The Lions of the Panjsher; Alternate Blowback.
RIP Charlie Wilson, and Ahmad Shah Massoud
Submitted 10Feb2010
I was rifling through some old papers and came across old notes covering the situation in Afghanistan in the very early 1990’s. Since I am snowed in, I looked up a few of the names on the pages, applied some 20/20 hindsight, and connected a few dots. As I was getting this post together, the announcement that Rep Charlie Wilson has died came over the news feed, so the post will begin around him. Without him, who knows what would have occurred in Afghanistan and even in the Soviet Union. With him and perhaps if a few events were different, we don’t have 9/11, nor do we have the problems in Afghanistan. No one can know exactly how an operation the size of his will turn out.
Charles (Charlie) Nesbitt Wilson, a certified Cold Warrior, died today, 10FEB2010. We was the Democrat Congressman from Lufkin, Texas from 1973 to 1997. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1956, 8th from the bottom of his class, and with the second highest amount of demerits in the history of the school. The man, as a congressman, was a liberal but he did not hate America like our current Democrat/Progressives do today.
His baby was called Operation Cyclone; a proxy war between the Soviet Union and an interesting set of allies led by the United States. The cast of characters against the Soviets in Afghanistan were the US, Pakistan, Britain, China, and Saudi Arabia. The point of the operation was to train and arm Mujaheddin to entangle the Soviets in a protracted and painful war as the US had in Vietnam. We are all familiar with the blow-back and problems this very necessary Cold War victory brought us.
