Charlie Wilson’s War and Ron Paul Economics
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Ron Paul preaches the foreign policy ideology of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in an age where doing so is quite unpopular. Neither the Democrats or Republicans are willing to keep the over-reaching US hands overseas to ourselves. Charlie Wilson seemed to possess this trait as well. The Cold War then is equivalent to the War on Terror today. How ironic it is that if it weren’t for Charlie Wilson’s interventions in Afghanistan in the 1980’s the War on Terror may not even exist today. At least not in its current form.
Osama Bin Laden was amongst those rebels we gave weapons and money to in order to help them defeat the Soviets. This was Charlie Wilson’s doing. He like many at the time were blinded by the evils of the Soviet Union and communism. So instead of foreseeing the inevitable economic collapse of their empire and letting Afghanistan run its course, he lobbied to get weapons and funding funneled covertly to the Afghanistan resistance. This propped up Afghanistan enough to push the Soviets back in retreat. Once this was complete, the US stopped the funding. This left Afghanistan out in the cold and alone with 50% of their population 14 years old and younger (according to the movie).
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