logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2024
1h 55m

176. First to Afghanistan: The Earliest ...

Justin Black
About this episode

This week's guest is David Tyson. David served in the U. S. Army first as an enlisted artilleryman and later as an intelligence officer. During his time in the Army, he discovered he had an affinity for learning languages, and after leaving the service, he began working towards a graduate degree, focusing his studies on Central Asia. 

He was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1996, and five years later, was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in November 2001.  David and the other members of his team worked side by side with members of the Northern Alliance as they fought their way through the country, culminating in the retaking of Kabul and a decisive battlefield victory over the Taliban within just a few weeks. Along the way, the team found themselves in serious danger, including the terrible and costly fight during the Kali Jangi prison uprising, which cost the life of Johnny Michael Spann, America's first casualty in Afghanistan.

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.



Support the show

Up next
Aug 4
207. Russia's Sleeper Agents Infiltrating the West with Shaun Walker
Today just talks to Shaun Walker. Shaun worked as a reporter in Moscow for more than a decade starting in 2007, first for The Independent and later for The Guardian. He now lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he is the Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Guardian, and mos ... Show More
1h 5m
Jul 28
206. Behind the Lines from Belfast to Sierra Leone with Tim Spicer
Today Justin is joined once more by Tim Spicer. Tim served for 20 years in the British Army where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and saw active service in Northern Ireland, The Falklands Campaign, the Gulf War, and the Balkans, as well as serving in the Far East, Cypru ... Show More
1h 15m
Jul 21
205. The CIA, The United Fruit Company, and Communism in Guatemala with Dr. Luca Trenta
This week Justin welcomes Dr. Luca Trenta. Luca is an associate professor in international relations at Swansea University in Wales, and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. He's written extensively on covert action and assassination as ... Show More
56m 4s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2024
Uncommon Knowledge Archive: Oppenheimer’s Edward Teller and Sid Drell on ICBM Defense Systems | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution
With the recent announcement that Oppenheimer, the film directed by Christopher Nolan, had garnered 11 Academy Award nominations, it seemed timely to pull from the archives this rarely seen episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson from 1996 (the third episode ever shot), ... Show More
28m 8s
Jan 2025
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Jordan Peterson sits down with experimental cosmologist Dr. Brian Keating. They discuss the importance of awe for the human spirit, the fundamental ethos behind all true science, the idea of the useless genius, and the necessity of sacrifice for improvement of the self and the br ... Show More
1h 36m
Jun 2024
Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Part 2
Once Dr. Ray Damadian had the idea to create a machine that used nuclear magnetic resonance to capture diagnostic data by scanning a human body, he still had to build it. And though he did, other scientists got credit for inventing the MRI.   Research: Bashir U, Rock P, Murphy A, ... Show More
33m 57s
Mar 2025
28. The Spy Who Betrayed Oppenheimer: The Manhattan Project (Ep 2)
What makes a man betray his closest friends? How did a German refugee help Stalin build the bomb? And why did British intelligence fail to spot the most dangerous spy in the Manhattan Project? Klaus Fuchs was brilliant, quiet, and unassuming. A physicist at the cutting edge of nu ... Show More
49m 36s
Sep 2024
485. The Rebirth of God: Pathology and Promise | Jamie Wheal
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with author and founder of the Flow Genome Project, Jamie Wheal. They discuss the death of God as it can be understood in the secular world, the new rise of Pharisees across mainstream religions, how to guard the proper aim against human corruptio ... Show More
1h 30m
Dec 2024
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
Last week, we heard a former U.S. ambassador describe Russia’s escalating conflict with the U.S. Today, we revisit a 2019 episode about an overlooked front in the Cold War — a “farms race” that, decades later, still influences what Americans eat. SOURCES:Anne Effland, former Seni ... Show More
38m 53s
May 23
FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: Oxford Doctor UNCOVERS Centuries-Old HIDDEN Knowledge of the LIVING UNIVERSE! with Edi Bilimoria Ph.D
Unfolding Consciousness, Exploring the Living Universe and Intelligent powers in Nature and Humans is our subject, and our writer and speaker is Edi Bilimoria born in India and educated at the universities of London, Sussex and Oxford, Edi is an extraordinary blend of experience ... Show More
1h 12m
Nov 2022
Dr. Sam Osmanagich: Megaliths, Pyramids and Earth Energetics
Semir Osmanagich was born on June 1st, 1960 in Zenica. His father prof.dr. Muris Osmanagic obtained first PhD in mining exploration in former Yugoslavia, was holder of highest scientific award “Nagrada AVNOJ-a”, member of Yugoslav Parliament, minister in Government, and author of ... Show More
1h 25m
Dec 2024
The Antikythera Mechanism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze ... Show More
50m 35s
Jun 4
Cryptology (SECRET CODES) with Simon Singh
Secret ciphers. Hidden treasure. Enigma breakers. Mysterious manuscripts. And … hog Latin. Cryptology expert and author of “The Code Book,” Simon Singh finally lets me ask him about the small mistakes that lost huge battles, the prison plots of Mary Queen of Scots, a cryptology r ... Show More
1h 15m