Reagan officials: Charlie Wilson’s War is ‘left-wing myth'

[CatWoman]

The Washington Times writes that, “Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie” — Charlie Wilson’s War. They “said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced” the 9/11 attacks. “The officials blamed the anti-Reagan slant of the film on the movie’s screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/22/reagan-officials-charlie-wilsons-war-is-left-wing-myth/

[laconicsax]

1. Well, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

[Cha]

28. Yes, it does! And that's Liberal..

not dlc.

[MichiganVote]

2. Watching the History channel on the real thing with interviews of Wilson...

The movie is purely light in view of the real actions taken during that time. Jeesch!

[depakid]

3. History won't be kind to Reagan or his "officials."

Despite the current revisionist lionization- Reagan and his cronies will be remembered for EXACTLY what they were and are.

[Union Thug]

4. For Republicans, the truth is especially painful. Especially regarding

that doddering old buffoon hero of their's: Ronald RayGun.

[IntravenousDemilo]

5. "Blamed"?

Like an anti-Reagan slant is some bad thing? That sentence should have been written, "The officials credited the anti-Reagan slant of the film to the movie's screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin."

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Yes it is a hot topic on their message boards this weekend

They are scared. The truth is coming out. And they know it.

[The Magistrate]

19. Excellent Cartoon, Ma'am

[AmandaRuth]

7. A movie that speaks truth to The Raygun?

I'm so there....

[burrowowl]

16. It is more of a right-wing myth

despite RayGun's assertion.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/71286/

[Democrats_win]

23. Thanks for the article, hope DUers continue to comment on this subject.

I enjoyed the movie--there were a lot of funny lines. The truth? Well, that's what I hope to find out. The alternet article says that Charlie Wilson once said 9/11 was his fault. Evidently he saw 9/11 as blowback from Afghanistan. So why does everyone forget about the First Gulf War?

Are Americans so blind that they believe that war was legitimate and somehow "good?" Spoiler Alert: Charlie Wilson's War ends with a zen story about the question of something really being for the best. Today, we can ask was Afghanistan really for the best? Was the first Gulf war really for the best? Maybe if we did what was really good instead of killing people in wars, then that would be actually for the best.

[mth44sc]

8. Just watched a two hour show

On the History channel about all this. It repeats at mid-night. I'd say the Reagan folk have a tough sell.

Check it out if ya can.

[cmkramer]

9. I watched it too.

Quite interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie.

[CatWoman]

30. thanks for the heads up

I watched it last night.

Ol' Charlie was sure a hell raiser, wasn't he? :)

[WinkyDink]

10. And movies have NEVER had RIGHT-wing propaganda! Hahahahahaha!

[Swamp Rat]

11. Truth hurts

[MADem]

12. Alternet was griping the exact opposite--that they GLOSSED OVER the reality of

the fact that most of the money went to the Taliban and Usama, and that Mahmoud Abbas was viewed as a Russkie collaborator.

Supposedly, they split the bullshit down the middle, and the truth on both sides suffers as a consequence.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Damn reality!!!!! Called BLOWBACK!

[HughMoran]

14. HAHAHAHAHA!!! What a bunch of Morans!

Does anybody care what right-wing wackos say any more?

[Metta]

15. Not according to an article in alternet.

http://www.alternet.org/story/71286/ How Charlies Wilson and the CIA were directly responsible for setting the stage for 9/11.

[BenDavid]

17. Reagan also played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war

that followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama Bin Laden.Once again, the story concerns the fascinating relationship between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.Gorbachev took the helm as the reform-minded general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985. Within months, he had decided privately to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. One of his predecessors, Leonid Brezhnev,* had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the move was proving a disaster. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops had died; military morale was crumbling; popular protest—unheard of, till then, in Communist Russia—was rising.

