Its been a dozen years now since Congressman Charlie Wilson from east Texas passed away. Had he still been alive I believe he would have quoted himself yesterday as the last of our troops finally came home from Afghanistan ……
Charlie Wilson had pushed hard in Congress for tax payers dollars to help the Afghans wage war with the Russians in the 1980s . His efforts … our efforts … in supplying large amounts of advanced arms to the Mujahedin brought the death of countless numbers of Russians , Afghan combatants, and civilians alike. In the end though, he did see the need to take it one more important step. As the Russians left Afghanistan in 1989 after their failed war Charlie Wilson saw the light and wanted to then invest in the infrastructure and future of that Muslim nation by building a school . A simple school, and our Congress had no interest.
At that point the United States threw away a golden opportunity to change the course of world history for the better . We turned our backs to the Afghan people and walked away , leaving them to return to their tribal loyalties and open to the best opportunity offered. And that best opportunity was not good for us .
In 1989 Charlie Wilson said in response to no funding for a school in Afghanistan ….
” We just never get it right. “
if only we’d started with that school , .. maybe we wouldn’t have had to take twenty years coming home
