Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. And then we fucked up the endgame.Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. And the people who deserved the credit are the ones who made the sacrifice. They were glorious and they changed the world. I am filing this review from Baghdad where it seems useful to quote Charlie Wilson's final words on the American involvement in Afghanistan: 'These things happened. On Hekmatyar's arrival she sweeps out of the bedroom, with a huge smile and a hand extended, wearing a skin-tight pink jumpsuit and combat boots. Wilson's girlfriend has dressed in something she believes to be appropriate for the encounter. Wilson meets Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most brutal and radical of the Mujahideen commanders, in a luxury hotel in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. What is most frightening is the ignorance these people show about those they are trying to help. Richard Perle, one of the Neo-Con architects of America's current foreign policy and even then known as 'The Prince of Darkness', makes a cameo appearance. There is Charlie Schnabel, Wilson's assistant, whose passionate Catholicism leads him to join a revamped version of the medieval Knights of Malta and whose good-ole-boy delight in hunting leads to General Zia granting special permission for him to shoot endangered species in northern Pakistan. Indeed virtually everyone in this book, and that includes most of the Mujahideen, is God-fearing, Communist hating, and full of righteous wrath and indignation. She also knew Pierre Cardin, Anwar Sadat, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, most of the Eurotrash faux aristocracy and, seemingly, every mover and shaker between her own Bible-Belt town and Capitol Hill. Herring was close to the hardline Islamist military ruler of Pakistan, General Zia ul Haq. Wilson was introduced to the issue of the Afghan jihad by Joanne Herring, a Texan socialite who was one of his contributors. More than anything, it is the parade of characters that is the real pleasure of the book. In addition, Wilson's obsession with getting the Mujahideen a weapon that would allow them to shoot down the Russian helicopter gunships that had been causing huge casualties was critical to the decision, which many credit with changing the military balance of the war, to give the Afghans the state-of-the-art Stinger surface to air missile.Ĭrile's book is also an astonishing glimpse into the world of the CIA and the power of individual, cash-rich lobbies in American politics. Though the CIA was focused on 'rolling back the Russians' in Central America and had little interest in becoming overly involved in Southwest Asia, Wilson, through astute manipulation of the American political system, was able to build up the assistance given to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to well over a billion dollars per year.Īs every American dollar was matched by the Saudi Arabian government, the financial impact of this lone politician's crusade was enormous. My Enemy's Enemy reveals, for the first time, how Wilson, through the early Eighties, was able to access billions of funds for the fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Wilson and Avrakotos are the two principal characters of George Crile's riveting, beautifully researched and profoundly disturbing book.
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