CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR.

• Author: Slade, Stephanie
• Position: FILM

The 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War suffers from a storytelling flaw: It's a little too true to life. On the one hand, Operation Cyclone--a covert U.S. program to arm Afghanistan's mujahedin against their Soviet occupiers during the 1980s--resulted in many dead communists and the withdrawal of the Red Army. On the other hand, the country immediately descended into a brutal civil war, out of which the Taliban eventually emerged.

Providing military aid to the USSR's Third World foes was a significant component of President Ronald Reagan's Cold War strategy. As Charlie Wilson shows, the short-term payoff could be high. A reasonable case can be made that it succeeded at hastening the end of the Evil Empire.

But the movie...