Part of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was due to the fact that the Reagan administration was feeding billions of dollars in arms to Afghanistan's Islamic resistance. Reagan and, even more, his intensely ideological CIA director, William Casey, saw the battle for Afghanistan as a titanic struggle in the war between Eastern tyranny and Western freedom. (Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had started assisting the resistance, but with not nearly the same largess or ambition.)

In early December, Gorbachev summoned President Najibullah, the puppet leader of Afghanistan, to give him the news: The Soviet troops would be leaving within 18 months; after that, he was on his own.

Two months later, on Feb. 23, 1987, Gorbachev assured the Politburo that the troops wouldn't leave right away. He first had to foster a stable environment for the reigning government and to maintain a credible image with India, the Soviet Union's main ally in the region. The exit strategy, he said, would be a negotiated deal with Washington: The Soviets pull out troops; the Americans stop their arms shipments to the rebels.

However, within days, Gorbachev learned to his surprise that Reagan had no interest in such a deal. In a conversation on Feb. 27 with Italy's foreign minister, Giulio Andreotti, Gorbachev said, "We have information from very reliable sources … that the United States has set itself the goal of obstructing a settlement by any means," in order "to present the Soviet Union in a bad light." If this information is true, Gorbachev continued, the matter of a withdrawal "takes on a different light."

Without U.S. cooperation, Gorbachev couldn't proceed with his plans to withdraw. Instead, he allowed his military commanders to escalate the conflict. In April, Soviet troops, supported by bombers and helicopters, attacked a new compound of Islamic fighters along the mountain passes of Jaji, near the Pakistani border. The leader of those fighters, many of them Arab volunteers, was
Osama Bin Laden.

Had Gorbachev thought that Reagan was willing to strike a deal, the battle of Jaji would not have taken place—and the legend of Bin Laden might never have taken off.
http://www.slate.com/id/2102243/

[AntiFascist]

25. I just had a thought...

I've read that many disaffected Soviets fighting in Afghanistan became involved in trading heroin (and probably arms as well). Maybe the US saw this as a good thing, that the Soviets were learning the value of capitalistic trade. How is the mafiya doing these days?

[struggle4progress]

18. The "Reagan era officials" cited by the Moonie Times are Fred Ikle and Fred Ikle

Both of them -- not only Fred Ikle but also Fred Ikle -- may be liars:

Thursday, August 22, 2002
Iraq and al-Qaida (Again)

... The irony is, of course, that the depth of past US support for the radical Islamic anti-leftist terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere far exceeds the tenuous links attributed to Saddam. Among the favorites of the CIA was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, guerilla leader and mass murderer who has now returned to Afghanistan from his sanctuary in Iran and joined al-Qaida remnants in opposition to the Karzai government. Orrin Hatch, Fred Ikle and other members of the Reagan administration flew to Beijing in January of 1986 to plead with China to intercede with its close friend Pakistan to allow the US to give Hekmatyar and other terrorists Stingers to use against the Russian boys. Pakistan gave in. One of those Stingers was found last November outside Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia, and it had apparently been fired by an al-Qaida member at a US fighter jet without effect ...

http://www.juancole.com/2002/08/iraq-and-al-qaida-again-attempts-to.html

[KingFlorez]

20. Once again, they want to deny the truth

There is no denying that Osama was a part of the Mujahideen, as well as many other Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.

[MadMaddie]

21. Ah I love it when the Rethuglicans try to rewrite history....

Lenins artists were more graceful than these idiots..

It's a well known fact that CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda....and why did they do it? To defeat the Russians...and oh by the way some of those left over weapons from that war were used against our soldiars....

It's time to deflate the Reagan myth...

[Festivito]

22. So easy to say that -- when you LIE for a living. /nt

[Postman]

24. In Republicon World, 1 + 1 does not = 2

n/t

[porphyrian]

26. So, we should instead listen to those who brought us Iran-Contra?

They were pardoned, not exonerated.

[Dawggie]

27. LOL... But... But... But.... Reagan is a Republican god! He can do no wrong!

If history do3esn't prove that we must change the history! :sarcasm:

[Blue_Tires]

29. ttt