Americans outside of government worked online to enable people on the ground in Afghanistan to rescue people from the Taliban. This is good news. But it is a two-edged sword.
These groups of veterans and officials are leaning on their decades of deployments and thousands of hours of in-country experience in Afghanistan to act as emergency dispatchers, calling in favors with gate guards, sharing intelligence about Taliban actions and directing families to the right runway to get a flight — all from thousands of miles away. They are using Slack and Signal groups to share highly sensitive information and sending photos of evacuees to gate guards for verification. Others are software engineers and Silicon Valley investors who have connections to the region and the knowledge to code. ...
As the time frame for Afghans to leave shrinks, the volunteers are even booking transportation for evacuees. Reed’s group on Signal has pursued everything from buses to chartered flights, paid for and funded by private donations. Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary officer and Trump administration Pentagon official, said the volunteer group he works with, TF Dunkirk, has been working to secure helicopters out.
And there have been more taking action.
Radical feminists rescued 30 Afghan feminists from Taliban rule. I have respect for the radical feminists who didn't try to pretend Afghanistan under the Taliban will be a non-Western sanctuary from the West's so-called Hellscape:
What feminists in the West easily take for granted—Afghan feminists have to die for. If they don’t want to wear a burqa, marry their first cousin, be battered for the rest of their lives; if they want a higher education, do not want to marry, are determined to help other women—they are endangered, targeted, tortured, and executed. Their own families might honor kill them. Now, they may be forced into sex slavery by the Taliban in order to breed a new generation of warriors.
I will have to retract my blanket contempt that I recently expressed given that some feminists are not addled by intersectional solidarity to make excuses for the scum of the Earth.
Another private effort rescued 5,100 Christians and other "vulnerable people" from Afghanistan.
Tips to Instapundit for the last two stories.
Years ago I wondered if civilians might directly help our troops in the field as a digital camp followers. These evacuation efforts weren't direct help, but parallel help for the same mission of evacuation.
What comes next after this bottom-up increase in civilian assistance in a war zone? This feeling from the initial article is a warning shot:
“As an American, I’m tired of feeling powerless,” said Joe Saboe, a former infantry officer who fought in Mosul, Iraq, and a spokesman for Team America. “And I’ve seen things that I don’t like happening in the world.”
As I projected, it is possible to use the Internet to wage foreign policy separate from the government.
And it isn't just Americans that can do this, as Russian Colonial Pipeline ransom hackers allegedly separate from the Russian government hint at.
The longer this Long War drags on without the West winning, the more likely that private entities will wage war and the more likely some form of supporting infrastructure will arise to use the surplus fighting talent out there.
So some time in the future, potential warmakers will turn on their computers to hear the soft voice say, "Hello. You've got war." The ability to right click to destroy won't be our military's sole domain forever.
People will not long tolerate a government monopoly on using force abroad if the government proves inept. Could the some of the people and groups that carried out the digital Dunkirk return to the fight to help these guys?
The Taliban have swept through Afghanistan with remarkable speed.
But as they sit in Kabul planning their new government, there remains a large thorn in their side: a small valley of anti-Taliban resistance just north-east of the capital, refusing to give up despite being entirely surrounded.
For better or worse, Biden's skedaddle debacle in Afghanistan brings that era closer.
A lot more war followed Dunkirk, recall.
UPDATE: The digital Dunkirk is running into problems:
An NGO in Afghanistan said two planes have been ready to evacuate 600 to 1,200 people, including 19 American citizens and two permanent residents, for the past six days while the U.S. government and Taliban continue to talk.
We're only dickering over the price America pays, I assume. That's how our State Department defines its "leverage".
This NGO reliance on a state for "leverage" lasts until the digital actors have their own military power to wield.
UPDATE: Wait. What? The American government is blocking the flights??!! Tip to PJ Media.
