Charlie Wilson is gone

[Mr Bean]

Dead of a Heart Attack at 76

A loose cannon who stretched the boundaries of both U.S. foreign policy and gentlemanly behavior, former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson helped orchestrate a secret effort to support fighters battling the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

Mr. Wilson, who died Wednesday in a Lufkin, Texas, hospital at age 76, became widely known in recent years thanks to the book and movie about him, "Charlie Wilson's War." Both works detail Mr. Wilson's support for the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine efforts to arm and train Afghanistan's mujahedeen fighters. In the movie, Tom Hanks played Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Wilson, a tall, gregarious man, represented his East Texas district from 1973 to 1997, and served on the House Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Wilson's penchant for parties got him into scrapes during his congressional career, not the least of which involved allegations that he had used cocaine in 1980 while in a hot tub with two Las Vegas strippers. A Justice Department investigation of the alleged incident was dropped.

But Mr. Wilson's playboy persona masked his success at forging alliances with powerful members of Congress. He used those alliances, and ties forged outside formal channels with operatives in the CIA, to send weapons to the Afghan resistance capable of bringing down Soviet helicopters, according to George Crile's book.

"Charlie was a man of courage and conviction who worked hard, loved his country, and lived life to the fullest," said U.S. Rep. David Obey, (D., Wis.), who served in Congress with Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Wilson was inspired in part by a wealthy Houston socialite, Joanne Herring, an ardent anti-Communist who adopted the cause of the Afghan resistance.

"Charlie's been in my life forever," Ms. Herring said in an interview Wednesday. "He was a great patriot. He did a great job for the world."

Born in 1933 in the East Texas town of Trinity, Mr. Wilson attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. He served aboard a destroyer and in the Pentagon. His first run for office came seemingly on a whim. In 1960 while on leave, he entered and won an election to the Texas House of Representatives. His handle became "The Liberal from Lufkin," and he was first elected to the U.S. Congress in 1972—despite it being a landslide year for Republicans.

In Washington, Mr. Wilson had few legislative accomplishments and was known by colleagues as "Good Time Charlie." He liked to yank Rep. Pat Schroeder's chain by calling her "Babycakes." But he did have an interest in overthrowing Communism, and the first time he tried to set U.S. foreign policy, according to Mr. Crile's book, came in the late 1970s, when he tried to arrange for a secret army of ex-CIA employees to support Nicaraguan ruler Anastasio Somoza. That attempt failed, but set a precedent that succeeded a decade later in Asia.

The defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan and its retreat in 1988 was a turning point in the Cold War. But some of the mujahedeen fighters later turned on the U.S., harboring Osama bin Laden and others in the al Qaeda terror network.

"We were fighting the evil empire. It would have been like not supplying the Soviets against Hitler in World War II," Mr. Wilson told Time magazine in 2007. "Anyway, who the hell had ever heard of the Taliban then?"

The terrorist attacks of the past decade linked to Afghanistan "pained his heart; he was broken over it," Ms. Herring said. .

We lost Murtha a day or two ago and now Charlie.


This Charlie

[Elfdart]

When Wilson was called to testify before the House Ethics [sic] Committee because of his drinking and skirt-chasing, he asked Jim Wright (who was Majority Leader at the time) to quash the investigation on the grounds that the members of the committee were prejudiced against him. Wright asked him why he thought the members of the ethics panel were biased, to which Wilson replied [paraphrasing, I can't find the exact quote] "Not a one of them likes whiskey or pussy!"

[Steve]

Wow, an honest politician. Well, relatively honest.

[Thanas]

On the other hand, his efforts eventually led to bin Laden and his group being trained and supported, so it came back in a major way to bite the US in the behind.

[Mr Bean]

On the other hand, his efforts eventually led to bin Laden and his group being trained and supported, so it came back in a major way to bite the US in the behind.

