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$1 Trillion In Minerals Found In Afghanistan
clustro writes "American geologists working with the Pentagon have discovered deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium of incredible bounty, amounting to nearly $1 trillion. In fact, the lithium deposits are so vast, an internal Pentagon memo has stated that Afghanistan could become the 'Saudi Arabia of lithium.' The wealth of the deposits completely flattens the current GDP of Afghanistan, estimated at about $12 billion. Mining would completely transform the economy of Afghanistan, which presently is propped up by the opium trade and foreign aid. However, it could take decades for extraction to reach its full potential due to the war, the lack of heavy industry in the country, and a corrupt national government."
This basically means we're staying in Afghanistan indefinitely. Even worse, in the end the only ones who will benefit are the corporations. The taxpayers and the government will never see any of that money.
I guess that means the US won't be in any hurry to leave now.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
...of minerals
Sounds likewe won't be able to become independent of these nations after all, even of we abandon oil.
think China and Russia are just going to sit on the side lines and let the USA get first pick on the mineral resources they better go put their flack jackets back on.
Right. They're fucked. Their best hope was that all the dopes would get bored and get out. Now there's not a chance in hell of that happening.
Conspiracy theorists will be eating this one up..
Well, isn't it lucky that the USA has invaded already - it saves them having to invent a thin pretext to invade later! Of course, the conspiracy theorists will probably be saying that this was all already known and was the pretext for the invasion but didn't make it public knowledge until now so that people wouldn't make a mental link between the resources and the invasion....
I'm sure the fair and honest Haliburton people will find a way to mine it exclusively and give the locals a fair share.
This basically means we're staying in Afghanistan indefinitely.
Why else would we want to scare out the Taliban, for the people of Afghanistan? Please.
Great! Maybe now we can make our money back. What's the going rate for a dead soldier again?
Clearly this new discovery gives anyone who already had any kind of interest in Afghanistan a reason to launch a full-blown invasion. Anyone want to guess how long it takes the US to conjure up some retrofitted justification for a full-on invasion of Afghanistan?
Move sig!
So exactly why did the Pentagon spend my tax dollars to find mineral riches for a corrupt and hostile foreign country? And why did we tell them about it before an honest and American friendly government (if the even is such a thing) was in place?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It's their resource, sure, except they could live on it for another thousand years, memorizing Koran and stoning women, and never even realize it's there. Hopefully it won't be like Saudi oil all over again. We discover it, we find use for it, we develop the technology and build the infrastructure, we extract it, we process it, we ship it, their leaders keep most of the money and use it to build gold palaces while keeping their population imprisoned in worst darkness and ignorance and then use that same oil to blackmail us.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You don't have to occupy a country to benefit from its resources. We did a very good job mangling Latin American economies without maintaining an occupying force. We'll benefit by doing nothing; I'd imagine deposits that large would drive down the global price for those minerals.
Bigger problems are what the summary mentions: Lack of heavy industry and corruption. Corruption increases with the square of the distance from Kabul. Bureaucratic processes are intentionally long and complicated; bribes at each step are expected and practically required. The central government has little reach outside of the capitol and inability to effectively tax. This means incredibly low salaries for government employees, encouraging graft.
"Lack of heavy industry" is another reason even a hardcore realpolitik would avoid "taking another [military] look at the Afghanistan situation." This means they'll need our contractors to realize any return on their $trillion in mineral rights.
DATABASE WOW WOW
China was on it since 2008. At least. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3941656.ece
The Economist had an interesting story about it something like one year ago. I couldn't find it unfortunately.
My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Sadly, no. You must start with a healthy government before mineral riches become a boon to the average citizen, let alone the poor.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/91538/vanguard-rebels-in-the-pipeline
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
So the US gov't invaded Afghanistan not for oil, but for minerals.
Lets liberate those oppressed minerals from the hands of the despicable Talibans!
