At 40, Fred Thompson’s attractive, blonde wife of five years, Jeri Kehn, is considerably younger than he is. And while Fred is the TV and movie star of the pair, he looks his 64 years, while in the photos I’ve seen of her, she often looks younger tha…

We’ve backed other freedom fighters who turned on us as soon as they won. Fidel Castro, for one.

My interest in Jeri is relative to how it will be perceived by the voters in terms of his character and I don’t think you can really claim that Thompson is not in the race since he’s declared he’s going to declare.

As a back-up to Callimachus the Left seems to forget the “rogue CIA” agents that leaked captured weapons and documents to Soldier of Fortune in order to pressure the Carter Administration into supporting the Mujaheedin. This was in the fall of 1980, before Reagan was elected. Galin Geer and others championed the cause through SoF for the next decade.

The incoming Reagan Administration was indifferent to the Afghan situation at best. It had it’s own agenda for defeating the Soviets.

Private groups raised money…and not in the way Oliver North and Secrist did…and made a big deal of delivering supplies, doctors and trainers to the Afghan fighters. It was an interesting and bizarre assortment of old Yankee money, Liberals in Congress and British aristocracy. These private groups, such as Committee for a Free Afghanistan and Federation for American Afghan Action, felt that Afghanistan was the Soviet’s Vietnam and aimed to pressure the Reagan Administration into a more active role (would it surprise anyone to know that Barney Frank, Paul Tsongas and Paul Simon were players in this?).

The Frank/Tsongas/Simon connection is important because over the next several years with the Reagan Administration reluctant to support the Afghan fighters it became a talking point. Reagan was spending oodles and oodles of dough in the Arms race with the Soviets while the Afghanis were kicking butt on the cheap. Meanwhile they got one Charlie Wilson (D TX) involved. Wilson despised Reagan and all he stood for. That Reagan turned his back on the Muj made the challenge of funding the Muj just too delicious for Wilson to pass up.

Meanwhile, there was a small, but vocal group of dedicated anti-Communists that were stunned by Reagan’s lack of interest. One soldier they found was Andy Evia. Evia was a gifted Green Beret who ran the Soviet specialist team. He was convinced that when Reagan took office he would be loosed like a wolf. When that didn’t happen Evia resigned his commission and headed to Peshwar. There he met, among others,one Louis Dupree. Dupree was a sometimes French Intelligence operative, sometimes British Intelligence operative and through Galen Geer became the SoF man in Peshwar.

Through contacts they made in Peshwar a supply system, albeit small, was set up in Peshwar. In 1982 they got Charlie Wilson to go and see the situation. And Charlie Wilson (D,TX) became a believer in the Muj and embarrassing the Reagan Administration.

Two years later Tsongas, Franks and Wilson piloted a bill through Congress that forced the Reagan Administration to send several hundred million dollars to Afghanistan resistance groups.

AT that time the Reagan Administration wanted nothing to do with an insurgency in Afghanistan for a number of reasons. Chief amongst those was the effort they were making to defy Congress over covert operations in Latin America. They also wanted not to further provoke the Russians who were, by then, becoming quite displeased with Reagan’s arms and economic pressure.

They also had a different plan. By the fall of 1983, in the wake of the Lebanon disaster, they were sending scores of officer trainees through Infantry Officer Basic Course in Ft. Benning. Which is also home for the School of the Americas. Reagan’s people felt that we had terrible intelligence and connections with teh Islamic world. They felt that one reason we retained such a close grip on Latin America was through the SOTA program. They thought they could do the same with officers from other areas.

As a personal note the current King of Saudi Arabia’s fourth son is a very nice fellow who often had his chauffeur drive one of his Silver Clouds down the tank trails of Benning to pick up laundry during training exercises. Not just for him but for everyone in his platoon. Simply rent a dry cleaner for a day, bring back clean clothes and pizza and you have made some friends. Reportedly he threw one hell of a bash after graduation on the top three floors of the Peachtree Hilton in Atlanta…but I digress.

Let’s just say I have personal knowledge of teh training, and the reasons for it, that Foreign Officers received at Ft. Benning from 1983 to 1986.

Back to our tale:
The CIA was so less than enamored with it that assigned one man, Gust Avrakatos, to run virtually the entire operation. Which mostly consisted of giving lots of money to thugs to buy guns at Peshwar arms markets. (Ever seen a 1903 Springfield or Enfield from there? Gorgeous weapons, hard to believe they are made entirely by hand exactly to match the rifle they were copied from…including the serial numbers! ) The Reagan Administration found itself politically having to smile and support a plan that they didn’t like and didn’t come up with.

Politics.

Some members of the Reagan Administration did get involved from time to time. Folks like Richard Perle and Ollie North. From everything I heard North’s interest was primarily because the NSC had oversight and Pearle like d to tray and pawn off some of his more fanatical disinformation programs. Such as trying to get Russian officers and men to defect.

Once passed interest by most of the Congressmen and Senators waned. Except for Charlie Wilson who kept teh funding alive until the very end. And everyone ignored his plea that Reagan didn’t care. I wonder how Charlie feels now when folks blame Reagan for a program that really happened because of Charlie Wilson (D.TX)?

And there you have “the Right’s refusal to look closely at Reagan’s support for the Taliban/Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation”. It never happened.

Ronald Reagan, president January 1981- January 1989.

Al Qaida established late 1989 or early 1990.

Taliban emerges as a military force 1994.

Perhaps we should note the Left’s refusal to look closely at a calendar.

Again, that’s my personal opinion, which you may disagree with. When the spouse enters the arena, then it is fair – and part of politics – to call them on what they say in public – but not necessarily on who they are – or who you judge them to be.

I do not believe that the attack on Thompson’s wife – who has not entered the public arena of politics is warranted, however, regardless of whether or not Thompson ultimately runs.

Guilt by association is not a good standard. I happen to know people who work for companies and firms who do not agree with every aspect of what those outfits do. Do you? Or is everyone you know perfect in every way and employed by only the best companies? That is a serious question, not a snark.

That he spent 17 years catting around with groupies doesn’t make Jeri any less of a trophy wife, just a deferred one.

Not to mention, I don’t bring it up as a slur. It’s a real question. I’m genuinely interested in how it’s going to play in Peoria, so to speak.

We don’t intend to pick on you – it’s just that you’re a prolofic Rightwing blogger who thus crops up on memeorandum time and time again. It isn’t personal.

As to my own post – I read yours but maybe you didn’t read mine well enough. I say that because in your response above you again ignore the entire point of my post, which was the Right’s refusal to look closely at Reagan’s support for the Taliban/Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, which was a necessary precursor to their current pre-eminence in radical Muslim circles. That is Thompson’s “gloss over events” that i specifically address and to not address it yourself in turn seems a evasive.

As to my colleague Libby’s post on Jeri Thompson, I think you should go back and read my comments to that post. Like you, I acknowledge that “Fred!” had 20 years of playboy reputation between wives. I also looked at his wife’s resume. Nice. She works for the number one political lobbying firm in the nation. It’s hip deep in Bob Dole’s shannanigans and also in Tom DeLay’s.

Regards, Cernig