Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect
X.
(February 2008)
Bill Sykes
looks back in retrospect at material which has been published
in previous editions of "View from America",
in an attempt to determine whether the subject matter
written then is still applicable in today’s world.
Article #10D.
Reference: The win at all cost syndrome, which can be
found in the May 2005
Edition of "View from America".
Charlie Wilson’s War:
In the past week I have seen the movie, "Charlie
Wilson’s War" (which apparently is a true
story).
The story mainly involves Pakistan’s next door
neighbor Afghanistan, and the Soviet/Afghan War which
was a nine year conflict, (1979/1988), against the largely
fundamentalist Afghanistan Muhajadeen/Taliban insurgents.
The story, which is a complex politically motivated version of how America
assisted the Afghan people into defeating the Soviet invasion forces and driving
them out of Afghanistan, is centered around a bright young American Congressman,
(Charlie Wilson), who is a womanizing, moderate alcoholic, who apparently holds
the purse strings of one of the many influential committees that exist in Washington
D.C.
Charlie is coerced into paying a visit to Afghanistan,
via Pakistan, to see for himself the consequences of
the deadly war being fought by Soviet forces against
the Afghanistan Muhajadeen insurgents, and to see for
himself the huge loss of life and terrible injuries suffered
by the Afghan people from the rocket fire coming from
Russian helicopters and other aircraft over a nine year
period.
To cut a long story short, Charlie goes back to Washington
D.C., and after conferring with a very rough but astute
and very knowledgeable ex-CIA agent character as to what
and where the latest weapons were available for purchase,
he gets enough signatures from the finance committee
to fund the provision of a large number of modern day
rockets to the Muhajadeen.
It was blatantly obvious that the CIA was training and
providing weapons to the Muhajadeen/Taliban and that
they also were contributing funds from their slush fund
to aid in the fight against the Russian army.
Incidentally these weapons were purchased from an Israeli
arms dealer and transported overland via Pakistan, (*) (the
supply trail gets a little mixed up here), to Afghanistan
were the Muhajadeen insurgents, over the next four years,
had tremendous success in destroying many of the Soviet
helicopters and other Soviet military aircraft, forcing
the Soviet forces to declare enough is enough and depart
this hostile and mountainous land.
Then of course after
the Soviet military called it a day and left Afghanistan,
correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t the American
military turn its weapons against the Muhajadeen/Taliban
- so who was the real enemy? As I have said in previous
news letter what a way to conduct a war.
My question has always been why on earth did the Soviet
Union invade Afghanistan in the first place?
The story begs a number of questions.
Perhaps I’m missing the point, but how come the
weapons were "purchased" apparently through
an Israeli Arms dealer?
Surely American funds have provided many weapons over
the years to Israel in order to so say protect and defend
the Israeli homeland, and correct me if I’m wrong,
but were these the same weapons that America provided
the Israelis which were now being sold back by the Israelis
to an American source for transportation to Afghanistan?
Surely you get my thought process - maybe I misunderstood
some of the dialogue presented in this film.
I’m sure that later the notorious Muhajadeen/Taliban
used, and are still using, these weapons against the
American forces.
(*) Comment on the Pakistani/Afghan situation:
It is well known that in the Pakistani/Afghanistan
border region, that many of the Pakistani people living
in that area have tribal identities and very close relationships
with the Afghan people, and therefore the Pakistani leadership
obviously turned a blind eye to the support being given
by the local Pakistani people to members of al-Qaeda and
the Taliban who are operating in Afghanistan .
President Bush has embarrassed President Pervez Musharraf
a number of times with his public criticism of the apparent
lack of support given by Pakistan to America in its fight
against the Taliban - but obviously one can see Musharraf’s
internal governing problem and this type of criticism does not improve the local
situation with respect to the protection of American forces in Afghanistan.
Disclaimer.
Some of the information gathered for this news letter
has been gleaned from American and International media
sources, (including the Internet), and as such is quoted
as accurately as possible. I try to obtain confirmation
from several outlets, so the text is a mixture of composite
news items and personal comments and therefore the
reader must make his/her own judgement as to the reliability
and degree of accuracy of the subjects discussed.
We
welcome feedback about any of the contents of these articles.
Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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