It appears that nobody is interested whatsoever in what will happen to Afghanistan - the only posts here so far are people projecting their fears and prejudices on this new phenomenon. Let me get in the mood - looks like Halliburton is going to have to fire up their earthquake machine again!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If my suspicions are correct...
Yeah, I know a guy who has been there on business a few times. He mentioned a 'mountain that was basically solid copper'. The Chineese bought it and are running a new set of railroad tracks directly back to china. As this is in China's back yard, it takes a lot of pressure off the demand side of our markets. Prices will fall on these minerals, or at least not rise so fast. The 'I hate American capitalist pig-dogs' brigade can rest easy. There is no way on earth to get Americans to be miners in Afghanistan price competitively with Chinese slave labor.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
What's that, there's a load of money in their rocks? RUN!!
As you can see in http://kosovo99.tripod.com/minerals.htm and Saudi Arabia and Iraq before, US has good history of coming to right places in right times...
Also, Somaila's got some rich Uranium reserves... And I am 100% percent sure every big "human rights" hotspot od last century, and "terrorism" hotspot of 21st is "minerally supported".
Hopely, Japanese touchdown on asteroid will change things so we will have less wars in future, and more riches coming from space.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
NASA probably scoped out these deposits from space years ago. The reason for the wealth of deposits is that they are the deep water drilling equivalents of mining. No infrastructure, remote mountainous location, hostile citizenry and ongoing war and turmoil. On land we don't own. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
America will do what it does best, bring democracy and freedom to the world. Those American corps better get their bids sorted, the Chinese are good at undercutting everyone.
..... the damage caused by illegal downloading using limewire http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/08/159217/RIAA-Says-LimeWire-Owes-15-Trillion?art_pos=2 !
You don't have to occupy a country to benefit from its resources. We did a very good job mangling Latin American economies without maintaining an occupying force.
There's the secret occupation force.
The show is run by psychopath folks. They are really, really good at doing con jobs.
This is probably for domestic consumption. Now that,more than ever, people are realizing all these wars are making all us (tax payers) poor, "they found all this bounty".
They lie to get into this war, they lie all the way until today and they will keep on lying to keep popular support on another illegal, criminal war.
It is a big, fat con job. Propaganda, disinformation, misinformation to make us believe another fairy tale.
Is time to form independent groups to verify absolutely everything that the government says and does. They claim to work for us, the people, but the don't.
...that afghanistan converts to another well-behaved american colony in a month or less.
The Russians already knew at least part of it. They were the ones that did the initial surveys back in the 80s. The US geologists began to realize the potential when they saw those reports that Afghan geologists had hidden from the Taliban in the intervening years.
The Chinese are already involved in mining copper, albeit on a limited scale, in Afghanistan.
This can be a very mixed blessing. If it's handled well, and reinvested in the people and country, it's great. If it just adds to the corruption and infighting it won't be.
Ok, it's official, the G.I. Joes are staying there forever. All paid by the Americans taxpayers in benefit of the American corporations and in detriment of Afghan people.
My bigger fear is that now they're going to be like one of those tragic African nations that has tremendous mineral or oil riches. These seem to produce dictatorships where 0.5% of the population is tremendously rich and powerful, and the other 99.5% are left penniless.
Why do American minerals always end up in the soil of other countries?
paai
Are you guys seriously thinking the US will get ANY of it? The Afghan gov't stopped caring about the US the day we announced we were leaving. The Afghan gov't has already been cutting it's deals with the Taliban. The US is exactly on the other side of the planet. Hell, we don't even have a friendly neighboring country to get the ore through. What do you think we'll do? FLY it to the US? The Chinese have this locked tight. If we tried to set up any sort of operation, Al-Queda would kill our people, if the Talibani didn't get to them first. The whole point under discussion is us taking the value away from the Afghanis. Can't happen. For anyone else, it's a cheap operation with cheap labor. For us it would be a military operation with expensive contractors getting killed every day. Cannot happen. The Chinese have this one in the bag.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
If you think mineral deposits "wipe out poverty" you ought to travel to west Africa.
