This is a great movie starring Tom Hanks as Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson. Wilson was an admitted proud hedonist who became a hero to many by urging Congress in the late 70's through the 80's to increase spending to support the Afghani Freedom Fighter's efforts to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan. What's interesting is that with very little in the way of artistic license, the movie is factually true and endorsed by Wilson, even the parts where he openly does lines of cocaine while surrounded by nude strippers.
Wilson single-handedly was able to increase spending on Afghanistan from $5 million to over $1 billion per year, and it was his efforts that led to the Soviet Withdrawal in 1989, and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yet, after the Soviets had been driven from Afghanistan, Wilson was unable to get Congress to go along with a mere $1 million to help Afghanis build schools. He warned that without support for Afghani reconstruction, Afghanistan would sink into revolution and become a terrorist state. History has proven him correct. Will we make the same mistake if we finally defeat the Taliban.
See Wilson's bio at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wilson_(politician)
I should mention that Wilson actually reveled in the personal attacks against him, since he when he was dealing with highly sensitive material, he felt it distracted from close examination of his efforts to increase funding for the Afghani Freedom Fighters. Those freedom fighters included the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, but he maintains that if we'd stayed there and helped them rebuild after the Soviets were driven out, 9/11 might never have happened.
Charlie Wilson's War
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