que pasa

I like Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, that’s why I picked up the movie. The acting and the story were good and I enjoyed watching both.

It’s basically about how this congressman and socialite exercise their influence in the States secure funding for weapons for the Afghans to fight off the Russians. These two quotes came from the movie:

“A boy is given a horse on his 14th birthday. Everyone in the village says, “Oh how wonderful.” But a Zen master who lives in the village says, “We’ll see.” The boy falls off the horse and breaks his foot. Everyone in the village says, “Oh how awful.” The Zen master says, “We’ll see.” The village is thrown into war and all the young men have to go to war. But, because of the broken foot, the boy stays behind. Everyone says, “Oh, how wonderful.” The Zen master says, “We’ll see.” – Zen master story

“These things really happened. We changed the world, then we [blew] the end game.” – Charlie Wilson

At the end of the movie, Charlie Wilson had requested a 1 million budget (in relation to the 500 million war budget) to build schools to educate the young Afghan people who had been roped in the war effort. Otherwise they’d come back and see the damage inflicted on their towns and have no way of dealing with it, and nothing to keep them occupied.

The committee turned down the proposal and the movie ends there. The movie implies that this lack of closure of the war effort directly or indirectly turned on America. In equipping the Afghans to fight the Russians, these same weapons were eventually used to equip the terrorist group which eventually attacked the States on 9/11.

While we may not be in a place to affect so many people, I think it is still true that our actions and decisions may have ripple effects beyond our perception and imagination. I can only hope the positive effects superset the negative effects. We’ll just have to see.