Charlie Wilson's War: by George Crile.

A wealthy socialite from Texas with little except her ideas about faith on her mind and not pleased with happenings in the world, decides to take matters in her hands, uses a friends who is a congressman and usable, and informs him it is up to him to defeat the communists who are not to her taste due to her faith of southern variety - the agenda being to use the ungovernable Afghans and defeat Soviets by dealing a crushing blow, without a shot fired at US. Very convenient, it costs only money and some arranging so the supply of arms and money to the Afghan and other fighters does not easily prove to be of US or CIA origin.

Charlie Wilson, the congressman, went to work - his socialite friend did have a clout - and the supply of money and arms to the men fighting Soviets in Afghanistan from Pakistan grew to several billions and anti aircraft missiles.

Pakistan, incidentally, informed Wilson that the money had to go through Pakistan, no other option would be allowed, and no inconvenient questions were to be asked (such as how much of the arms and money was being used for a covert war against a democratic and successfully secular India for an agenda of a takeover and conversion of the whole continent to Islam, the philosophy that gave birth to Pakistan in the first place) and Wilson - and presumably other parts of US government in on this - was forced to comply. Some might have been not quite forced, at that, since a secular nation sticks in the throat of any evangelical agenda, and a democracy is harder to control than a totalitarian regime throttling a nation with a military despot at its head willing to lie, cheat and massacre at will. For profit, of course.

So the war was escalated with public opinion in US home market being as blatantly manufactured as it was for Poland with every day front page accounts of the poor Afghans, while Tibet had been allowed to be massacred quietly on the other side of a tiny border since defeating Soviets and not necessarily communism or every big bad wolf of a totalitarian oppresive regime was the agenda. Let China swallow Asia, who cares, so long as the Russians are losers to US - and if China is a threat tomorrow (unthinkable, they are tiny Asians with no blonds or blue eyed pinks, they couldn't be a threat - besides they are not friendly and have nuclear weapons, and demand being kowtowed to by everyone) that shall be the problem of whoever heads US tomorrow.

So the moment was won, Soviets lost and rolled back out of Afghanistan just as British had done nearly a century ago, and later came the break up of the Soviet empire with unification of Germany and freeing of nations behind iron curtain. That this might lead to a rise of neo nazis with a stronger Germany no longer apologetic about its past choices and unfriendly to English speaking or other varieties of foreigners of wrong colours was not a problem for those that celebrated Soviet losses, since the US occupational army in Germany had been sensitive to the German feelings and instructed any people of the wrong colour not to show themselves that often outside the US bases anyway.

Meanwhile the crucial moment was missed and the flow of money to Afghan cause to the tune of several billions of US dollars for arms - serious arms - for fighting dried up overnight, with not even a few thousands to go for schools or hospitals in the land ruined totally by the war for over a decade. When the tide countering the dreaded Soviet influence of communist thought, an Islamic fundamentalist jihadi regime out to kill all joys and all civilisation including music, and imprisoning women in their own homes with no medical facilities (only women doctors were allowed to see women patients, but women including doctors and teachers were not allowed to practice any profession, or even leave home without a male relative to accompany the said woman or women) and starvation for widows (no way of earning and no permission to shop) routine - all this was not the problem of those in faraway US that had brought it into being by rolling back the Afghan regime that had seeked help from the Russian neighbours inviting Soviet occupationary forces to control the rising tide of fundamentalist Islam.

Soviets had been seen as competitors and threat to free trade, Islam was yet to be seen as a threat of any kind, even when India suffered terrorist incursions and hijacking of a plane. The plane was taken by hijackers who had used Nepal for convenience to hijack a plane to Afghanistan via Pakistan, and when India finally did comply with the demand of release of a handful of terrorists to free nearly two hundred of its citizens - one newlywed man was murdered with his new bride sitting beside him, his throat had been cut to make a point - US authorities were on the tarmac while Indian ministers were not allowed. India was blamed later for releasing the terrorists when it was discovered one of them was behind terror attacks in New York and Washington. That US could have helped India and did not was conveniently pretended forgotten.

The so called war on terror where Pakistan is still being given billions of US dollars under various labels (and demands further sophisticated weapons, obviously so as to be able to attack India, while refusing any accountability for money or arms or actions) even as the terrorist training camps in Pakistan have become so widely known via satellite technology to so many nations that it is impossible to pretend to ignore or be ignorant of them, even as Pakistan goes on demanding money from the world with one pretext or another (the terrorists are helping the victims of natural calamities so they really are good guys, they are helping to free other muslims from having to live with non muslims so they are devoted men of faith) with no shame whatsoever as a nation unable to provide any basic needs for the people conquered by military force and labeled "free" - the said freedom is only that of belonging to one faith and being willing to do anything to obliterate those of any other thinking or faith - all this is happening far away from US, and if the wolf is feeding on the neighbour's stock or babies it is ok for now. Don't disturb the wolf, it might come get your own.

What makes anyone so certain that the wolf's intentions are to please the goody faraway master that is allowing it to feed on the neighbour's stock and babies, and that the wolf has not eyed your own, with definite plans to come get them?

Is the socialite from Texas happy about all of this murders and massacres and general terrorism caused around the world due to her faith needing a defeat of Soviet communists (but not other huge communists nearby, or other totalitarian regimes, strangely enough), one can only wonder. Or does a confession get a reprieve good enough for all this massacre caused by throwing dollars and arms?