This is a common enough refrain but untrue. After we drove the Soviets out, Charlie wanted to invest into Afghanistan as they had the shit kicked out of them despite all the funding we had given them. Goodwill kind of things, road building, school houses, and in what I thought was a clever bit, aid money to send tribesmen to collage to get medical and engineering degree's in the Europe. However by the time operations had ceased, most of the people who helped make Charlie's Afghanistan victory possible were gone, out of power or dead. And aid funding is far less sexy than war funding, so the Republicans he had on his side were gone as well.

When the war ended we abandoned Afghanistan for all intents and purposes, only coming back in the 90's when someone woke up to the fact that a bunch of tribal leaders in Afghanistan still had dozens of American Stringer missiles on hand and some serious cash issues. Other than the buyback program, our aid program to Afghanistan was subsistence not investment. We gave fish not books on how to fish in other words.

When interviewed after 9/11 Charlie said as much and he deeply regretted not fighting harder for that after war funding. However even then our time in Afghanistan did pay off for even if the funding had gone away, Afghanistan was not near the hell hole everyone feared in 2002 because we still had so much latent positive PR from Charlie Wilson's efforts.

[Thanas]

Was it a net positive thing, supporting the insurrectionists in afghanistan? Certainly not, for not only did it cause the death of many people and huge suffering, it also caused the harline islamists to squash the communist government there, which was far more progressive and humane than the guys that followed.

So he tried to get some funding there. Great. The operative word being tried. That does however not change the fact what happened there - Wilson was quite happy to destroy progress in Afghanistan and fund radicals there as long as they killed soviets.

[irishmick79]

Was it a net positive thing, supporting the insurrectionists in afghanistan? Certainly not, for not only did it cause the death of many people and huge suffering, it also caused the harline islamists to squash the communist government there, which was far more progressive and humane than the guys that followed.

So he tried to get some funding there. Great. The operative word being tried. That does however not change the fact what happened there - Wilson was quite happy to destroy progress in Afghanistan and fund radicals there as long as they killed soviets.

The communists that were running things in Afghanistan were little more than petty thugs who were going to be killed by somebody sooner or later. Those guys were talking about trying to implement socialism in a deeply religious society at a time when religious fervor was exploding across the region. The only reason you could consider them more progressive or humane was because they were consumed by palace intrigue in Kabul and didn't care a lick about what happened in rural Afghanistan.

[Havok]

Was it a net positive thing, supporting the insurrectionists in afghanistan? Certainly not, for not only did it cause the death of many people and huge suffering, it also caused the harline islamists to squash the communist government there, which was far more progressive and humane than the guys that followed.

So he tried to get some funding there. Great. The operative word being tried. That does however not change the fact what happened there - Wilson was quite happy to destroy progress in Afghanistan and fund radicals there as long as they killed soviets.

Yes, but that was who the enemy was then. Just, like he states in the article, the Nazis were the enemy in WWII and we helped the Soviets, even though we knew it could bit us in that ass down the road.

[Thanas]

The communists that were running things in Afghanistan were little more than petty thugs who were going to be killed by somebody sooner or later. Those guys were talking about trying to implement socialism in a deeply religious society at a time when religious fervor was exploding across the region. The only reason you could consider them more progressive or humane was because they were consumed by palace intrigue in Kabul and didn't care a lick about what happened in rural Afghanistan.

So you are saying they were worse than the freaking nutheads the USA supported? If so, please back that up with some numbers.

Yes, but that was who the enemy was then. Just, like he states in the article, the Nazis were the enemy in WWII and we helped the Soviets, even though we knew it could bit us in that ass down the road.

It is nothing to celebrate or even think of a worthy achievement and equating the guys in Kabul to the Nazis is dead wrong. So even if they were the enemy, that makes it okay to support religious fundamentalists?

[irishmick79]

The communists that were running things in Afghanistan were little more than petty thugs who were going to be killed by somebody sooner or later. Those guys were talking about trying to implement socialism in a deeply religious society at a time when religious fervor was exploding across the region. The only reason you could consider them more progressive or humane was because they were consumed by palace intrigue in Kabul and didn't care a lick about what happened in rural Afghanistan.

So you are saying they were worse than the freaking nutheads the USA supported? If so, please back that up with some numbers.

