Customer Reviews:
 This Book Kept My Interests August 2, 2008
Unreliable story of the CIA involvement in the Afghan War. Lots of insight of the secret in and out of our clandestine service. Interesting read but at the same time lots of grandstanding by the author toward the subject of the book which sometime seem a bit hard to believe. Recommended reading for anyone who is a history buff and would like to expand his/her detailed knowledge of the downfall of Communism and the last military action of the cold war. Don't bother to compare the movie; like most of the time, is the book according to Hollywood re writers. The movie is definitely not worth the money unless you receive it as a gift.
Engaging Read July 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's no wonder that the book took some 15 years in the making. Crile did extensive research with this book and it shows. I read this book this past weekend, while on vacation and thoroughly enjoyed it. It read like a fictional piece of international intrigue, yet it was based on real events and real people.
Crile wrote a great book that could have been written like an academic tome (dry), instead the characters were human with their hilarious attributes and flaws. I was drawn into it--rooting for Gust or Charlie, even though I knew the outcomes and had seen the movie based on the book.
The book offers a glimpse into the ways that real politics takes place in the USA and how back room deals, friendships, and back stabbing can make or break a career or a bill being passed in Congress.
The fact that Charlie Wilson became interested (perhaps obsessed) with the plight of Afghans was nothing short of just happenstance. And, the cast of characters who he worked with were a colorful group in all senses of the term. This book is written for the lay audience; although I do think an undergraduate audience would appreciate it. It is lengthy, but I tihnk the background provides understanding of the main characters.
What I would have liked-- an additonal chapter in lieu of the short epilogue. Crile needed to make better connections between the freedom fighters of the late 80s and early 90s and how the situation of these young men fed into extremist views.
 That Charlie could do this is incredible July 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book discusses a part of politics that I have little knowledge. It is the story of a minor character in the US political process Charlie Wilson, a Democratic United States Representative from the 2nd congressional district in Texas. Before Charlie Wilson came, the US was already supplying some aid to the mujahideen. However soon the Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, started pushing for more financial aid to help them. Charlie Wilson decides to help the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invaders. This book shows how mostly because to his efforts with a CIA officer Gust Avrakotos, a major international military supply program occurred involving many other countries including Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.
I found it incredible and interesting but it contained too much trivia about the characters. It should have been much shorter.
 Poorly written, excrutiatingly detailed July 22, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book was really interesting at first, but I couldn't keep reading beyond a few hundred pages. The author keeps saying the same things over and over and over again (I got it, Charlie Wilson was tall and good looking, Gust was working class, etc.) He restates the same things so many times, it seems like he things readers are stupid and can't remember anything from prior chapters.
At first, I enjoyed learning about the inner workings of the CIA and the House of Representatives, etc. But this book is so tedious, I can't summon the attention span to finish reading it.
I almost always read a book before seeing the related movie because I like to read the more detailed story. In this case I am hoping the movie does a much better job of just telling the story without all of the extra noise and redundancy.
I Don't Buy It July 14, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book gets 3 stars for its entertainment value and for a useful history of the extent of U.S. involvement in the Soviet-Afghanistan War. As for its essential thesis that "good guys" Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrokotos won the Cold War by bitch-slapping all the sissies running the American foreign policy establishment, that's a bunch of right wing pap.
Wilson is an out-of-control alcoholic Texas congressman who pushed for more funding of the Afghan rebels. Avrokotos is the foul-mouthed, street kid recruited by the CIA who does not quite fit in with its ivy-league culture. Of the two, Avrokotos is far more interesting and appealing.
The problem I have with this fable is its assumption that only Wilson and Avrokotos were savvy enough to see the strategic value of bleeding the Soviets in Afghanistan, thereby returning the favor of Vietnam. This wasn't exactly rocket science. The reluctance of policymakers to push too far too fast in Afghanistan made all the sense in the world, given that Afghanistan was on the border of the Soviet Union. Do you think we'd take kindly to Soviet arms shipments to rebels fighting our troops stationed in Grenada or Panama?
Also, apart from provoking World War III, the arms shipments raise the issue of the extent to which the Cold War is a military battle and the extent to which it is a political battle. The founding strategic father of the Cold War, George Kennan, complained that policymakers kept pushing to militarize the Cold War, whereas he viewed the containment policy as a sophisticated use of economic and political levers, with graduated military measures as a last resort.
Right wing zealots are quick to claim credit for victory in the Cold War because their crew happened to be in power when the Wall and the Kremlin fell. To some extent, whether in technology, science, literature, or politics, we all stand on the shoulders of the giants of the past. This is especially the case here. The Cold War was a bipartisan effort patiently fought over the course of a half-century, and the United States won because, as envisioned by Kennan in 1946, the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.
Indeed, the history of the Cold War is often the history of efforts by more sober leaders like Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Gorbachev, Brezhnev, and even Krushchev to tame the crazies who wanted to escalate the Cold War. Even Charlie Wilson and Avrokotos admit that the Reagan Administration & its allies were full of dangerous right-wing crazies (Humphrey, Ollie North, and I'd put CIA Director Casey in that category as well). Is Wilson really different from these clowns? Is he really the sober (what a word to describe Wilson) foil for a nut job like Senator Humphrey? The author wants you to believe that.
Of course, even Crile recognizes the "unintended consequence" of American aid in spurring on Islamic extremism. It's hard to give Wilson too many high-fives given what ended up happening in Afghanistan.
What should they have done? Well, given that the Soviet Union never did retaliate, it does appear that more and more military aid to the Afghan rebels was the right strategy. I question the huge volume sponsored by Wilson. Had there been no Wilson, would we have done nothing and sent the Afghans no military aid, and just caved? I seriously doubt it. The Afghan war would have been lost by the Soviets and we wouldn't have spent quite so much money or acted quite so provocatively and maybe we could have forged some better and longer lasting political alliances in this area. Don't you think it would have better for American foreign policy to have the aid perceived as coming from the President and tied to all sorts of quid pro quos -- as opposed as coming from a rogue Texas congressman? Doesn't allowing the Afghans and Pakistanis to say "Charlie did it" allow them at the same time to feel no obligation to Reagan or Bush?
And if what happened here was not complete Soviet withdrawal, but some sphere of influence for the Russians, would that have been the end of the world as we know it? No. Afghanistan itself did not have great importance; the fear was whether this was a stepping stone to the projection of Soviet power into the Middle East. That projection of Soviet power could have been fended off without absolute victory in Afghanistan. And, as we learned in Iraq, be careful of the absolute victory you wish for. In the end, the goal of foreign policy is not to rack up military victories but to create order and stability so that American interests can flourish.
So I don't particularly like the "John Wayne" approach of guys like Wilson. That approach has proven time and again to be stupid, self-indulgent, and self-destructive.
Personally, Wilson appears to be extraordinarily funny and charming. But the picture is a bit too charitable. It's hard to have much respect for him after the drunken hit and run episode and after all the out-of-control drinking. I feel a great deal of warmth for Avrokotos, who is truly funny and, despite his own demons and mean streak, is someone who comes off as more of a true patriot than Wilson.
It's a fun story that is fun to read. I just don't buy the attempt to lionize Wilson or the idiot element of the right wing he represents.
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