A network of “hundreds of thousands” of people, including analysts, are using satellite imagery and other tools to help Afghan interpreters who worked for U.S. forces to evade Taliban checkpoints in Kabul and bring them to the safety of the airport.
The network’s efforts are necessary because the Biden administration is offering little assistance to the 20,000 interpreters and their families who are at great risk every second they remain in Afghanistan.
This is from Rick Moran, “Digital Dunkirk: Veterans Network Helps Afghan Interpreters Get to Kabul Airport,” pjmedia, August 22, 2021.
Fascinating throughout, but the quote above is the best part.
Very Hayekian in spirit: Decentralized people using a combination of decentralized and centralized information. If you’re wondering what I mean, read Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review, September 1945.
READER COMMENTS
Henri Hein
Aug 24 2021 at 11:54am
It is at once depressing to learn about the abandoned interpreters, while heartening to know so many people care and are willing to help out.
The Atlantic has an article about the abandoned interpreters as well. It goes into more details about 2 of them. I was really struck by this line:
In the midst of the chaos and danger, they are still Vogonesquely adhering to their bureaucratic imperatives. I point this out, because it seems like such a poignant contrast to the efforts at getting the people out of Afghanistan. They have to fight not just the Taliban, but US bureaucracy. It reinforces the point that decentralized efforts work better.
Evan Sherman
Aug 24 2021 at 2:07pm
On the one hand, I totally agree. Not even going to spend a lot of time trying to re-state what I think you’ve already stated well: De-centralized efforts work better than anyone expects.
On the other hand: The state’s monopoly on violence – especially facing other states – means that it is really the only one that can perform certain preogatives. For example: sending men with guns to kill other men with guns when those men with guns threaten otherwise unacceptable costs. When and how often that is necessary is infinitely debatable, of course, but there’s no real debate (excluding anarchists) that there should be a de-centralized network of internationally deployed self-funded militiamen to go push the Taliban back far enough that the evacuations can happen and happen with less humanitarian horror.
To me, that’s what makes this situation so irredeemably horrific. I could totally be persuaded that, at a high level, we are better of not having a military presence in Afghanistan. It’s cost/benefit analysis. But the idea that the military would mostly leave first and then we would evacuate people under the gun of Taliban militants (rather than the other way around) is just ridiculous. And I’m concerned that, when our discussions focus on the logistical efficiency of getting people out under the gun of the Taliban, we are implicitly accepting the circumstance of Taliban occupation during the evaluation as a given. This is not an effort to coordinate assistance in the face of a natural catastrophe. The bad military strategy (one of the only exclusive state prerogatives) created the whole catastrohpic situtaion on the front end; this is an avoidable man-made catastrophe.
robc
Aug 24 2021 at 3:22pm
Letter of Marque and Reprisal.
Evan Sherman
Aug 24 2021 at 3:49pm
To be fair, yes, the state, in pursuit of essentially public prerogatives, can contract work out to private entities if and when that works better. US intelligence, for example, does this all the time when they need cyber experts to help them with bad guys on the inter-nets :). See also: roads. But that’s really just a different flavor of the same thing, at a high level.
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