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they merely weren't around long enough nor powerful enough to rack up serious kill counts but their personalities indicate that they probably would have had they survived long enough. Afghan communists were openly asking for Soviet military support against the Islamists in '79, knowing full well what the Soviet military did to towns like Herat where air strikes killed upwards to twenty thousand Afghans. Guys like Nur Mohammed Taraki were murdering political prisoners in Kabul's jails, and told his KGB handlers "Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution." That quote is from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, if you're looking for the source.

The islamists were nutheads for sure, but the people that the Soviets were supporting weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer either, and every bit as ruthless.

[ray245]

The communists that were running things in Afghanistan were little more than petty thugs who were going to be killed by somebody sooner or later. Those guys were talking about trying to implement socialism in a deeply religious society at a time when religious fervor was exploding across the region. The only reason you could consider them more progressive or humane was because they were consumed by palace intrigue in Kabul and didn't care a lick about what happened in rural Afghanistan.

So you are saying they were worse than the freaking nutheads the USA supported? If so, please back that up with some numbers.

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they merely weren't around long enough nor powerful enough to rack up serious kill counts but their personalities indicate that they probably would have had they survived long enough. Afghan communists were openly asking for Soviet military support against the Islamists in '79, knowing full well what the Soviet military did to towns like Herat where air strikes killed upwards to twenty thousand Afghans. Guys like Nur Mohammed Taraki were murdering political prisoners in Kabul's jails, and told his KGB handlers "Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution." That quote is from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, if you're looking for the source.

The islamists were nutheads for sure, but the people that the Soviets were supporting weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer either, and every bit as ruthless.

Except that the communist has a greater chance of building up Afghanistan as a functional state than the Islamist. Additionally, I really think that your argument is essentially a slippery slope argument.

Considering the fact that the Soviet Union reduce the amount of oppression after the state is becoming more and more stabilised, I fail to see why this will not happen to Afghanistan if the communist managed to stay in power.

[Simon_Jester]

Were the Islamic fundamentalists the only groups the US supported? Is there any indication that the US actually wanted to install a fundamentalist regime, or did they merely fail to take steps to stop one from arising after they stopped paying attention?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Were the Islamic fundamentalists the only groups the US supported? Is there any indication that the US actually wanted to install a fundamentalist regime, or did they merely fail to take steps to stop one from arising after they stopped paying attention?

I think no one took into account the consequences when they chose to funnel the funds through regimes with known Fundamentalist sympathies, like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc. In those days, Communism was all that mattered, never mind the religious extremists who were busy swirling around.

[irishmick79]

Except that the communist has a greater chance of building up Afghanistan as a functional state than the Islamist. Additionally, I really think that your argument is essentially a slippery slope argument.

Considering the fact that the Soviet Union reduce the amount of oppression after the state is becoming more and more stabilised, I fail to see why this will not happen to Afghanistan if the communist managed to stay in power.

No they didn't. The communists had no political support in Afghanistan while the fundamentalists did. Any reforms would have had to have some sort of Islamic character, and the reforms that the communists harshly curtailed the role of Islam in public life. Consequently, the communists actively drove lots of Afghans into the insurgent camp. The local Afghan communists continually underestimated the strength of the Islamic revival that was sweeping through the Middle East at the time, and remained virtual outsiders in their own country.

[irishmick79]

Were the Islamic fundamentalists the only groups the US supported? Is there any indication that the US actually wanted to install a fundamentalist regime, or did they merely fail to take steps to stop one from arising after they stopped paying attention?

The US was primarily interested in hurting the Soviets and little more. The intelligence community was still reeling from the Church committee investigations and didn't want to get their hands too dirty in a proxy war against the Russians. Consequently they were more than happy to let the fundamentalists fight their battle for them. Saudi Arabia was willing to match their funding dollar for dollar, so it was more about putting the maximum amount of resources into the field and letting the locals take care of the shooting.

[K. A. Pital]

irishmick79, so you think that trying to implement secular reform in a "deeply religious society" is futile and counter-productive, or that it's wrong in principle? Why? Because... because one should respect the religion where people routinely stone females to death or bury them alive, or do other things of similar barbaric level?

