Charlie Wilson's War

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Summary: Three books in One
Review: This is the exciting story of the CIA's secret war against the Russians in Afghanistan; how they got involved and how they eventually, against all odds, won. In addition, it is an entertaining and enlightening look at the lives of Congressman Charlie Wilson and his friend CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. And it is a remarkable look into the inner workings of Congress with insights you didn't get in your poly sci classes. It truely is an "Extraordinary Story." You won't be able to put it down.

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Summary: An evil book praising a terrorist organisation
Review: Crile, a producer for the US news programme `60 Minutes', has written a hymn of praise for the CIA and its terrorist operation in Afghanistan. He also idolises Congressman Charlie Wilson, a good ol' Texan, a coke-snorting, whisky-guzzling, whoring, arms-dealing, freeloading, hit-and-run drunk-driver, who constantly broke US laws to arrange aid for the terrorist cause.

Crile ignores the fact that the US intervened first in Afghanistan, supporting reactionary terrorists trying to overthrow the progressive government: on 3 July 1979, President Carter signed a secret directive authorising covert aid to the mujehadin. The CIA promoted drug trafficking to raise funds for them. The British, French and Israeli governments all sold arms to them. Only in December 1979, five months after the US intervention, did Soviet troops enter Afghanistan, at the Afghan government's request, to defend the people against the terrorist onslaught.

The CIA, assisted by Thatcher, spent $1 billion a year arming and training more than 300,000 Islamic mercenaries drawn from around the world to fight against Afghani national liberation. Crile tells us that MI6 did much of the CIA's dirty work, `murder, assassination, and indiscriminate bombings'. It was the CIA's biggest operation, far bigger than their terrorist Contra operation in Nicaragua, indeed the biggest secret war ever.

The CIA-organised Contras targeted schools, clinics and hospitals: so did the mujehadin, and more so. The Contras "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and "groups of civilians, including women and children, were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded", as the CIA told a Congressional Intelligence Committee. So did the mujehadin, and more so. The CIA's special favourite was the repellent criminal and fascist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was "responsible for the practice of throwing acid in the faces of Afghan women who failed to cover themselves properly".

In the end, Gorbachev withdrew the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, and the mujehadin proceeded to wreck Afghanistan and attack their sponsor the USA. Crile claims that the withdrawal destroyed the Soviet Union. Not so; as Castro said, "Imperialism could not have destroyed the Soviet Union if the Soviets had not destroyed it first."


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Summary: Unbelievable but true
Review: Picture this: a Texas divorcee throwing a party for Muslim royalty and Capitol Hill powerbrokers in her Houston mansion to secretly fund the Afghan war. A rogue CIA op muscling Washingtom bureaucrats into concessions for a multi-hundred-million dollar covert operation to topple communism. A larger-than-life Texan on Capitol Hill back-door dealing with the most powerful men in the world while simultaneously taking his beautiful, scantily-clad (and usually half his age) bimbos into meetings with fundamental Islamic leaders in their own lands. Sounds like a throwaway paperback. But it is not.

Rarely in the course of human history do you find a tale of such unlikely cast of characters to pull off a world-changing event. Charlie Wilson, the womaninzing, boozing congressman from a bible-belt Texas district, Gust Avrokotos, a bellicose, renegade Greek-American CIA agent, and Joann Herring, a Houston socialite, are, according to Crile, every bit as responsible for the fall of communism as Ronald Reagan, the information age or world opinion. There are other players as well such as the Green Beret turned CIA op and the various Middle-Eastern players, but these three random Americans as much as any others pulled off the impossible. No matter what genre of books you like, this book will please. This book has something for everyone: action, romance, scandal, war, politics, human interest, technical insight--the list goes on.

This book will have you scratching your head with every chapter wondering how in the world these three intensely flawed yet intensely lovable folks so thoroughly changed the world we live in. I recommend this book to anyone who can read.

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Summary: should be in every american household.
Review: This book tells an immensly entertaining story of how the CIA help the mujahadeen push back the invading russian forces in Afghanistan. In the 80's this campaign by Charlie Wilson and his love for the muj. actually helped defeat communism and create the re-birth of ismlamic fundamentalism. The novel flows so smoothly and the characters in this book are truly one of a kind. The amount of detail expressed in this book about how washington strings are pulled and played is incredible. Buy this book.

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Summary: A Million Muj. Died For Us
Review: A great "EYE OPENER" of what is happening now. This book answers the question of why we're in the defensive mode now?
It shows how we used the Afghan Mujahideen to fight our war against the Soviet Union.We killed One Million Muj. to get rid of the Soviet Union then abandoned them. Moreover, we accuse them of being fanatics and terrorists.We created them then left them in the ditch with shattered country from the war...with no help or "Thank You" we left them alone.Why?
Without them the Berlin Wall would have stayed. Without them the Soviet Union would have not been defeated. But this story was never told to us like this on the news? Why?
It makes me wonder today on the war against terrorism. I wonder what have we done to deserve 9/11. Are we really a Democracy? Does those terrorist hate us because we're a democracy? Or our government did something so horrible and it's hiding it from us. Is our government giving us false facts to convince us of its wrong doings? I hope that this book will let us question our government more especially when they want to go to war with another nation.
It makes me tear up when I know that we're in a war with Iraq... Are we going to read a book about all the horrible atrocities that we're commiting now in Iraq ten or 20 years from now or will it be too late....!!
This book showed how our democratic system works. How much the CIA and the Congress has the power to abuse and use our tax money. This book is a must read to know how our system works. Also how we deal with other countries. How we use and abuse power for our own personal interest. After all we don't seem we're that great democratic nation that has the perfect "Moral" system.
Thank you Mr. Charlie Wilson and Mr. George Crile for the courage to write this book.