Propaganda Watch - Charlie Wilson's War

[reprehensor]

Charlie Wilson's War opens with the silhouette of a mujahidin firing a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile at the movie audience. Unfortunately for the target audience, the rocket being fired at them is tipped with "Grade A" U.S. Government-Approved Propaganda.

Admittedly, the mujahidin did use SAMs in their battles against the Soviet army, so the film-makers did get that right. Charlie Wilson is portrayed as a womanizer and a boozehound, and they got that right, too.

Ultimately, however, the film is based on an a priori lie. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan wasn't a Cinderella story that came out of nowhere. It was preceded by a decision from Democratic President Jimmy Carter to green light a CIA covert operation in Afghanistan to support the opponents of the pro-Soviet government in Kabul. The U.S. instigated the military onslaught that the Soviet army brought to bear on Afghanistan. Therefore, later on in the movie when Tom Hanks sees the humanitarian crisis that the Afghan people are suffering, due to the Soviet invasion, he shouldn't be "feeling their pain"... he should be racked with guilt. Those mangled children and widows are the first victims of a covert operation that continues to this day.

To be fair, it wasn't the idea of the film-makers to obscure the causus belli of the Afghanistan invasion. This has been perpetuated by the highly compromised American corporate press for decades, and remained hidden until, ironically enough, current Defense Secretary Robert Gates spilled the beans in his 1996 book, "From the Shadows", and was confirmed in 1998 by CFR frontman, Zbigniew Brzezinksi. By the end of 2001, many critical researchers of 9/11 had seen William Blum's translation of Brzezinski's interview posted at Michel Chossudovsky's Global Research website. (For anyone even moderately familiar with this semi-hidden history, there is a moment of unintentional hilarity when the Pakistani President Zia comments that the CIA "missed" the Soviet invasion. Actually, it's a lie, so not really that funny.) ...

Continued...
http://911blogger.com/node/13526

[SHERITON HOTEL]

Isn't Tom Hanks appearing in an upcoming film propagandizing about how the official one gunman/JFK story is 'gospel truth'?

The defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan led to the Islamic taliban state with all its attendant evils let's not forget.

[eogz]

Propaganda or not.......

Bet its a good film.

Ahem..

Sorry..

I'll go back to being skeptical.

[gruts]

this is probably a silly question, but does the film ever touch on the idea that funding, arming, training and supporting very dodgy people - as america has done over and over again - can end up causing more problems than it's meant to solve?

[reprehensor]

[londonsound]

it's brisk and entertaining but it's a total whitewash re-writing of what has happened and is happening.

the film sees charlie wilson so moved by the sight of refugee camps on the afghan/pakistan border that he cranks up appropriations of money to the muj to fight the russians. it was all for the suffering of the afghan people.

there are a few hints of the "blowback to come" (done subtly with sound effects- well, relatively subtly, anyway) but nothing (of course ) about imperial strategy, the grand chessboard, the actual timeline (the funding and muj activity preceded the russian invasion) or the continuing relationship with so called al qaeda.

so it's *