The vast majority (99%+) of Sierra Loeneans who spend their lives in poverty, toiling to find diamonds, have never seen a finished and cut diamond. Many never even find a single diamond. Sierra Leone ranks amongst the five least developed countries.
A single gold mine in Mali will produce $1.5BN (USD) and has made a 0.07% reinvestment ($100k) in schools from its World Bank loan. The words of one worker, “[w]e read on the Internet that AngloGold has pronounced that Morila is the most profitable gold mine in the world, and yet most workers here get no lodging or training, or even health care. In South Africa, AngloGold is paying for the anti-retrovirals for its staff that are HIV-positive, and here they take all our medical costs out of our salaries.” Mine companies often pay only hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in lease fees.
Rutile is 95% titanium dioxide and Sierra Leone’s deposits of rutile may account for as much as 30% of the world’s supply, and the U.S. government lists it as a “strategic metal” to be stockpiled by the U.S. defense department. Sierra Leone is pock-marked by destroyed farmland and displaced communities, all in the name of rutile and diamond minining.
Another poster made an allusion to the mid-east, but Africa I think is a much better example as oil actually has been good for the average person in some mid-east countries, but these are fairly stable and developed countries. To look at natural resource reserves in unstable and undeveloped countries, versus stable, one only has to look at Oman and Yemen (both oil-rich and neighbors, one has GDP per capita 10x of the other). West Africa is a much better comparison to Afghanistan than Kuwait or the UAE (so if you want to make the mid-east comparison, skip Dubai and look at Yemen).
For a good read (and my source for much of the info above) I would recommend Joan Baxter's Dust from our Eyes.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Oh, wait...
So are we going to get to see the price of gold plummet again like it did in the 90's? Could be very interesting times for everyone who bought into the Goldline / Beck fiasco.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Basing your economy on Mineral wealth is such a short-term plan. Sure the economy does great but only until the minerals run out.
We shouldn't be encouraging this kind of unstable economy!
The current Afghan opium based economy is much more sustainable. Drugs are a renewable resource!
The constant war and drugs trade in Afghanistan allows it to avoid the boom-bust cycle. They import invading armies who then spend money in the area and export delious drugs to those invaders in return.
This is the kind of fiscal responsibility that we could use in the west!
Afghanistan isn't really a proper country. Its a load of seperate tribal areas with a border drawn around then that really represents where the surrounding countries end rather than where afghanistan starts. Is effectively ungovernable and has been throughout recorded history. The tribes come together against any outside aggressors but as soon as they're gone they turn in on themselves and the inter tribal conflicts start again. I don't expect this to change anytime soon.
and how outlawing production and trade of drugs instantly creates a very lucrative market for shady organizations abroad.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
another Congo, and there's the gold.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Mine the lithium, then give it in pill form to the insurgents, that'll calm them down. Takes care of the economy and the jihad at the same time.
This sentence no verb.
The article did not confirm if any Unobtanium reserves were discovered.
If these are confirmed, it may hint at the reason Bin Laden has yet to be discovered - heavy post-production on his video releases have cunningly disguised the fact he is actually 8 foot tall. And blue.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.
It means that now they will make up any excuse to invade Afghanistan now .. here comes the weapons of mass destruction bullshit
It only takes a geologist or a google to show this has been publicly known for decades. Google "Afgan mineral specimens" and add -ebay for better results. The gem minerals being sold from Afgan locales are primarily those found in lithium-rich pegmatite deposits. The gems are worth from $100-100,000 for something that fits in a ziplock baggy. Raw lithium is valuable, but in rail-car amounts. I'm just an amateur geologist and if you had asked me I could have listed 3rd world countries with rich undeveloped minerals.
The same is true of Pakistan. Neither country has heavy rail. Bolivia has rich mineral deposits and mines, and the natives are dirt-poor and poisoned by mining related pollution, so don't hold your breath for the Afgans/Pakis to become developed countries.
