Charlie Wilson 1933-2010

[Aemilius Paulus]

You assume that we honor Mr.Wilson because he killed Soviets.

I do not assume, I know. Of course, far from all honour him because of that - and there are other things this bloke did, but most acknowledge his role in Afghanistan as a positive contribution (and many, many more liked him because of this before US stuck its own in the mess in Afghanistan.

Edit: Cmon Cen, I could see that bait a mile away. You'd make a terrible bass

Pffft, hindsight 20/20. I am wondering how you are still posting when by all accounts your computer monitor should be broken by now, due to the exponential increase in the length of your nose...

And I will point out that it was not baiting, or at least not in the SFTS sense - since my post was a bait in its function. People get warnings or infractions as a result of your baits, which are often pointless - other than for the sake of your amusement - I can see no other reason than that (well, some other people might laugh, alright, I will give that to you). In fact, my first-ever warning was a result of your bait (Do you prefer subtitled or translated movies? thread in the Frontroom). I put that statement for the sake of an effective political argument, to open up the minds of those who probably needed it - example, Centurion1. Of course, at the cost of momentarily disgusting others, but that is what I am willing to pay.




EDIT: To prove my point about people liking Mr. Wilson, how else do you explain this statement:

it's okay you guys ended got second place.......

proxy wars for the world *woot woot*


Damn me if this is not a person who supports Mr. Wilson for his contribution to the Soviet deaths in Afghanistan. You can wax lyrical all you want about how the poster was not serious, but how can a person sorry for the deaths can make a joke about dead soldiers, a joke which supports their deaths? Once again, damn me if that is not a US 'patriot'. Like I said, blind nationalism sucks, to put it in crude terms.







EDIT2: The intro paragraph in his Wikipedia page:

Charles Nesbitt Wilson (June 1, 1933 – February 10, 2010) was a former United States naval officer and former 12-term Democratic United States Representative from the 2nd congressional district in Texas.

He was best known for leading Congress into supporting Operation Cyclone, the largest-ever CIA covert operation, which under the Reagan administration supplied military equipment, including anti-aircraft weapons such as Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division to the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His behind-the-scenes campaign was the subject of the non-fiction book Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile III [1] and a subsequent film adaptation starring Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman. [1]


Fraaaack, Americans even made a film glorifying his contributions in Afghanistan??? How much easier do you guys have to make my argument? As General Patton said, the argument 'Americans honour Mr.Wilson because he killed Soviets is just a wrong assumption' cannot fight its own way out of a urine-soaked paper bag

If anything, Wikipedia is the No. 1 authority on what people are best known for. And his page does not even mention any of his other accomplishments, other than the standard 'which are the highest offices this bloke held'. I can bet a dollar to doughnut that 98% of the non-Texan Americans cannot say anything more about Mr. Wilson than that Wiki intro paragraph.

[Strike For The South]

I do not assume, I know. Of course, far from all honour him because of that - and there are other things this bloke did, but most acknowledge his role in Afghanistan as a positive contribution (and many, many more liked him because of this before US stuck its own in the mess in Afghanistan.

One can still recognize what he did in Afghanistan while simultaneously realizing that people did die and it was a tragedy and no one one should be "counting points" so to speak. The two are not mutually exclussive nor have they ever been or ever will be such is the human condition.

Pffft, hindsight 20/20. I am wondering how you are still posting when by all accounts your computer monitor should be broken by now, due to the exponential increase in the length of your nose...

A pinocchio reference? nice

And I will point out that it was not baiting, or at least not in the SFTS sense - since my post was a bait in its function. People get warnings or infractions as a result of your baits, which are often pointless - other than for the sake of your amusement - I can see no other reason than that (well, some other people might laugh, alright, I will give that to you). In fact, my first-ever warning was a result of your bait (Do you prefer subtitled or translated movies? thread in the Frontroom). I put that statement for the sake of an effective political argument, to open up the minds of those who probably needed it - example, Centurion1. Of course, at the cost of momentarily disgusting others, but that is what I am willing to pay.

To assume my baits have no purpose is an egregious error on any ones parts. I simply think me and you have different posting styles, you like long academic style posts while I feel much more is said in what you don't write down than what you do.

conciseness is a great skill to have

Edit: And it was a bait, you knew the kind of reaction you wanted and went fishing, don't be ashamed.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Edit: And it was a bait, you knew the kind of reaction you wanted and went fishing, don't be ashamed.

Yah, I know. Why do you say so? I admitted this in the post. I just had to justify it to the moderator. Baiting is normally a negative thing which the mods pursue (not in a good way obviously).


