You Dropped A Bomb On Me

When I first heard about Charlie Wilson's War, I wanted to see the film. Then I found out it wasn't about the Gap Band at all and quickly changed my mind. Turns out, it's about a different Charlie Wilson. Also turns out it's totally full of shit.

All of this can be better explained here, but allow me to sum up. Charlie Wilson and the CIA funneled 3.1 billion dollars to Afghani resistance fighters in the hopes of defeating the Soviets. The thing is, a good chunk of this money went to a fellow named Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a rabid anti-American who, with the help of his pal Osama bin Laden, used the money to establish a string of terrorist training camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan. At these camps, a group of yahoos got it into their heads that flying planes into the World Trade Center would be a good idea.

Hey, if you don't believe me, just see what Wilson has to say on the subject:

…after 9/11, Wilson went on Fox News and said, "This was as much my fault as anybody's." He understood the link between U.S. support for [Gulbaddin] and the events of that terrible day.

But that's all been left out of the movie.

A rep at Tom Hanks' production company reportedly said "We just can't deal with this 9/11 thing. Does it have to be so political?" You're making a movie about historical events, about a war that killed over a million people and indirectly spawned two additional wars that have killed countless more. You're making a movie about politics, so yeah, it does "have to be so political."

The events you're portraying directly led to the events of 9/11. To ignore the facts is dishonest, and worse yet, makes light of the tragedy that was 9/11. So whey the hell did this thing even get made? Why tell a story if you're not going to tell the whole story, the real story? I don't see the point. And I don't see how Hanks does either.