Think of the Irony!
Now the invasion was totally worth it!
1.World Trade Center
2. Death
3. Invasion
4. Death
5. War
6. Death
7. ???
8. PROFIT
I don't think $1T in minerals is enough to justify an invasion and war alone, especially one that cost a significant fraction of that value, particularly if you look at the true cost of the conflict.
Why not? Right now, that would be quadrupling the investment.
Plus... you are thinking in today's dollar value, when you should be thinking in future demand.
However, it could take decades for extraction to reach its full potential due to the war, the lack of heavy industry in the country, and a corrupt national government."
Decades down the road sound just about around the time when we start running out of oil and copper and when our cars start running on lithium. Batteries, that is.
Only problem is - Afghanistan will NEVER be a Saudi Arabia of anything.
Its geopolitical position makes it far more volatile.
Its geographical position makes it far less hospitable (no sea or ocean exit).
AND, since USA has missed its shot to become TheGreatFriendTM after they've helped Afghanistan get rid of USSR and has become TheGreatFiendTM - it will never be as friendly as Saudi Arabia towards the USA.
Not to mention that it doesn't have a royalty class that you can buy-off like Saudi Arabia had/has.
Oh and... Saudi Arabia was not one of the world's leading producers of opium back in the Abdul Aziz's and FDR's time.
Oh, you mean like how all of the oil wells that were drilled by U.S. companies and then "nationalized" keeps Iran from becoming corrupt and evil, and run by religious fanatics? Thank for explaining that. Your understanding of the issue is clearly different than mine.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Lets say that the profit of a mining house in Afghanistan is 10%, that means that 90% of all wealth created by the company remains in the country.
Let's not.
Assuming someone learn't from history and negotiates an ethical agreement, this is good for the country.
You just keep on assuming then.
Or ass-ing, cause "me" is not having any of that rainbows and unicorns mega-utopia. U can have it all.
Yeah, you got it quite right, if not 100% right.
Unfortunately this is whats going to happen, and just like with Saudi Arabia you will get discount product as a thanks for keeping the scumbags in power, you know a bribe. Unfortunately we are also dependent on lithium almost every gadget uses lithium batteries, from flash lights to the latest cars. If they become the Saudi Arabia of Lithium we are in trouble if they figure this out. The biggest resource for lithium today is Chile.
P.S. How come muslim countries are those who have the biggest natural resources?!
The only interesting about it is that this is sold as 'news'.
While the NATO/US is sending troops and spending billions on fighting tribes China is definetely on the smart side already digging:
http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/2010/03/copper-in-afghanistan-chinese.html
. . . better than they can find WMDs.
One word: Zaire.
Enough said.
They aren't your tax dollars.
Otherwise, you'd be the one deciding how to spend them, wouldn't you?
And well, after almost 10 years USA have finally found what they were really looking for, MONEY!!!, well, my congratulations to the world's largest pirate ship.
From opium to lithium. There's gold in them hills.
...who thinks this is irrelevant for either US or China?
I mean, our DEFICIT is equal to the total amount of the value of the minerals in that country...Even if we took it ALL, the value would be swallowed up and would just disappear in a year...
Proverbs 30:15-16
The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:
The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.
Obviously, the USA and it's budgetary practices weren't around for Agur's/Solomon's wisdom.
What i can see happening is some Family Man getting into a meeting with a bunch of local folks and cutting a deal that goes like:
1 You don't shoot my people and make sure that that IED [redacted] doesn't get used on the roads we need (and will be building)
2 as we get the stuff mined and processed you get a cut of X%
3 my people of course will be helping you get rid of your "problems"
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Now we can privatize the war and stop worrying about it!
If W was prez, he'd know how to handle it!
What a coincidence! Luckily, we have been pouring hundreds of thousands of tons of ordinance into Afghanistan for the past 9 years so the soil should be nice and loose to dig up the ore. Genius plan.
