Reply #44: And his wimp-out in "Charlie Wilson's War"

[onager]

Google for details, as usual.

Aaron Sorkin's original script for "CWW" contained some material pointing 9/11 straight back to our support of the Afghan "freedom fighters" during the 1980's. People like Osama bin Laden and Hekmatyr Gulbuddin.

e.g., Sorkin wrote one great line for the CIA agent Gust, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman: "There will come a time when we WISH the godless Communists were running Afghanistan." (From memory.)

George Crile's book "CWW" made this very clear and went into great detail about it. In many places, Wilson and his helpers came across as ignorant fools fixated on nothing but the idea of "killing Russians." Wilson liked Pakistan because he hated India. For one reason, he "didn't like the way Indians held their heads." !!!

After reading the script, Hanks said "I just can't deal with this 9/11 stuff" and forced several re-writes.

Some other re-writes happened because the crazy right-wing heiress in the movie, Joanne Herring, threatened the studio with massive lawsuits.