Free Range International: An Iconic Blog Folds

In the summer of 2010, I managed to get Tim Lynch an interview with Tim Hetherington via Skype. Apparently, the two hit it off. They compared notes, discussed mutual friends and acquaintances. It was one of the moments I was most proud of --the pairing of two people for whom I had huge reserves of admiration.

Last week, our friend Tim Lynch pulled the plug on his blog, Free Range International. The growing popularity of the blog, coupled with his detailed reporting was making it harder for him to get around the country and carry out his work. By far, it has consistently been the best boots-and-tires-on-the-ground blog about Afghanistan. It was written by that rare breed of individual who puts everything he has --heart, soul, and checkbook, into helping the country find a future of progress and promise through small cash-for-work projects.

I could always count on Tim for a well reasoned piece --especially when it came to detailing the gargantuan USAID administered projects that spent billions vs. small, efficiently run, well managed and considerably cheaper projects, like MIT's FabLab, which wired Jalalabad with WiFi for pennies.

For me, the irony of the graphic above is particularly acute when one considers that an 18-month World Bank funded infrastructure project to bring internet connectivity to Afghanistan began more than SEVEN YEARS ago and only made its first international link this June. That project, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, is still far from being complete while FabLabbers are building useful infrastructure for pennies on the dollar out of their garbage.

There's no doubt, his writing on the blog ruffled a few USAID feathers. But truthfully, he spoke for every tax payer incensed that we're borrowing from generations yet born to pay for some pretty outrageous overages. If there were such a thing as an Afghan Tea Party leader, Tim would have had it in hands down. His rants were usually much anticipated, well deserved, and delivered. Few others had the up close personal knowledge, coupled with experience of working in the field (for almost a decade) as he. When Tim wrote, it meant we should pay attention to the use of resources both financial and most of all human. In his final post:

I have spent three years writing poorly edited posts in an effort to describe a way forward that did not cost billions. But our political leaders and military officers would rather hear that they could achieve results drinking tea from a con man (Greg Mortenson) peddling news too good to be true then from one of their own. Shura’s are how Afghans solve problems; few of us internationals have the language skill, patience, or reputations required to get things done with a Shura. Sitting down to drink tea while being humble means nothing to Afghans; they have seen enough good intentions and are now only interested in results.

Tim was adept and specific when it came to revealing the necessity and good work contractors carry out. They are not as the media paints them -thugs with guns beating up locals. They are carrying out a variety of jobs with a broad range that from security, delivering humanitarian aide, and building infrastructure. Tim dispelled many of the untruths and wrong impressions that the majority of Americans (thanks to some poor and biased reporting) have about contractors. He really did break new ground in our thinking about the role of contractors, bringing to light that they did not make the oodles of money so often assumed. In some ways, he did for contractors what Sebastian Junger and the late Tim Hetherington did in describing the brotherhood of soldiers.

Thanks Tim. It was a good ride. Yours was a much needed and critical voice. It was refreshing, that blast of reality that we yearned for. Be safe out there, my friend. We'll see you when you are back on home turf, but frankly it is difficult to imagine you anywhere else but Afghanistan, or some other place where everything requires a strategy.