The only reason you could consider them more progressive or humane was because they were consumed by palace intrigue in Kabul and didn't care a lick about what happened in rural Afghanistan.

And because they did not consider women to be living cattle, as many religious societies did, do, and will continue to do. The Afghan communists certainly weren't angels, but they at least weren't feudal dark age folk. Though considering Afghanistan tried to leap from feudalism into socialism... the result quite surely was not impressive. The Soviet government itself was displeased with the lack of understanding that Taraki and Amin displayed - their palace intrigue being the last drop that secured the intervention.

Any reforms would have had to have some sort of Islamic character, and the reforms that the communists harshly curtailed the role of Islam in public life.

They tried to follow the Soviet experience, which did curtail the role of Islam in the republics of the Central Asia (Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, etc.) What they did not know, is that right, they had little support, and they had far fewer resource than the USSR. In any case, their attempt to turn Afghanistan into a secular state was ill-fated - but that does not mean the islamists somehow become the better party.

[irishmick79]

irishmick79, so you think that trying to implement secular reform in a "deeply religious society" is futile and counter-productive, or that it's wrong in principle? Why? Because... because one should respect the religion where people routinely stone females to death or bury them alive, or do other things of similar barbaric level?

What I'm trying to say is that the afghan communists had no hope of implementing any kind of secular reform. They were too narrow-minded themselves, too ruthless, and didn't command the popular support necessary to implement such reforms. Consequently, in the context of Afghanistan, their efforts to implement a secular society were futile and counter-productive. Definitely not wrong in principle to try and do what they did, but clearly they weren't the guys who were going to succeed.

And because they did not consider women to be living cattle, as many religious societies did, do, and will continue to do. The Afghan communists certainly weren't angels, but they at least weren't feudal dark age folk. Though considering Afghanistan tried to leap from feudalism into socialism... the result quite surely was not impressive. The Soviet government itself was displeased with the lack of understanding that Taraki and Amin displayed - their palace intrigue being the last drop that secured the intervention.

And once intervention occurred, any credibility they might have had as Afghan rulers was effectively gone. They were victims of a similar core problem faced by the South Vietnamese government. Namely, if you're a ruler of a third world country and have a powerful foreign patron, you tend to get resources and political support (domestic and international) that otherwise might not be available to you. This can really distort your perception of your own level of power in relation to the other major political leaders in your country. Also you can lose touch with political dynamics in your own country as you begin to spend more time focusing on the interests of the patron than that of your constituents. This is especially true when military support comes into play. If you know that you're going to be backed up by a powerful foreign military if the shit hits the fan, you're probably going to do things that otherwise you would probably not try to do. This is certainly true with the Afghan communists, as they tried to implement reforms that were out of touch with the body politic, and when things inevitably went south they went begging to Moscow for support.

They tried to follow the Soviet experience, which did curtail the role of Islam in the republics of the Central Asia (Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, etc.) What they did not know, is that right, they had little support, and they had far fewer resource than the USSR. In any case, their attempt to turn Afghanistan into a secular state was ill-fated - but that does not mean the islamists somehow become the better party.

And it's arguable that those efforts to curtail Islam in Central Asia helped to fuel Islamic revival movements that evolved into national independence movements. Just look at the Jadids in Uzbekistan. They started off trying reform Islamic education, and wound up establishing a provincial government in the city of Kokand during the 1917 Revolution.

The Islamists weren't the better party. I'm just saying that the Afghan communists weren't that much of an improvement.

[stormthebeaches]

The Afghan Communist government were a bunch of brutal thugs and were vastly incompetent at ruling. They were prone to infighting amongst themselves and their absurdly heavy handed method of fighting the insurgents only drove more people into the insurgencies arms. The Afghan government at the time was very unpopular with the majority of the Afghan population, over half of the Afghan army either deserted or defected to the rebels cause (some sources estimate that it was as high as 75%). The Afghan government was quite contradictory as well, contrary to popular belief, it was the Afghan government declared Jihad on the rebels first.

