Browncast: Major Amin on the Age of Strategic Anarchy in Afghanistan

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsynAppleSpotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above.

This episode was recorded over the phone, so please excuse some minor audio issues. As many of our readers know, we posted an article from Major Amin a few days ago, arguing that the US had made a brilliant strategic move out of Afghanistan (even though the disengagement has been handled poorly). In this podcast, he repeats this view and has a few salty words about this and related topics.. Enjoy.

Comments welcome.

Btw, my own random amateur views can be found at this link. 

Postscript 1: Several friends have said that they cannot take his views seriously if he thinks “lower middle class” is such an insult, etc. But I no longer use that particular filter too much. I think people can have very “problematic” AND insightful views simultaneously. If we are interested in learning (and not just in virtue signaling) then we can filter them out and still find something useful. Of course, friends will do that all the time with each other, but I admit that it is a more complicated question when we talk with strangers online, so if you feel strongly about this issue, this may not be the podcast for you.

Postscript 2: Is there anything in the podcast that I should have objected to during the conversation? I think yes, there is. I should have suggested that we cannot really say “the only good Chinese is a dead Chinese”. Other than that, I have no regrets 🙂

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Omar Ali

I am a physician interested in obesity and insulin resistance, and in particular in the genetics and epigenetics of obesity As a blogger, I am more interested in history, Islam, India, the ideology of Pakistan, and whatever catches my fancy. My opinions can change.

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Brown
Brown
3 years ago

1. wet pussy as in mrs.slocombe’s. in are you being served..!!!
2. sons of patwaris, nais, cobblers….
3. very salty indeed
4. lower middle class is what is running india too, to the eternal disappointment of karan thapars…
5. bottle of booz-2200

Siddharth
Siddharth
3 years ago

Very interesting convo, I wish the good major would have explained his thoughts in a bit more depth in some places. But he was spot on that te he biggest fallout of this is the destabilising of the wider region, and that the neighbouring countries (esp Pak) will have to bear the brunt of this.

Delving deeper into conspiracy land –
In other threads and articles some have said that the spectacular collapse of US power and the ANA may seem to be a deliberate ploy by the Americans to leave a power vacuum so that other rival powers may fancy their chances, enter the fray and get their nose bloodied. This seems to me to be missing the wood for the trees, as there’s definitely one player that stands to gain massively by a destabilised region – and that’s the US Mil-Ind complex, aka Raytheon-Lockheed-Boeing aka the guys who make weapons for other people to kill and wipe each other out. Isn’t it strange that while the Dems and Repubs can’t agree on literally anything, the more-war camp continues to enjoy bipartisan support. Indeed, all the other ‘missing pieces’ – such as why the US pays and patronises the warmongering Pak Mil establishment, or the massive caches of arms left over in their hurried exit of Afg – start making sense when one sees exactly who stands to gain from all this. And the tools of US state propaganda – whether it’s ‘god and family’ values in 1960 or woke values in 2020 – are just the means that these guys use to spread their tentacles.
Surely it’s not just me that has started to come around to this view?
DIsclaimer – I’m someone who has never been to the US and has always suspected that US pop culture is garbage so I may be a bit biased.

Conspiracy cap off –
I’d really like to know which groups/countries the Major DOESN’T consider ‘third-rate’ or ‘run by lower middle classes’!

Bhimrao
Bhimrao
3 years ago
Reply to  Siddharth

Major DOESN’T consider ‘third-rate’ or ‘run by lower middle classes’!

UK

Saurav
Saurav
3 years ago
Reply to  Bhimrao

Ran by a bunch of Mirpuris. So third class..

Maratha
Maratha
3 years ago

The fact that the Taliban is bad news for others and not so much for India is reassuring for me, although I am still skeptical about them not supporting terrorists in J&K. Btw, lmao at his accurate description of Americans eating fast food and not knowing anything about the world.

thewarlock
thewarlock
3 years ago
J T
J T
3 years ago

Very entertaining and enlightening in spite of or because of all the expletives and caste/class remarks of the Major 🙂

One nugget is that the US did not divide Afghanistan into multiple political entities that could have helped them be an indispensable power in Afghanistan. Basically, the US did not do what the British Imperialists did so successfully in the rest of South Asia.

His advice to Pakistan to not involve itself in Afghanistan is impractical.

Interestingly, the comments related to “low caliber” and “low caste”, could have come from Brahmin or Rajput elites in India……

Brown Pundits