| OCR Text |
Show Thursday, January 3, 2008 SPRINGVILLE HERALD 'Charlie Wilson's War' hits theatres this seasson better the information. The fewer date needed, the - Peter F. Drucker Hitting theatres this holiday holi-day season is "Charlie Wilson's Wil-son's War," starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and developed by screenwriter screen-writer Aaron Sorkin of the television drama, "The West Wing." The movie is based on a George Crile book by the same title about former Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX), who helped fund the Afghanistan rebels who eventually defeated the Soviet So-viet Union in Afghanistan. : The movie credits Wilson for making the difference in ensuring that crucial weapons, weap-ons, including U.S. Stinger missiles, were provided to the rebels to enable their victory over the USSR. This claim has drawn fire r r 7? - laiiiBMiiiMiirotM Shop Where Santa Shops! Dirty Jo Punsters 170 North IVIain Spanish Fork Spicing up your Holidays since 1 990 Thanks to all of our fabulous customers 4fc J, from conservatives who note that it was the Reagan administration that made possible that support. A newly released book argues that another figure was even more central to aiding the Afghan resistance. resis-tance. In The Judge: William Wil-liam P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Rea-gan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007), authors Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner point to the unacknowledged un-acknowledged role of Bill Clark, the Reagan national security adviser, who ran the president's National Security Se-curity Council and who was widely understood as Ronald Ron-ald Reagan's closest and most influential adviser. "Bill Clark is the secret story of the end of the Cold War, from his work on behalf of Afghan rebels to Polish rebels to Nicaraguan rebels, and much, much more," says Paul Kengor. "No single individual did more behind-the-scenes to defeat the Soviet Union than Bill Clark." On the war in Afghanistan Afghani-stan in particular, The Judge discloses how in early 1983 long before the first Stinger missile arrived ar-rived Clark and Reagan quietly authorized the rebels reb-els to cross the Amu Dar'ya River that marked the border bor-der between Afghanistan and the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, where the rebels fought the Soviet Union on its own territory. Clark admitted he personally person-ally gave "authorization to Afghanistan forces and their supporters 'to cross the river' if they were so inclined in-clined and sufficiently supported." sup-ported." Specially trained rebel units operating inside the USSR, equipped with hightech high-tech explosives from the CIA, sabotaged Soviet targets. tar-gets. They derailed trains, attacked border posts, and laid mines. On one occasion, occa-sion, 30 rebel fighters attacked at-tacked two hydroelectric power stations in Soviet territory; in another, they orchestrated a rocket attack at-tack on a Soviet military airfield. There were dozens of ambushes. Said Kengor: "These were strikingly bold, risky moves some of the most dangerous action of the entire en-tire history of the 40-year Cold War. And Bill Clark and Ronald Reagan, often working alone, authorized them. They have eluded our knowledge of the period peri-od and were so understandably understand-ably secret that they were not known by journalists at the time." Kengor says this was simply one of many things done by Clark and Reagan Rea-gan to win the Cold War. The formal approval by the Reagan administration administra-tion to support and sustain groups like the Afghan resistance was laid out in classified Reagan administration adminis-tration documents drafted under Clark's direction in 1982 and 1983, including the super-sensitive directives, NSDD-32, NSDD-66, and NSDD-75. Among them, NSDD-32, approved by Reagan on May 20, 1982, stated this administration objective: "To contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military mili-tary presence throughout the world, and to increase the costs of Soviet support and use of proxy, terrorist, terror-ist, and subversive forces." "Increasing the costs" meant U.S. support of counter-Soviet forces like the rebels in Afghanistan. This "enormously significant signifi-cant language," says Kengor, Ken-gor, expressed the goal of not merely containing the USSR but going beyond containment to actually reverse re-verse or roll back positions and territory already controlled con-trolled by the USSR, including includ-ing Afghanistan. Kengor concludes: "If Hollywood dealt with fact instead of fiction, this movie mov-ie would be about Bill Clark, not Charlie Wilson. I don't want to begrudge any due credit to Mr. Wilson, but it is really Bill Clark who is the untold story of the end of the Cold War." Finally, and most controversially, contro-versially, the movie suggests sug-gests that the United States also supported Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, thereby there-by causing the September Septem-ber 11 attacks. This claim, says Kengor, is "utter nonsense." "That's a Hollywood Holly-wood version of a drive-by shooting of Reagan policy. It's ridiculous, and very unfair. un-fair. That's apparently the fictional part of the movie. Maybe Sorkin will get an Oscar for most creative screenplay. I hear Disney is planning the sequel" Adds Kengor: "It is quite a stretch to argue that Ronald Ron-ald Reagan didn't end the Cold War but started the Islamist war on America." The Judge also includes heretofore unreported information in-formation on Bill Clark's secret January 1986 one-on-one meeting with Saddam Sad-dam Hussein in Iraq. Clark makes clear that the Reagan Rea-gan administration likewise like-wise never armed Saddam Hussein. "We did not arm Saddam," says Clark categorically. cat-egorically. "And we most certainly never gave him anything like WMD or WMD technology." r " ". -a.'i.'t 1 J.al- k, ' -4.n ir-i , tji. n i in, i .1,1',, s I t 1 t '-. ( ' ' ' ' 4 ' '' ' ' ' ' ' Y COIfBOY ROADSIDE TdIIIGERYICE 24 HOURS 7 DAYS A WEEK CALL US FOR: Towing Jumpstarts Winch outs Lock outs Fuel Delivery Light, Medium & Heavy Duty Repairs ANYWHERE IN THE STATE OF UTAH! Cars, TruckititQfXiJmes, Boats OC-o IBM S 3 -"i,,.. 'L, r7 I"! SALE PRICE L$11 ft miw i tin mm , ,,,, r 96 E. Center Springville f i 489'3603 Pacific Horizon mu-r IJ www.pacifichorizoncu.com CREDIT UNION MONEY $1,000-$5,000 $5,000-$50,000 2.00 APY 3.00 APY $50,000-$1 00,000 $1 00,000-$250,000 4.75 APY 5.05APY $250,000 5.15 APY .. . "Vjf- CREDIT UNIONS" L 6 Withdrawls a month It Intensive Drw & Alcohol Treatment Are you relapsing despite outpatient counseling & supports? Do you need to get away from triggers & influences, I and focus completely on recovery? i it jiMufc. jit;. is a peaceful, wooded acreage, 45 minutes from Provo. Intensive, 12-step. Expert horse therapy, and much more! CALL 888-786-6425 for info and a FREE, confidential consultation for yourself or for a loved one. www.utahsummitlodge.com il P1OTAL 5(UFg001O1R6 ::j j AlA j : 'f ; ' ! : 1 y; V C " ! 3 C ' t -Y .5 "Hi" 'mm Cheaper, Faster, Better Scrapbook pages Get your digitally created scrapbook pages printed on real photographic paper, any size, with less cost & les hassle than printing on your own printer... ...and for those of you who still cut and paste your traditional scrapbook pages, IT'S TIME , TO SHARK. Get copies of your work to share with family and ftiends! V CV Call u$ today to learn more! 19 |
