This is book tells a story that is rarely expressed elsewhere. The characters are so flamboyant it is hard to believe they are real people, and this is nonfiction.

Late in the book Crile discusses the dilemma anyone writing about Charlie Wilson deals with. Wilson could easily be portrayed as a hero or a buffoon. This dichotomy dominates the narrative. Wilson the brilliant legislator, master of the smoke filled room, the true idealist is hampered by his drunken, womanizing, junket taking alter ego.

Though this book is a tribute to Wilson’s effort to arm the Mujadeen against the Soviets and their ultimate victory in that war, but the true revelation is how he did it. One man, Wilson pushed literally billions of dollars American money to arm Muslim extremists in a great jihad. That one congressman could so alter foreign policy, and the course of history is both amazing and frightening. The press and the rest of congress focused on the Contras and Charlie Wilson began a far bigger program virtually unnoticed. Even without the dangerous aftermath of the Taliban, of a young Osama Bin laden seeing a superpower fall, the fact billions of dollars can be spent by a handful of men with little oversight is chilling.

It is clear much of the information comes from interviews with Wilson and other protagonists like CIA man Gust Avrakotos and socialite Joanne Herron. Though Crile pays lip service to the dreadful aftermath of 911, and Islamic extremism he identifies too closely with his subjects. He mentions Texas Billionaire Herron steadfastly defended murderers and brutal dictators because of favorable impressions she gained from brief meetings. But he is generally gentle in his portrayal of this naïve manipulator. It is staggeringly sad such people have such influence on government policy entirely because of their wealth. It is not hard to imagine how the private discussions at few select social clubs decide the fate of nations. It seems all you need is a billion dollars, or to impress somebody who has a billion dollars to enter the conversation.

It is great story, an exciting story, but hardly a heroic one. ( )

Slow and steady, says the old adage, wins the race. Half the battle, others say, is showing up. Whatever cliché you choose, none will explain how Texas Representative Charlie Wilson, an unknown Democrat Congressman in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives spear-headed the exponential increase in secret appropriations to support Afghan fighters against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Simply saying "truth is stranger than fiction" still does not adequately explain the bizarre true story told by veteran "60 Minutes" producer George Crile in "Charlie Wilson's War." Undergirded by years of research, including what certainly must have been extensive interviews with several of the principle actors in the story, Crile carefully unravels the story of the clandestine American involvement with the Afghans, with its secret operations, money laundering, arms trafficking, and unofficial foreign relations negotiations.

At the heart of this tale are the incorrigible Wilson and free-thinking CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. Each has a mixed reputation among his colleagues. Wilson is seen as an overt womanizer, who becomes a cocktail party joke when he becomes part of a public drug investigation. Avrakotos, who became disgruntled when passed over for a station chief assignment, is a loose cannon who speaks his mind.

Neither should be in a position to control any major operation. Their outsider status, however, allows them to work without much oversight; their experience in how to get things done in Congress and the CIA means they can use their relative freedom to pursue their own goals. Beyond that, though, they also negotiate with other foreign governments in order to facilitate their plans.

The story of their amazing success -- in that the Soviet Union retreated from Afghanistan in 1989 -- is an amazing tale. There is the sense, though, that the haphazard American involvement may have led to foreign policy problems in the years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. So for the giddiness of the story -- which is frequently filled with humor -- there's also a nagging sense of loss by the books end.

In any event, Crile tells his fascinating story with a no-nonsense style, well aware of the irony and absurdity of many of the twists and turns. It is an enlightening, entertaining read. ( )

Halfway through reading Charlie Wilson's War I went out and rented the movie. I had the picture of Tom Hanks on a white horse firmly entrenched in y mind the rest of the way through. It was an interesting exercise to see how much of a Cliff's Notes version of the story the movie really is. Charlie Wilson's War, the book, is a much more complete story than the film, and much more exiting.

