Jan 08 2008
Johnson: Don’t See Charlie Wilson’s War
GUEST: Chalmers Johnson, author of the Blowback Trilogy — Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
In 2003, I interviewed 60 minutes Producer George Crile about his book, “Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.” The book traced the US funding for what Crile called “the greatest Jihad in Modern History.” Crile ended our interview with the following words: “it’s really dangerous not to actually know your own history.” But in the December 2007 film adaptation of Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, history is precisely what is sacrificed. The LA Times reports that “the final film was more affirmative than one earlier version, which concluded with the September 11th attack on the Pentagon.” Instead of a history lesson, the film, which has grossed more than $50 million in ticket sales, plays out as a “fun” film, a comedy, about a naive Texas Congressman and his socialite girlfriend who, along with a maverick CIA agent, push the US government into a fight of good versus evil. And the US, as always, is on the side of the good.
Read Chalmers Johnson’s essay about the film, Charlie Wilson’s War, “An Imperialist Comedy,” at www.tomdispatch.com/post/174877/
chalmers_johnson_an_imperialist_comedy
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