Hehe, nice one, 'went fishing'

conciseness is a great skill to have

Oh, you can bet I agree with you. But just as I take detailed posts to the extreme, so you take the concise posts to the extreme. My posts are unnecessarily and tiringly long, and your posts are not long enough to well elaborate your position and argument. Throwing words around with no explanations is just as ineffective as writing posts so long that few read them. We both need to work to improve out styles.

[Aemilius Paulus]

So what happened to the freedom fighters in Afghanistan? There were so, so many of them just twenty years ago... They could not have all died or disappeared so fast, could they?

Now I turn on the telly and hear of nothing but terrorists . No wonder US went to punish those people. Afghanistan was such a great country with so many freedom fighters before those damned terrorist took over and killed of the good freedom fighters.





Do I remember something about Mr. Wilson saying 'pay back the Soviets'??

[The Wizard]

Charlie Wilson helped strike a blow for people who had legitimate reasons to take up arms against Soviet imperialism. His commitment to Afghanistan went beyond mere power politics considering he was one of the very few advocating aid to the country to help it rebuild after the Soviet withdrawal had sealed the U.S.'s victory. There is far less to hate about this democratically elected Congressman than there is about Soviet technocrats and dictators funding the NVA.

[Centurion1]

EDIT: To prove my point about people liking Mr. Wilson, how else do you explain this statement:

it's okay you guys ended got second place.......

proxy wars for the world *woot woot*


Damn me if this is not a person who supports Mr. Wilson for his contribution to the Soviet deaths in Afghanistan. You can wax lyrical all you want about how the poster was not serious, but how can a person sorry for the deaths can make a joke about dead soldiers, a joke which supports their deaths? Once again, damn me if that is not a US 'patriot'. Like I said, blind nationalism sucks, to put it in crude terms.

I assumed the woot woot would imply to joking nature of the comment. Do i support the deaths of the Soviet soldiers? I support the tactical reasoning behind it even if I do not wish for human lives to be wasted. Charlie Wilson's help in this matter helped bring the Soviet Union to it's knees. It would be hypocritical for anyone who knows my politics to say i was not pleased with that.

sure i wish there was a way no soviet soldiers died. But what i found classless about your post was the fact that you consoled yourself as if one death made the other better. One life doesn't excuse another.

So know i do not feel as though i am celebrating the deaths of soviet union soldiers by celebrating this mans memory. I am celebrating the fall of the soviet union one step further.

[Major Robert Dump]

Charlie Wilson was a spawn of the Cold War. I think most people who did not live the Cold War would not quite truly understand people's mentality for or against it. It really was unique, and Charlie Wilson played it well to help win. Not taking an opinion on the man one way or the other, but he certainly accomplished what he set out to do.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I assumed the woot woot would imply to joking nature of the comment.

Yah, I addressed this already. You would call me a sicko if I joked about the dead American soldiers, but joking about dead Soviet soldiers is perfectly fine... The fact that you admit you were joking only shows that 1:you fell into my another bait/trap and 2: your comment was even more disturbing because you actually say it was a joke as if that makes it better, when in reality, it only makes it worse.

I support the tactical reasoning behind it even if I do not wish for human lives to be wasted.

Translation: I wanted to give the Ruskies a kick in the teeth and I would rather overlook the fact that largely innocent people were killed through my actions (srsly, very few wanted to get drafted for the Afghan War).

Your defence is paper thin and your justification is one that anyone could make. 'Tactical reasoning'. Right. Nice to say that when your father was not involved in it, and when you people are not the ones killed, and when you are not the one being shot at. In fact, your justification is the exact sort dictators love to make:

Oh yah, I killed a bunch of millions of people, and I hate to waste humans, but we won WWII, so the 'tactical reasoning' reasoning supports my choices - says Stalin. And believe me, he did hate to waste the human resource. He was a paranoid man, but he was not a stupid man. Gulags were far from death camps. Instead, they were camps thoroughly designed to get the most work for the least cost from the zeks.

Charlie Wilson's help in this matter helped bring the Soviet Union to it's knees.

That only shows how little you know about Soviet Union. I am not even going to argue this, because you need to read books. Any mainstream Soviet-expert author will tell you that the Soviet economy was growing all throughout and until its very end. It was not the economy that was the problem, and the military expenditures had very little impact. Reagan's defence ramping-ups go out of the window for the same reason.

It would be hypocritical for anyone who knows my politics to say i was not pleased with that.

Wow, you just admitted it, huh? Hot damn, who would have expected you to say that? So how is it 'wow, just sick' when I say the same thing about you Americans? If it is my politics to view any decrease in power of the US, then why can I not say that I accept American deaths as their deaths conform with 'my politics'? You do realise this goes both ways, right?

