Charlie Wilson’s impact on foreign policy today

In the midst of Washington, D.C., blizzards and Taliban offenses in Afghanistan, little notice was given to the fact that former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson died last week. This is too bad, since it was Wilson who — on behalf of the Soviet-dominated Afghani’s — blew into Washington in the 1980s.

Wilson could not have predicted the connection between the fall of the Soviet empire and the rise of the Taliban in the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan. But history is like that; unlikely effects from the noblest of causes with the most unlikely of heroes.

Wilson’s interest in the Soviet/Afghanistan war began around 1982 when he traveled to Pakistan to visit refugee camps and view firsthand the effects of the war on the impoverished Afghanis. Stricken by their plight and inspired by their courage to face the Soviet army with relatively no weapons or technology, Wilson headed back to Congress with a specific goal to help the people of Afghanistan.

He began working intimately with members of the CIA, the organization working covertly to supply weapons to Afghanistan. However, Wilson and the CIA were working on the same project with different goals. Wilson sincerely wanted to help the Afghanis and was sympathetic to the difficulties they faced in fighting an army that was more skilled, more organized and better equipped than the small band of tribes that had united in Afghanistan to drive the Soviets out. The CIA, however, needed to keep the operation undercover in order to prevent an outright war between the Soviet Union and the United States. Wilson wanted victory for Afghanistan; the CIA wanted defeat for the Soviet Union.

In 1986, Wilson managed to convince Congress and the CIA to supply the Afghanistan army with stinger missiles, the crucial tool which would provide protection against the Soviet Union’s more powerful MI-24 helicopter. Leaders of the Afghanistan army, including Osama Bin Laden, were trained to use the stinger missiles and the introduction of these weapons became the turning point in the war.

Despite Wilson’s suggestions to remain in Afghanistan and rebuild the war-torn country, American aid ended with the war. The CIA, after all, had been striving for the downfall of the Soviet empire, which occurred only a few months later, and not the success of the people of Afghanistan. In the midst of political turmoil in Afghanistan, the Taliban slowly gained power, madrassas became prevalent throughout the country and hatred of America slowly grew throughout the Middle East.

The late Rep. Charlie Wilson was a hailed as a hero for his work in Afghanistan years ago, but today U.S. involvement in the Soviet/Afghanistan war is a controversial issue. By defeating the Soviet Union, the threat of communism was virtually eliminated, but a new threat arose in its place — militant Islam.

As we enter the ninth year in our own war with Afghanistan it is necessary to question what we hope to accomplish there. Are we now, as the CIA was 20 years ago, simply attempting to push a threatening government out of power in Afghanistan, or are we as Charlie Wilson hoped, working for the goodwill of the citizens in Afghanistan? Are we ready today to commit to re-building the war-torn nation that we walked away from years ago?

Briana Murphy is a senior at Colony High School.