Charlie Wilson's War has a cast of characters, real world people, who are like some demented screenwriter's idea for a film version of the A-Team. First is Wilson himself, a hard drinking playboy, who always has a beauty queen on his arm while jet setting around the world at the taxpayers' expense, who represents a straight laced, bible belt district in Congress and who gets the money to run the operation by wheeling and dealing on the hill; Gust Avrakotos, a rogue CIA case officer, working undercover inside his own agency, undermining the stated Afghanistan policy by overstepping his authority at every opportunity; technical wonder- boy Mike Vickers, Green Beret, weapons expert, he is a lowly GS 11 who isn't supposed to even know what's going on and he's the commanding general at CIA headquarters, calling all the shots; Muohammed Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistan, he has a secret program to develop an atomic bomb , meanwhile he is doing everything in his power to help the CIA defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Despite the movie tie-in, this is not a work of fiction. This is the story of a real CIA operation, which became the largest in history, thanks to the efforts of a congressman from east Texas who made it his business to find a way to shoot down the Soviet Union's Hind helicopters. Charlie Wilson, on a trip to Pakistan, was shown the devastation caused by these flying tanks, which were invulnerable every weapons that the Afghan Mujahideen had.

The CIA was providing the Afghans with World War I era Enfield rifles and some light machine guns to fight the Soviet Army with. The had a $5 million a year budget at the time. Their goal was to annoy and bleed the Russians and keep them on edge, as part of the longstanding policy of containment. Wilson thought that, with a way to shoot down those helicopters, the Afghans were capable of driving the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan altogether. He wanted to abandon containment and attempt to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was only a congressman. He succeeded.

By the time the Soviets left Afghanistan the CIA operation there was spending over a billion dollars a year, half of it provided by Saudi Arabia. Kalashnikov rifles, Stinger missiles, mortars, Swiss Oerlikon anti aircraft guns, and millions of rounds of ammunition were streaming in through Pakistan.

Those Afghan "freedom fighters" who defeated the Soviet army with the help of Charlie Wilson and the CIA, helping to precipitate the fall of the Soviet Union, are the same Afghans who now are fighting again in Afghanistan, some with us and some with the Taliban. The Arab volunteers who went to Afghanistan to join in the jihad against the Soviets are the core of Alkaida. The challenges we face today are a direct result of our success in facing down the last perceived existential threat to or way of life. The biggest shortcoming of the movie is that it mentioned none of this. Instead there was a scene where Wilson fails to get a pittance appropriated to build schools in Afghanistan. In fact there was a multi million dollar AID effort that went on for three years after the defeat of the Soviets, which was finally cut off because the Mujahideen were robbing the aid convoys.

I'll Never Forget The Day I Read A Book!

I understand this is based on a true story. If so, this is an extraordinary story. Tom Hanks is marvelous...his acting becomes better every year. Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays the CIA agent is the same actor who played the writer (from "In Cold Blood); he plays the agent as humorous, I laughed out loud. Julia Roberts is having a wonderful career. What a great trio!

Unbelievable but not.

Crile presents an insider's view of the behind the scenes machinations and maneuvers which allow our government to operate.

Obviously well-researched, Charlie Wilson's War is a fascinating tale of what's possible when rules are ignored and no isn't an option.

Charlie Wilson was a playboy Congressman who was rarely taken seriously. A Democrat from Texas who was also fervently anti-Communist, Wilson made it his life's work to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan and in the course of doing so, set the stage for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While the book deals with events which took place 25 or so years ago, there's an awful lot of it which echoes today. I had an eerie familiarity with many of the names and locations such as Abdul Haq, Bagram and Jalalabad.

Wilson and his cohorts were trying to make Afghanistan the Soviets' Vietnam but as I read, I just kept seeing disconcerting parallels between the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and our present day experiences in Iraq.

I had an a-ha moment when Crile states that "Israel's most dangerous enemy was Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

Crile's non-fiction book reads like a spy novel and provides an effortless education into an area of the world which continues to have a global impact. ( )