To: American Spirit who wrote (39922 ) 8/4/2004 5:31:30 AM From: Glenn Petersen Read Replies (1) | Respond to Why don't you see the frigging movie? I knew Congressman Charlie Wilson of Houston. He ended up covertly championing the Afghani resistance...We helped train and him and arm him....This was during the Reagan years not the Carter years. Declaring Afghanistan “the greatest foreign policy crisis confronting the United States since World War II,” Carter ordered a boycott of the Olympics scheduled for Moscow that summer. He embargoed grain sales to the Soviets and call for a massive defense buildup, including the creation of a Rapid Development Force. Reflecting fears about further Russian aggression, he unveiled the Carter Doctrine, committing America to war in the event of any threat to the strategic oil fields in the Middle East. His most radical departure, however, came when he signed a series of secret legal documents, known as Presidential Findings, authorizing the Central Intelligence Agency to go into action against the Red Army.Within days of the invasion containers from a secretive San Antonio facility were flown to Islamabad, Pakistan, where they were turned over to President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq’s intelligence service for distribution to the Afghan rebels. It hadn’t been easy for Carter to get Zia to cooperate.
