Former Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) has passed away. The Gormogons express their condolences to the family.

You may remember him as the subject of a whoppingly distorted biopic entitled Charlie Wilson’s War, in which Hollywood attempted to rewrite the history of the 1980s to credit the Democrats with the fall of the Soviets instead of Ronald Reagan.

The Houston Chronicle, which took its lead from AP, repeats the lunatic idea that his “funding” of the mujahedeen pushed the Soviets back in Afghanistan to where they bankrupted themselves. Actually, what Wilson did was fund the root sponsors of al-Qâ’ida. The Carter administration did not know this at the time, of course: their ignorance of Afghani politics simply encouraged them to back the wrong group (something that did not end with Carter). His actual role in the process was limited at best, but so undocumented that any claims he made were as probable as anyone else’s. He is a victim of the fallacy of foreign policy egocentrism, in that because the so-called rebels hated the Soviets, they therefore loved the United States and would do whatever we asked.

Additionally, it should be recalled that the mujahedeen were not successful in driving out the Soviets. The Soviet economy collapsed against the Reagan spending juggernaut, and the Soviets had no choice but to pull their army out in 1989 to save precious funding. Since the Soviets occupied nearly all of Afghanistan, it is difficult to accept the AP’s account that the Soviets were defeated, and this thereby led to the fall of communism.

Of course, should liberals open a history book, they might not like what they find.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.