If you approve of the deaths of youngsters to justify your 'politics', (whatever the heck they are since you said you said you do not like/do not involve yourself at all in politics) then wow... I mean, politics is such an abstract and apt to change attribute. You will change your politics as you grow up (you and me are still teens, of course we will change), but nothing can change the lives of those who died. That is why I do not pretend I approve of the Americans who died in Vietnam, however much that favoured my motherland.

sure i wish there was a way no soviet soldiers died.

Right, but you still think they should have died... You know, this excuse is not worth the bytes which it is encoded into...

But what i found classless about your post was the fact that you consoled yourself as if one death made the other better.

Yah, and that was obviously a bait to make you think, otherwise I would not attack you right now. Shoot, why do you think I am making all these arguments?? I posted that to make you see the error of your reasoning, and you are still blind to it. You still think it was wrong for me to say that (forget the fact I do not believe in what I said in that post) despite not caring about Soviet deaths, because they are obviously the bad guys who deserved it...

One life doesn't excuse another.

That is exactly one of the points I was trying to make. But you are still applying it to me, whereas you are still the one... Argh, you are either making a massive troll-post or shockingly insensitive to any other viewpoints save yours...

So know i do not feel as though i am celebrating the deaths of soviet union soldiers by celebrating this mans memory. I am celebrating the fall of the soviet union one step further.

Again, translation: I am a teenager with strong political views and I support any efforts to carry out those views, conveniently ignoring the skulls and bones paving the path to success... (Once again ignoring that the Soviet debacle at Afghanistan did not do much to bring USSR down)

Bollox, that view is clearly celebrating the death of the soldiers, no matter what it feels like. That view is simply excusing itself by conveniently sanitising the dancing over the graves by using a different phrase. I can do the same by avoiding stating that I support American deaths in Afghanistan by instead claiming I look forward to lessening the US global influence...

That man stands for death of Soviet citizens. Bin Laden stands for the death of US citizens (if you do not think the Afghan 'freedom fighter' Mujahideen killed innocent civilians like Bin Laden, then you are dead wrong). One cannot celebrate the man without celebrating he deaths he caused. I can claim I celebrate Bin Laden because he leads the crusade against modern American meddling, imperialism, Bush-era thuggery, but I still end up celebrating the deaths he caused. Same with Mr. Wilson. Even if we take out 9/11 away from the Bin Laden persona.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Charlie Wilson helped strike a blow for people who had legitimate reasons to take up arms against Soviet imperialism.

So you are admitting USSR had the right to help the North Vietnam? I would take them before the Mujahideen, and even now we can see the result of a communist Vietnam vs Taleban Aghanistan.

His commitment to Afghanistan went beyond mere power politics considering he was one of the very few advocating aid to the country to help it rebuild after the Soviet withdrawal had sealed the U.S.'s victory.

And? A right does not make another wrong right, and I seriously doubt he was advocating the aid from altruistic reasons. If he was worth his salt, then he could have possibly recognised the danger of a devastated Afghanistan in the hands of radical Muslims...

There is far less to hate about this democratically elected Congressman than there is about Soviet technocrats and dictators funding the NVA.

When did I say that I liked Soviet technocrats? Does the existence of greater evils absolve a smaller evil and shield him from criticism? This thread, IIRC, was about Mr. Wilson, and not the Soviet tecnocrats/NVA...

[Beskar]

You will never win, Aemilius Paulus. The USSR are teh evil 'communist' atheist overlords which was trying to rule the world while America is the land of the free, rightous, god-fearing heroes of the world.

[Aemilius Paulus]

You will never win, Aemilius Paulus. The USSR are teh evil 'communist' atheist overlords which was trying to rule the world while America is the land of the free, rightous, god-fearing heroes of the world.

I know right? Even after showing how much nasty it seems when someone welcomes the US casualties, Centurion1 was still talking of how Soviet troop deaths were just expendable and necessary losses, seeing nothing wrong with accepting their loss while recoiling at the exact same reaction from me (which I staged)... What makes this all the more effed-up is the fact that no-one in the USSR, out of the common folk, wanted the war with Afghanistan. Really, there were no such thing as war hawks. The Party did it on its own, and dragged the Soviet populace into something they did not want - or even know of.

In contrast, the American public and the democratically elected representatives went into the war cheering, with near-total support. The USSR, instead, went in because of a few politicians acting out of their own twisted interests. The people had no choice. Americans did, however. Americans, also, can always get out - should enough support be gathered. Citizens of USSR did not have the same luxury.



The Soviet soldiers, also, were all drafted, not volunteers such as in the case of the US Armed Forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. When you sign up for the Armed Forces, you know you risk, nay, you have the duty to go and defend the interests of your state, no matter what your personal opinion on it is. US soldiers had a choice. Soviet ones did not. It is regrettable when a US soldier dies, but it was that man's (or woman's) choice, and on top of it, the choice of the general populace of the country. Not so with the Red Army and USSR.

