Word: mujahedin
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...conventionalists gained the upper hand after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis charged across the border to aid their brothers in defending Islam, and Muslims around the world cheered the success of the mujahedin. The religious groups that backed jihad were given political prominence, and their coffers swelled with contributions and fees earned for training and supplying jihadis. The moderate religious groups who refused to sanction killing, even in the defense of Islam, were punished with political purgatory, from which they have yet to emerge...
...winners have gathered to chat with TIME's BELINDA LUSCOMBE about their new film Charlie Wilson's War, written by The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, directed by Mike Nichols and produced by Playtone, Hanks' company. The true story of a large-living Texas Congressman who secretly helped the mujahedin expel the Soviets from Afghanistan, the movie is history played for laughs. The interview played the same...
TIME: A lot of people probably don't know much about this story, and I just thought the mujahedin were feisty Afghans who beat the Russians by themselves. Were you aware of it at the time...
...lived through mud slides, rain and windstorms," he says. "Barbara even got to ride a camel. I've done that a lot before," he adds dryly. In the 1980s he rode up and down the Khyber Pass, looking like John Wayne, in an effort to cheer on the mujahedin...
What is truly mind-boggling about Wilson's extraordinary saga is that not one word of it leaked to the press. He credits this to the bipartisan spirit in Congress at the time. "It never leaked because nobody wanted it to," he says. "Everybody was pulling for [the mujahedin]. It was amazing and will never, never, ever happen again...