Retired Marine Captain Dale Dye says after the initial mission in Afghanistan was completed, US troops should’ve immediately packed up and come home. I recently spoke to Dye via Skype – Dye’s on assignment in the United Kingdom.
Dye says the original purpose of going to Afghanistan was to find and punish those responsible for the attacks on 9/11. But Dye says, sadly, America’s hubris pushed politicians into believing the US could remain in Afghanistan and Iraq to install a democratic government, a mirror of Washington DC.
Dye says watching the fall of Afghanistan was sad, disturbing and shocking. He says he remembers the day in 1975 when he saw people lined up to board Huey Helicopters on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. Dye served in Vietnam and said the images of people crowding the airport in Kabul are reminiscent of those images he remembers in Vietnam. He says while the fall of Saigon took him by surprise, the fall of Afghanistan was something he saw coming, though, he admits, not as quickly as it happened.
I asked Dye if the Taliban’s promise to be more inclusive of women and lighten up on certain cultural traditions was genuine or was it fake. He simply replied, “It’s all smoke and mirrors.”
Listen to portions of my interview with Dye. This is a compilation of the 3-part series I did for Wake-Up Call.
Learn more about Captain Dale Dye here:
Photo: Dale Dye