematic exploitation of others for private profit (such as,
say, control of oil reserves), never from racism and imperialism.
“Charlie
Wilson’s War” plays skillfully to the American myth, and, in the name
of entertainment, perpetuates falsehood. It will win Academy
Awards.
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