By George $1 trillion is a lot of money! And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg! Imagine how much more the geologists could find if they were not dodging bullets all the time. Now let us be practical and reasonable. Extraction will be much easier if the country is uninhabited. It is time to declare the native population surplus and obsolete and zero them out. Well ... perhaps not all ... We will put the "good ones" on reservations. Plenty of firewater. They will be happy.
Given the relative wealth and GDP of East and West, I'd say it worked out pretty well for the population at large.
Did it relay? As far as I see it we are in a depression right now created by - guess what - uncontrolled capitalism and the USA. Not to mention that the great depression of the 1930 was of course also created by uncontrolled capitalism and the USA.
Which is why we did not want capitalism after the war and the CIA propaganda specialist had to give there very best.
But be assured: the US spent a lot of money making sure that the Nazis were defeated, and it was going to get its payback.
An so they will get there money back in Afghanistan. To paraphrase an old saying: for USA war is just the continues of trade with other means.
But this is not the point. The question was: Will Afghans love to have been patronized by the United States in 50 years time. I say: NO, no one likes to be patronized by anyone.
While technically taxpayers will work in those mines, in the sense that they'll also be taxed for their bare subsistence wages, it doesn't mean they'll actually see much of a benefit from it. It's very possible and in fact probable that the same will happen as in Africa. A tiny minority will get obscenely rich, while the actual guys digging underground will barely get enough to survive from day to day.
Or as an intermediate example, look at China. Or Russia. While the GDP of China has been rising like there is no tomorrow, the purchasing power of most of its citizens has lagged behind massively. All that happened was that its GINI index (i.e., the disparity between rich and poor) rose a lot. Some people got to be billionaires, while the workers of the sweatshops that made those rich are often living in comparable conditions to concentration camps and have to work 14 hours a day just to have enough bread on the table.
Additionally, it would be nice if indeed corporations actually did pay their taxes like that. In reality it'll probably be some daughter company registered in the Cayman Islands or some other such tax dodge country. And which likely doesn't even have more than a PO Box there. A lot of corporations actually cost the local communities or the country as a whole (e.g., via extorting subsidies in exchange for "creating jobs" there) a lot more than they give back in taxes.
Additionally, even out of whatever taxes will be paid, under a corrupt government a lot less will actually benefit the people. Likely a lot of that money will be circulated around in bribes or privileges for the already privileged, diverted to some swiss account of the "emir", used to buy more weapons, or really whatever else than actually caring for their citizens.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Corporate money goes to very few. Reduction in base rate taxes goes to every working person,
The afghanies are resisting the americans and are bombing the mining corps, but this american soldier is sent disguised as an afghani to convince them it's a good thing, but then he falls in love with an afghany ... wait a minute sounds familiar.
An incredible fortune in stones yet I would trade them all for a hand phaser, or a good solid club
There is no president, not Obama, not his successor, that will extract us from Afghanistan now. Now it's about real money. To leave would be to cede everything to the Chinese, who would march in *tomorrow* and annex Afghanistan as "West China." And there would be *fuck all* anyone would be able to do about it. And the Taliban would not survive either. The Chinese will not give quarter/tolerate that bullshit. They will not play fair.
The Great Game never died.
--
BMO
[1] I don't ignore tax/royalty/dividends that may go to the local government in my original post. I partially address this (mine leases in Mali that are in the hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars per year), but even if the mines are paying "fair" taxes (etc) to the governments, that implies very little about eradicating poverty in a country that is unstable undeveloped. See: Yemen vs Oman. When something like 90% of US foreign aid comes directly back to the United States (source: Baxter's book, which is full of cites, apologies I don't have it available), I am dubious that the taxes paid by natural resource extraction firms will be any more beneficial to the impoverished people of a region.
... as the "subsistence" farmers if their lives are better after the "economic activity" came to their region, and the answer is invariably: NO.
