1. CHARLIE WILSON'S
WAR
Starring: Tom Hanks
Julia Roberts
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Amy Adams
Ned Beatty

2. Emily Blunt
Om Puri
Directed by: Mike Nichols
Produced by: Tom Hanks
Written by: Screenplay:
Aaron Sorkin
Book:
George Crile
Music by: James Newton Howard
PLOT
The film shows Charlie having a very gregarious social life of women and
partying, including having his congressional office staffed with young,
attractive women. The film also shows how the partying causes a federal
investigation into allegations of cocaine use by Charlie, conducted by then-
federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani as part of a larger investigation into
congressional misconduct. The investigation results in no charge against
Charlie.
A friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring, encourages Charlie to do
more to help the Afghans, and persuades Charlie to visit the Pakistani
leadership. The Pakistanis complain about the inadequate support of the U.S.
to oppose the Soviets, and they insist that Charlie visit a major Pakistan-
based Afghan refugee camp. Deeply moved by their misery and
determination to fight, Charlie is frustrated by the regional CIA personnel's
insistence on a low key approach against the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. Charlie returns home to lead an effort to substantially increase
funding to the mujahideen.
As part of this effort, Charlie befriends the maverick CIA operative Gust
Avrakotos and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy,

3. especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mi-24
helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the
CIA's elite Special Activities Division, including a young paramilitary
officer named Michael Vickers. As a result, Charlie's deft political
bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful
planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92
Stinger missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly
quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling
rate. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over
$500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia), startling
several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major
portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under
which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began
also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the
world. Crile states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury persuaded
President Ronald Reagan to provide the Stingers to the Afghans: "Ironically,
neither Gust nor Charlie was directly involved in the decision and claims
any credit.
Charlie follows Gust's guidance to seek support for post-Soviet occupation
Afghanistan, but finds almost no enthusiasm in the U.S. government for
even the modest measures he proposes. The film ends with Charlie receiving
a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but
his pride is tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences his
secret efforts could yield in the future and the implications of U.S.
disengagement from Afghanistan.
Governmental criticism and praise:
Reagan-era officials, including former Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle,
have criticized some elements of the film. The Washington Times reported
that some have claimed that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the
CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and ultimately produced the
September 11 attacks. Other Reagan-era officials, however, have been more
supportive of the film. Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation
foreign policy analyst and White House speechwriter to President George H.
W. Bush, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most

4. important lesson of America's Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort
to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to
the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union." "Sending the Red Army
packing from Afghanistan," Johns wrote, "proved one of the single most
important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive
and important developments.
Connections to September 11:
While no specific reference to the September 11 attacks is made in Charlie
Wilson's War, the film depicts the concern expressed by Charlie and Gust
that Afghanistan was being neglected in the 1990s, following the Soviet
troop withdrawal. In one of the film's final scenes, Gust dampens Charlie's
enthusiasm over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "I'm about
to give you an NIE that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar."
George Crile, author of Charlie Wilson's War, the book on which the film is
based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened
a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself
there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country -- and the United
States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that
the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players. It
is ironic that a man who had almost nothing to do with the victory over the
Red Army, Osama bin Laden, would come to personify the power of the
jihad.
While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the
mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official
recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were
actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their
opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in
downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not
supplied until the second Reagan administration term, in 1987, and their
provision was mostly advocated by Reagan defense officials and influential
conservatives. Dates supplied on the film seem to reflect an accurate
recounting of the provision of these missiles.

5. Status in Russia:
In early February it was revealed that the film would not play in Russian
theaters. The rights for the film were bought by Universal Pictures
International (UPI) Russia. It was speculated that the film would not appear
because of a certain point of view that depicted the USSR unfavorably. UPI
Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that
the film would not make a profit." Reaction from Russian bloggers, who had
seen the film on pirated DVDs, was negative. One wrote: "The whole film
shows Russians, or rather Soviets, as brutal killers.
COMMENTS:
This movie is based upon true story. Which
reveals the largest covert ops in Afghanistan by
CIA So I will recommend this movie to everyone
due to critical situation in south Asia.
Because history repeat itself.