In the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Philip Seymour Hoffman played a CIA officer determined to help Afghans win back their country from occupying Soviets in the 1980s. The helicopter-killing missiles that Hoffman’s character promoted for mujahedeen fighters – and procured with Charlie Wilson’s congressional support – were decisive in turning the tide against the Soviet Red Army.

Francois Duhamel/Philip Seymour Hoffman played a CIA agent in “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about covert operations in Afghanistan, where most of the world’s heroin is produced. — Francois Duhamel/
Philip Seymour Hoffman played a CIA agent in “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about covert operations in Afghanistan, where most of the world’s heroin is produced.

But there is a cruel twist of ironic fate in the drug-addicted Hoffman’s recent heroin overdose death. Most of the world’s heroin – about 80 percent – is currently produced in the country where the United States has fought its longest war: Afghanistan. (read more)