Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

Read and enjoyed the book. A 20/20 producer wrote it; professional historians call it "a journalistic account." It contains a solid narrative from Wilson and his friends' perspective. It gives good information on multiple non-American actors, including the Pakistanis, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Israelis, and the British. But it cannot serve as a comprehensive account of American involvement in the Afghanis' antiSoviet guerrilla campaign 1980s.

Insufficient attention to Carter and Reagan Administrations at the White-House level.

Still recommend the book and will probably enjoy the film as well. Features first-rate actors.

NPR Reports

[loose_ends]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Related topic: The Kite Runner

Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars. This is a movie I'm really looking forward to seeing.

How long has it been since you saw a movie that succeeds as pure story? That doesn't depend on stars, effects or genres, but simply fascinates you with how it will turn out? Marc Forster's "The Kite Runner," based on a much-loved novel, is a movie like that. It superimposes human faces and a historical context on the tragic images of war from Afghanistan.


http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

[tomwaits]

Normally I time movies so I miss the coming attractions--hate them.

But this was one trailer that got got me interested and it looks OK.

I also like the actor err.. he was in er... American Beauty (the psycho dad) and tons of other good movies. Yeh this one looks worth checking out.

[Gopher]

Saw the film. It nicely summarizes the book and its emphasis on "Charlie-Wilson-the-Great-Man-Who-Changed-World-History." However there is more to this event than the book explains and in any case Hollywood has appended its usual preachiness and moralizing at the end of the film. This preachiness and moralizing never existed at the time these events unfolded. This is post-9/11 revisionism.

Those guys just wanted to kill Russians. No more no less.

[freethought]

[bucheon bum]

I think he meant Charlie Wilson and the CIA dude (blocking on his name). And what else did the Muj want to do?

[Gopher]

[freethought]

the wilson thing makes sense, if that's who it was in reference to.

I did my MA thesis on this very topic.

A very brief and simplified explanation might be as follows:

The term is an overarching term, but as applied to the afghans, it was a collective of various groups and tribes. Now some of them wanted nothing more than to kill the russians and get them off their land. Many of them did not. The reason that the numbers who fought the russians were so high was due to the religious element in the resistance to the soviets.

The best way to understand the religious nature of the fighters might be to see who supported them. The ISI, Egyptian underground groups, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc. The US, along with a few european nations and intelligence agencies may have provided a lot of money, but the means of delivering the money, and those involved in the fight, almost all had a strong religious element to them.

The first group to stage any kind of real attacks on the Soviets was the Jamiat islamic movement. The major rallying cry that led to the widespread uptake of arms against the soviets was the soviet/afghan decision to let women work (among other things). Depending on who you read this point is either focused on, or glossed over or even ignored completely. If you read something by a female analyst or poli-sci person, they tend to focus on it more, as might be expected. Cons gloss over it or ignore it, and most 'scholars'--- historians, analysts outside of politics--- do one of two things; they either A) use it as an example of just who was being supported and the values they held, B) view it as an important singular point, but frame it within a larger context.

As for Wilson and tha yanks, they essentially just wanted to damage the soviet union, and those with truly dubious morals wanted to see thousands of soviet dead. That is the whole issue with the afghan example... it showed no foresight and more importantly no consideration for the consequences of policy/action.

The book, btw, is pretty good. I used it as a secondary source for my thesis, though I did not go through the whole thing. I have not seen the movie, but intend to go this week.

[freethought]

It's late in my part of the world, but a quick look at some of my thesis notes has some good quotes to mention:

Charlie Wilson: �There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one.�

The National Review: ��They seem far removed from our line of defense, but if a people with their motivation can�t succeed, who can? They�re tougher than we are. They have a traditional hatred of foreign invaders. They�re totally prepared to accept death, to sacrifice themselves for freedom. They won�t tire out, either, and they won�t be bought off.��

Commentary: �accounts must be decoded with care, because the USSR twists its version of the facts to suit sudden political changes.�

Jeanne Kirkpatrick: "She proudly argued that the Soviets were failing in their mission and that 'the freedom fighters� have been able to deny the Soviets control of perhaps 90 percent of the countryside and have made them contest many of the most important cities.' She went on to say that 'it is this uprising, and this uprising alone, that is justified to invoke the right of self-defense, for it is the independence and very existence of the Afghan nation against a foreign and brutal domination.'

Kirkpatrick: In other comments to the United Nations, Kirkpatrick argued against the Soviet assertion that the violence in Afghanistan was due to outside interference by the United States and China. She argued that this �charge is ludicrous but also revealing, for it shows the lengths to which the Soviet Union is forced to go to conceal the real nature of its policy.�

In a book nixon wrote, he has a good, though unintentional, juxtaposition wherein he argues that Afghanistan wasn't a side theatre, but the major theatre for the cold war, but he also expressed concern for the future, specifically with regards to an armed, angry and radically religious opposition group...

The other interesting part of Nixon's argument was that he was vehement that 'no one' has the right to influence or determine the nature of the afghan political system, other than afghans. This is particularly intriguing coming from Nixon, as well as inlight of the fact that the US was specifically trying to help determine the Afghan political system through its policies.

There are some other great comments, both for the times, but especially as to how they read today, but that would take a lot more work in going through my thesis.