Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History on amazon.com
Book Review: Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
Reader Rating: 9/10
Salaams! Just finished reading Charlie Wilson's War, an incredible trek behind the scenes of the "largest covert operation in history" which involved US operations to arm and train the rag-tag, multi-UPG Afghan mujahideen freedom fighters as they fought off the vicious invasion in 1979 of one of the world's superpowers--the Soviet Union. This book, first published in 2003 by veteran "60 Minutes" producer George Crile, finally details the amazing story of America's "secret" and proxy war against the USSR that took place in the backwater mountain valleys of Afghanistan. As has been said by someone somewhere else, the bleeding and defeat of the mighty Soviet 40th Army in Afghanistan--between 1979 - 1989 (last troops over the Friendship Bridge in Termez, Uzbekistan in Feb 1989)--was the "fateful pebble" that precipitated the downfall of the Soviet Union and its dream of communist world domination.
This book focuses on some very unlikely characters responsible for building from scratch the "largest covert operation in history"--people most Americans have NEVER heard of to this day. Charlie Wilson, the US Congressman from Texas; Gust Avrakotos, the blue collar CIA agent of Greek heritage from Pennsylvania; Joanne Herring, the daring millionaire (& born again Christian?) socialite from Texas; Mike Vickers, a young, low-level CIA military strategist; and a host of other no names (including Avrakotos' "Dirty Dozen") who worked behind the scenes with a tenacity and ferocity unknown since the days of Churchill's rousing challenges to the people of the United Kingdom as they were "hung out to dry" in the face of Hitler's overpowering blitzkrieg advance and overwhelming odds of certain defeat.
This is a complex tale of surprising and unsuspecting accomplices brought together in surprising and unconventional ways. In the face of multiple, constant barriers, and against all odds, these unknown and unrecognized people worked together to (finally) provide the Afghan mujahideen ("holy warriors" & "freedom fighters") with weapons and training that allowed them to take the offensive against a menacing enemy. Crile engagingly unfolds the drama of how an initially reluctant US and Pakistani covert operation went from supplying the Afghan mujahideen with World War II Enflield rifles (with a outrageously low budget of some US$30 million) to providing them with a deadly mix of effective weaponry--along with enough ammunition and radios and other necessary equipment for waging war. This culminated in the delivery of the Stinger missiles which allowed the Afghans to nullify the Soviet's air superiority (with the Mi-24 "Hind" gun-ship and its US$20 million MiGs). With the help of matching Saudi funds, the budget of these covert operations at times exceeded US$1 billion a year (taking up to 70% of the worldwide Operations Budget for the entire CA)! After the US$70,000 Stingers were introduced in 1987, the Afghans, in a little more than a year, were shooting down close to 200 of these Mi-24s/MiGs a year!
"This book is the story of the biggest and most successful CIA campaign in history. It's the story of how the United States turned the tables on the Soviet Union and did to them in Afghanistan what they had done to the U.S. in Vietnam. The operation certainly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, how critical a role it played is still being debated. But without doubt the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Red Army's defeat at the hands of the CIA-backed Afghan rebels was a world-changing event. And what makes it all the more unusual is that at the heart of this drama is the story of two men, Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrakotos, and what they did in the shadows of the U.S. undergovernment...The CIA's war in Afghanistan is, of course, a huge historical event featuring many players in prominent roles. But responsibility for transforming the American side of it into what became the biggest CIA operation ever belongs to these two highly flawed and perhaps heroic characters...[N]o one ever gave them this commission. They seized it and this is the story of how they did it."
In the book's "Epilogue," with a post-9/11 perspective, Crile takes a realistic look at some of the outcomes of these covert operations. Probably the biggest contributing factor to the problems arising from the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan was that the US simply allowed a focus on Afghanistan to fade away in the face of other global concerns (fall of communism in Poland, falling of the Berlin Wall and communism in E Germany, and the fall of the Soviet Union itself). This has come back, in some ways, to sting us badly, once people like Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban hijacked the mujahideen cause and turned Afghanistan into a training camp for global terrorism.
Think about it: who to this day has still ever heard of Charlie Wilson or Gust Avrakotos? They never received any medals of honor or public accolades, they just did what they felt was necessary--by whatever means, and on a "need-to-know basis." I think there are some strategic lessons for our kind of work in the story of these unknown, unrecognized-at-large, behind-the-scenes, players in a drama that turned out to have global-reaching effects. In some ways, their story reads like a very colorful SC Training Manual!
"But the unorthodox alliance--of a scandal-prone Texas congressman and an out-of-favor CIA operative--that gave birth to the Afghan jihad kept this history under the radar. It is the missing chapter in the politics of our time, a rousing good story that is also a cautionary tale."
A thoroughly enjoyable read!
US Congressman Wilson rides the white steed to Victory with his heavily armed Afghan holy warriors
CIA agent Gus Avrakotos and US Congressman Wilson on an arms purchasing trip (probably in Egypt)
Note: Charlie Wilson's War, the New York Times bestseller, has been purchased by Tom Hanks to make into a movie. Hanks intends to play the Texas Congressman himself. For more information, go to:
http://movies.go.com/movies/C/charliewilsonswar_2004/index.html or
http://www.filmstew.com/Content/DailyNews/Details.asp?ContentID=6341&Pg=1
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Put the Tom Clancy clones back on the shelf; this covert-ops chronicle is practically impossible to put down. No thriller writer would dare invent Wilson, a six-feet-four-inch Texas congressman,liberal on social issues but rabidly anti-Communist, a boozer, engaged in serial affairs and wheeler-dealer of consummate skill. Only slightly less improbable is Gust Avrakotos, a blue-collar Greek immigrant who joined the CIA when it was an Ivy League preserve and fought his elitist colleagues almost as ruthlessly as he fought the Soviet Union in the Cold War's waning years. In conjunction with President Zia of Pakistan in the 1980s, Wilson and Arvakotos circumvented most of the barriers to arming the Afghan mujahideen-distance, money, law and internal CIA politics, to name a few. Their coups included getting Israeli-modified Chinese weapons smuggled into Afghanistan, with the Pakistanis turning a blind eye,and the cultivation of a genius-level weapons designer and strategist named Michael Vickers, a key architect of the guerrilla campaign that left the Soviet army stymied. The ultimate weapon in Afghanistan was the portable Stinger anti-aircraft missile, which eliminated the Soviet's Mi-24 helicopter gunships and began the train of events leading to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and its satellites. A triumph of ruthless ability over scruples, this story has dominated recent history in the form of blowback: many of the men armed by the CIA became the Taliban's murderous enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors. Yet superb writing from Crile, a 60 Minutes producer, will keep even the most vigorous critics of this Contra-like affair reading to the end.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
• Hardcover: 550 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (April, 2003)
• ISBN: 0871138549
• Average Customer Review: based on 85 reviews. (Write a review)
=============================
"If you're not standing on the Edge,
you're taking up too much room."
=============================
No comments:
Post a Comment