The Untouchables Part II. The Propagandist

In 1980, Dan Rather appeared on 60 Minutes wearing the traditional Mujahadeen headdress and garment while reporting from the front lines in Afghanistan. It was a powerful and convincing segment. What was most noticeable to the intelligent folk, despite his grubby attire, he was still sporting a $150 haircut. As a running joke, he has since then been referred to as "Gunga Dan". 

As the typical talking head, he apparently forgot to do his homework before he did the talking. The Soviet Union had freshly deployed troops in Afghanistan and like so many other journalists of the time, he failed to ask a fundamental question: "What is this conflict really about?" 

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a Marxist government, had asked the Soviet Union to help them intervene and quell the Islamist Mujahedeen Resistance which was undermining its' authority. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union had established an agreement early on towards mutual military collaboration in any future conflicts.

Dan Rather arrived in Afghanistan and sided with the Mujahedeen to report on this conflict. He made a fatal error. He never asked his Mujahadeen friends where their source of inspiration came from and what was it they wanted to achieve. Any political dilettante or a grade school student at the time would be aware of Iran and the American hostage crisis. We assume that a prominent news anchor is qualified and should know all the facts; the American public trusted Dan Rather to give the facts of the story and not a propaganda piece from the State Department. The outcome of Dan Rather's display of buffoonery was to involve the United States in a regional conflict which has no end in sight. 

His superficiality with his reporting mixed with a puerile view of world history and politics, Dan Rather did a profound disservice to the United States. He was unable to put two and two together and understand the concept of satellite states, spheres of influence and regional conflicts in a Cold War context. Much the same way Russia's military doesn't intervene in Mexico's internal conflict today, he never asked himself a fundamental question: "Why should we involve ourselves in this conflict when Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union are already engaged?"  Instead he pressed on in the public's mind that the Mujahedeen were freedom-fighters instead of telling the truth that the Mujahedeen's ultimate goal was to defeat the Russian and Afghan armies along with the central government's authority with the ultimate aim to establish their independence in a loosely knit confederation of tribes and clans. There was one detail Dan Rather omitted in his report:  All were to impose Sharia law and theocratic rule.

Another felonious and grave omission: All were inspired by Khomeini and the success of the Iranian Revolution .  

Dan Rather cannot be forgiven for not telling the truth. Ignorant and fully lacking any knowledge of the region's historical dialectics, he was a pure propagandist who diffused information while dissimulating important facts. He pandered to the State Department for the sole purpose, one might surmise, solely for personal reasons. As the nation's most qualified news anchor, he was instrumental in moving Congressman Charlie Wilson to try to help the Mujahedeen which led to the largest CIA operation in history. The young American men and women in Afghanistan are the ones dying to clean up this mess today.

Dan Rather failed to perform the duties of a journalist. He reported without releasing to the public the full details. His truncated reporting and out of style cold-war slant were directives originating from Presidents Jimmy Carter's and Reagan's State Department . He wasn't a journalist with a story. He was a propagandist with an agenda.