Forward to the past? Weigh covert options in Afghanistan carefully

Is “Charlie Wilson’s War” due a sequel? The movie, like the book that inspired it, recounted the flamboyant congressman’s role in escalating America’s war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Through one of the CIA’s largest covert action programs, the United States supplied huge amounts of arms and money to the mujahedeen, who bravely fought the Soviet army and ultimately drove it out of Afghanistan. With that country now under the control of another brutal authoritarian regime, some in Washington argue it’s time to dust off the 1980s covert action playbook.