These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame.
-Charlie Wilson
Charlie Wilson was the man who raised one billion American Dollars (in the 1980s) to fund the Muhajadeen to fight the Russians out of Afghanistan. Through this, the mighty Soviet Empire collapsed and the Cold War ended.
After the success of his actions, he lobbied for just one more million to build a school in Pakistan- the country that housed one fifth of Afghanistan's population- refugees who fled from Soviet terror. He did not get that million.
Throughout the process of watching this movie, one of the things that rang loudly in my mind was: Didn't every related Wikipedia entry, online source, book reference and publication tell me that the origins of Al-Qaeda were from the holy warriors who fought jihad against the Russians? And if that was the case, aren't they the people that trained under America's funding?
This isn't an irony. Irony is not justifiable as a word to describe the atrocities we have witness the past few years. It isn't irony. It just shows us how much a million- compared to one billion- can go.
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