Some may have wanted the war and the action, at least in the beginning, but that was only some. Most do not want a war - and no sane person wants a war once they had experienced it firsthand. But as I said, the Soviets did not have a choice. Big difference, on a personal level. But of course, why care about the facts when they get in your way? Much easier to ignore them... It is easy to see USSR as a one big commie 'evil-empire'. But that is not the truth. There was a world of difference between the top party officials and the other 99.9999% of the populace.

[Centurion1]

Sigh, I want to apologize about my earlier comment regarding proxy wars, etc. Crass and inexcusable. AP was right in tearing me apart as he did. It was poorly written and was obviously written by someone who did not think before he, uh, typed.

Centurion

[Beskar]

In contrast, the American public and the democratically elected representatives went into the war cheering, with near-total support. The USSR, instead, went in because of a few politicians acting out of their own twisted interests. The people had no choice. Americans did, however. Americans, also, can always get out - should enough support be gathered. Citizens of USSR did not have the same luxury.

We never had the same choice either. Polls were showing 60-80% support against the war. However, being America's protectorate and preserving this "special relationship", we got forced into it.

Though, France who spoke out against the war, ended up emargo'd (though I think this might be Iraq) and America changed the name of 'french fries' to 'freedom fries', etc. I think the French were really hurt over that move.

[The Wizard]

Translation: I wanted to give the Ruskies a kick in the teeth and I would rather overlook the fact that largely innocent people were killed through my actions (srsly, very few wanted to get drafted for the Afghan War).

What a load of hokey. Why is Charlie Wilson to blame for the Soviet state's draft policy (and decision to invade Afghanistan)? Seems like you should aim your arrows at your own Party, comrade...

So you are admitting USSR had the right to help the North Vietnam? I would take them before the Mujahideen, and even now we can see the result of a communist Vietnam vs Taleban Aghanistan.

You mean the communist Vietnam which economically imploded right after the fall of Saigon and which suffered a famine due to efforts at collectivization? That one? Only when Hanoi decided ideological purity wasn't worth starving for, and they became your average nationalistic capitalist dictatorship did Vietnam take off. The only difference between North Vietnam and Afghanistan was that the former came out of their war under one central leadership... anything but that can be said of A-stan.

Moreover, the Taliban are not the mujahideen, on the contrary. The Taliban formed to fight the mujahideen (and to install a regime friendly to Islamabad).

And? A right does not make another wrong right, and I seriously doubt he was advocating the aid from altruistic reasons. If he was worth his salt, then he could have possibly recognised the danger of a devastated Afghanistan in the hands of radical Muslims...

... Which was my point exactly. Thank you for agreeing with me. Wilson may or may not have begun advocating helping the mujahideen for altruistic reasons, but he certainly did end up doing so.

When did I say that I liked Soviet technocrats? Does the existence of greater evils absolve a smaller evil and shield him from criticism? This thread, IIRC, was about Mr. Wilson, and not the Soviet tecnocrats/NVA...

You're blaming entirely unrelated things on Charlie Wilson here, pal. In your book, the fact that Russian adolescents got sent into the mountains of Afghanistan is Charlie Wilson's fault, not the fault of the Soviet Union... a particularly zany example of mistaking cause for effect

I mean, take this entire post of yours:

[...]

Apparently, because the Soviet dictators took the Soviet populace unwillingly into a war, and Americans have a choice, America is evil. Wait... what? Someone skipped a few steps here (and ended up in a totally different place as a result). Just because your empire was evil doesn't mean what the U.S. did in Afghanistan during the eighties was as well, bud.

I mean, if you want to argue the U.S. was as evil as the USSR there are a gazillion arguments to use, as Eurolefties prove on a daily basis. Instead, you choose the fact that the USSR was a tyranny and America a democracy. I mean, come on.

You will never win, Aemilius Paulus. The USSR are teh evil 'communist' atheist overlords which was trying to rule the world while America is the land of the free, rightous, god-fearing heroes of the world.

You betcha. God Bless America <o

[Strike For The South]

Charlie Wilson was one of the few proponets of helping the Afghans after the war. He had the foresight to realize what would happen, alas no one listened to him.

It is not fault of Wilsons that the USSR decided to invade or how they choose there soliders.

It is also not my intention to piss on the dead, however Wilson made a brilliant move on the cold war chess board and served the people of East Texas for 20 years much better than most.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Since you (collectively speaking) cannot seem to abide by our custom of waiting for the funereal honors to be rendered, I will assist you all in this.

Strike, please PM me as a reminder to open this on the 24th.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Honors have been rendered. NOW you may proceed with your rendering of his memory if you so desire.

"Good Time" Charlie, ye shall be missed. For good or for ill, you had style!