Charlie Wilson, former US congressman, died overnight near his home in east Texas, at the age of 76.
Wilson spent 24 years in the house of representatives, but even so his name would hardly ring a bell with many readers were it not for the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War, which dramatised his role in promoting US support for the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Films always take liberties with the truth, and it probably suited Hollywood’s politics to focus on Wilson, a Democrat, rather than the Republican administration of the time. But it seems as if Wilson really was the larger-than-life figure that the film portrayed: notorious as a heavy drinker and womaniser, sometimes impetuous and wrong-headed, but passionate about the causes he supported and highly effective in building political support for them.
In the short term, the war that Wilson supported was strikingly successful: armed with American money and weaponry, the Afghan resistance tied down a large Soviet occupying force, and eventually secured Soviet withdrawal in 1989. It was one of the defining moments of the end of the Cold War, just as the fall of Saigon 14 years earlier had marked the high point of Soviet power.
But the backwash has been awful. The Soviet-backed government gave way not to a peaceful and democratic Afghanistan but to an endless civil war between shifting alliances of extremist factions. In 2001, the then Taliban government’s support for al-Qaeda drew the US back into the war, this time with troops on the ground against the fundamentalists (later joined by Australia among others), and in due course it got bogged down in much the same way that the Soviets had.
The analogies with Vietnam don’t stop there. In neither case was the war really about the welfare of the country concerned: even in the 1980s it was reasonably clear that the Afghans were better off under Soviet rule than under any likely alternative, and the American-backed governments in South Vietnam, although corrupt and authoritarian, were vastly preferable to what succeeded them.
But even strategically there wasn’t very much at stake. Although there was occasional talk about using it as a springboard to warm-water ports in Baluchistan, Afghanistan was never really any use to the Soviets, and America had plenty of other bases in south-east Asia. The Soviets ended up using Vietnam more as a counter to the Chinese than to the US.
In each case, the war was really about prestige. America was deeply traumatised by defeat in Vietnam, and the drive to strike a similar blow at the Soviets fed its support for the Afghan fundamentalists. The result was blood and chaos in Afghanistan but also, indirectly, the fall of the Soviet empire and freedom for many millions in eastern Europe.
Charlie Wilson could claim a share of the credit for both.
Old Charlie Wilson hasn’t been laughing for a while now. And with a mild arrogance, Mr Richardson has left out the key thing that’s actually going on in Afghanistan now – a proxy war between India and China. Who both do have a strategic interest, big time, but couldn’t give a fig about the Afghanis.
Interesting, if brief, article. Another similarity is the bombing by pilotless drones in Pakistan, compared with the equally senseless and misdirected bombing of Cambodia. Not sure that I would say that the South Vietnamese government following the US invasion was better than its successor. Although the succeeding communist government doubtless had many of its immediate actions influenced by the very bloody and merciless US involvement in their country. Of course the US involvement in Afghanistan follows exactly the same model. Slow learners, the Yanks, aren’t they.
India certainly has a long-running interest in Afghanistan, basically backing the opposite side to whoever the Pakistani secret service is supporting at the time, but I haven’t seen much information on Chinese involvement – would you care to elaborate on that?
Hollywood is not the only one to rewrite history. Mr Richardson’s understanding of Afghan history also falls short. US President Jimmy Carter signed a presidential directive in the late 1970s after urging by his national security adviser Brzezinski who in turn was pursuing a policy created by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle (who later turned up with the same policies for Iraq).
The aim was to undermine the Afghan government of the day who had the temerity to want universal literacy, equal rights for women, the right for trade unions to exist, and a minimum wage. They also started a poppy reduction program. The aim was to draw the Soviet Union in to give it, in Brzezinski’s words, “its own Vietnam”. That the country would be destroyed in the process, and that the Islamic fundamentalists would gain considerable power did not seem to bother the Americans.
When the Taliban government was finally established amid the wreckage of the post-Soviet withdrawal the americans were perfectly happy to tolerate them, even so far as paying the government’s wage bill. That cosy arrangement fell apart when the Taliban government refused to agree to Bush’s ultimatum regarding the routing of a gas pipeline from the Caspian Basin to the Indian Ocean.
That happened in June 2001 and Bush gave the approval to attack immediately after. There is no credible evidence that al Qaeda were behind the attacks on 11 September 2001. The Taliban offered to give up bin Laden to an independent international tribunal for trial if the Bsuh administration could provide proof of his involvment in 9/11. Colin Powell promised a White paper but was forced to withdraw that the following day.
The invasion, which incidentally has no basis in international law, was followed by the establishment of American bases along the proposed pipeline route, a massive increase in heroin production from which the Americans and their warlord allies are the chief beneficiaries, and the ongoing destruction of yet another country in America’s pursuit of full spectrum dominance.
There are many tragedies arising out of this war, not the least of which is Australia’s supine complicity with American imperialism and the almost total absence of rational and informed debate.
Pakistan is the Chinese proxy to contain India. Weapons, energy, aid, etc. India is supporting the Afghan government. China and India see each other as present and future rivals on a grand scale.