I also think is is unfair to portray the entire Mujahadeen as religious fanatics. Many of them were just ordinary Afghan's who were opposed to their brutal government.

[Guardsman Bass]

I also think is is unfair to portray the entire Mujahadeen as religious fanatics. Many of them were just ordinary Afghan's who were opposed to their brutal government.

That's something to keep in mind. Another thing might be to remember that most of the guys troubling the US in Afghanistan now weren't involved in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Look at the Taliban, for example - most of them were originally boys from southern Afghanistan (often the sons of refugees from the Soviet invasion) who ended up in madrassahs on the Pakistani side of the border, then trained and used by Pakistan as their client in Afghanistan.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The guy was a funny character and a bon vivant to be sure. But he was an arch-imperialist goon who tried to keep the likes of Tachito Somoza in power, and went off to increase the intensity of the Afghan War with such enlightened purpose as "kill Russians." And after all was said and done, ended up funneling the lion's share of support to Islamist thug Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Not a proud achievement or moment in human or American history, if one cares at all about humanitarianism or fair treatment.

[Illuminatus Primus]

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they merely weren't around long enough nor powerful enough to rack up serious kill counts but their personalities indicate that they probably would have had they survived long enough. Afghan communists were openly asking for Soviet military support against the Islamists in '79, knowing full well what the Soviet military did to towns like Herat where air strikes killed upwards to twenty thousand Afghans.

That legitimizes U.S. involvement how, exactly? We of course killed much more in completely illegal bombing raids on neutral states during our Indochinese wars.

Guys like Nur Mohammed Taraki were murdering political prisoners in Kabul's jails, and told his KGB handlers "Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution." That quote is from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, if you're looking for the source.

The islamists were nutheads for sure, but the people that the Soviets were supporting weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer either, and every bit as ruthless.

I'm hardly a Leninist, but at least the DRA made some moves toward developing an organized, industrializing, and modernizing society. One cannot say of the motley group of thugs we supported, who ruined the country so badly that the Taliban was sponsored by their former sponsors and welcomed by the populace.

[wolveraptor]

I think the point is that portraying Senator Wilson as some kind of hero (like in that wanktacular movie) is ridiculous. He supported one group of assholes over another, and it's really difficult to determine if the assholes that lost would've been worse or better than the assholes that won. Either way, the real winner was the US, and the real losers were the Afghan people.

[irishmick79]

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they merely weren't around long enough nor powerful enough to rack up serious kill counts but their personalities indicate that they probably would have had they survived long enough. Afghan communists were openly asking for Soviet military support against the Islamists in '79, knowing full well what the Soviet military did to towns like Herat where air strikes killed upwards to twenty thousand Afghans.

That legitimizes U.S. involvement how, exactly? We of course killed much more in completely illegal bombing raids on neutral states during our Indochinese wars.

I understood the original question to be if the US intentionally set out to implement a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan. If that's the only question we're trying to answer here, then that answer would be no, the US did not set out to create a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan. The American goals were not nearly that ambitious - when your basic strategy is "Kill Soviets," and little more, it shouldn't be a surprise when your covert operatives don't overly concern themselves with the potential consequences.

If the question is about the legitimacy of American intervention, well then the answer to that question is decidedly less clear and more complex.

[Thanas]

I understood the original question to be if the US intentionally set out to implement a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

My question was if the end results of the US intervention were something worth celebrating. Looking through my post, I have to wonder how you arrived at that conclusion as I have not argued US intentions, but the result of the US intervention. After all, intent is worth nothing when looking at the consequences of actions.

[irishmick79]

I understood the original question to be if the US intentionally set out to implement a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

My question was if the end results of the US intervention were something worth celebrating. Looking through my post, I have to wonder how you arrived at that conclusion as I have not argued US intentions, but the result of the US intervention. After all, intent is worth nothing when looking at the consequences of actions.

Ah, I see. I initially based my response on Simon_Jester's post a few lines later.

As far as what has resulted in Afghanistan, it is indeed a massive tragedy. It amazes me how a country like the US can have such a large case of collective amnesia when it comes to learning the lessons of foreign intervention, and make so many obvious mistakes.