My take on "Charlie Wilson's War"

Why do they hate us? I finished reading the book "Charlie Wilson's War" and this is my version of what I got from the book:

Before Charlie Wilson got involved with the Soviets invading Afghanistan the US CIA was pussy-footing around the issue. Sending just enough so that it looked like we were helping the Afghanistan cause, but not enough to really help them at all.

It was suggested that the CIA wanted revenge on the Soviet Union. They wanted this to be their "Viet Nam." They wanted to bleed the Soviets dry as they had done to America during the Viet Nam war.

So when Charlie came with his group, of course he thought he was doing the right thing. As did the group that assisted him. It was indeed horrible what was being done to the Afghanistan people.

There were many lucky events that helped Charlie to run his covert operation in the 80's. Two major ones were the Iran-Contra affair and Chernobyl. Both events took the limelight away form anything going on in Afghanistan.

After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan (a few years after Charlie and his helpers working hard to get sufficient weapons over there) the militants felt as if they were forgotten. Then they found out that America had used them as a revenge tactic against the Soviet Union. As if the Americans were not really interested in helping them (at least until Charlie came along) and used them as pawns in a horrible war to bleed the Russians.

The militants asked for aid to help rebuild their country after the Soviets left. Of course we supplied "our kind" of aid. Medical supplies and hygiene. The last thing the men wanted was for us to educate the women and teach or to provide them with health care. Next would be "sex education" and "family planning". It was a disaster and they began attacking our AID vehicles and people.

After supplying the mujaheed with millions of dollars every year (Saudi Arabia matched us dollar for dollar) to fight the Russians our government stopped cold turkey one year - 1991. Charlie managed to sneak a bill in and in 1992 the US gave Afghanistan 200 million. The Russians were gone, the mujaheed were fighting amongst themselves.

And, they were trafficking in drug trade. Huge.

What would come out of the rubble? What hole the CIA left in Afghanistan with the millions of dollars of weapons hidden in the mountains and caves drew Muslims from far and wide to this beginning of a mighty and fearsome group of jihad.

Charlie regrets nothing. He firmly believes that this action in the 80's prevented WWIII. He may well be right. It could be that the CIA thought the mujaheed would burn themselves out after America pulled out their gravy train. Didn't happen.

It seemed to the Islams that the Soviet Union wanted world domination in so much as attempting to claim all the oil fields of the Middle East - beginning by wiping out Afghanistan. Then, the Islams believed the the US was after world domination and wanted to claim the oil fields. They claim they can topple one super power, they will topple another. They claim it was Allah that helped them to win, not the millions of dollars pumped into the cause or the stash of technically advanced weaponry by America and Saudi Arabia.