Charlie Wilson, the former congressmen who lead US efforts support to the Afghan mujahedeen against Soviets, died today at 76. 

Tom Hanks immortalized Wilson's legacy in the movie Charlie Wilson's War. It is a legacy troubled by the moral paradox of America's relationship with the Afghan mujahedeen over the past 30 years. In an earlier era, the mujahedeen were valiant freedom fighters. Today, they are insurgent terrorists.

To Charlie Wilson's credit, he was a lonely voice calling for the U.S. to help rebuild Afghanistan after the collapse of the Soviet regime. Perhaps this might have staved off the Afghan civil war and prevented the rise of the mujaheeden's rise to power as the Taliban. I don't think so, but we'll never know. Busy managing the collapse of communism and fighting Saddam Hussein, America turned its attention away from Afghanistan. 

Everybody knows the rest of the story. The war that we never wanted to be ours, Charlie Wilson's war, has now become America's war. This time, it is our legacy, and how we want to be remembered as a nation, that is at stake. We musn't turn our backs on the Afghan people again.