[2] Morila did get a $150M loan, yes (source: Joan Baxter). These types of loans usually call for community investment, that is the point of the World Bank (ostensibly anyway), to develop countries, not to make mine owners richer (although you can make a good argument for the inverse! See documentary: Life and Debt). As to whether they got this loan, I tend to trust Joan Baxter on this matter (she's a BBC correspondent, etc), although I don't have her book handy (I loaned it to a colleague).
[3] Claims of community reinvestment are now standard practice, sure. Note: you are citing mining companies press released. According to BP's web site they are "unaware of any reason" that would have caused their "share price movement." This just happens to be a timely example, but I think it's a good one, in that it's pretty obvious what caused their share price movement (I assume their argument would be that they are still quite profitable despite their current environmental catastrophe — while that may be true, this argument is spin, at best). I am extremely dubious of any claims made by mining interests as to what they are investing in communities. I'd rather believe neutral sources (like BBC reporters) who actually VISIT these areas and report on what they've seen. "Investing" $240,000 might mean they have a $200,000/yr consultant on payroll and he had $40,000 in expenses while "researching" how to help the community.
Quoting your press released, "in areas where there had been little economic activity other than subsistence farming..." Maybe those farmers were happy. Now there is "economic activity" there, but are the farmers more or less impoverished? I'll bet more. We are debating whether minerals in undeveloped countries bring people out of poverty, mind you, not whether mining companies pay taxes.
[4] Ghana is the most stable of western African countries, and thus the least applicable to Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I'm happy to talk about it. I'll be spending three months in Ghana this year doing infectious disease work, so I'm reasonably versed on its issues. As you stated, Ghana might be the best case example. Even so, a third of the country lives on less than a dollar a day, and although that percentage has come down a lot, and they may well meet their MDG for poverty by 2015, it's still not great. More than half the country lives on less than $2/day. 40 years ago South Korea and Ghana had the same per capita income (source: council on foreign relations). Still think mining has brought Ghanaians out of poverty? PPP GDP nowadays for Korea = $27000, Ghana = $1400. No contest as to who is still mired in poverty. I'll admit that I have a biased perspective, when I see children dying because their parents couldn't afford the twenty-six cent cost of a measles inoculation, three dollars for malaria treatment, or ten dollars for a bed net. And I have yet to witness mining or oil extraction doing much to help fix this. Sierra Leone, Nigeria, etc, the story is always the same
[5] To address the last sentence of your post, "But, the assumption that mines are inherently destructive, and that mining co
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
so now they have no excuse not to destroy the poppy fields, right? They have a new source of income?
If you think life has been miserable for ordinary Afghans, just wait to see what happens now that T$1
has been discovered under their feet. Some Afghans, French, Chinese, Russians, and Americans will do quite well, however...
Now we can accuse Obama of sending more troops to Afghanistan to get the minerals just like George Bush did in Iraq to get the oil!
*ducks*
Guess Harry Mudd will be there to sell wives to those lonely Afghan Lithium miners!
Since when did a rich bounty for the government mean an end to poverty. The money will go into the pockets of the corporation owners and the corrupt politicians.
The peasants will remain peasants and suffer.
That's totally inaccurate. They also use it to fund loonies who fly planes into buildings and put bombs on trains.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We had no problem with them stoning their wives when they were our friends.
Just like with our other pal Saddam.
If you don't understand finance on a national level there's nothing wrong with that, but please do not make stupid comments. No, China does not own the mortgage on the US. What's more they are not the loan shark who has a debt they can call due whenever they like (which cannot be done with a mortgage by the way, the term of the loan is specified by contract).
What China has done is invest in US securities. They have purchased US Treasure bonds/notes/etc. What those are is IOUs. They basically say "The US government promises to pay you X American dollars on Y date." The specifics vary, some pay interest at defined times, others are ones that pay face value on a given date, and are purchased at a discount. Regardless, they are all IOUs, the government promises to pay you money later. It isn't a debt you can call due, only way to get money early is to sell them, for a discount, to someone else.
What's more you may have noticed that I said they are paid in American dollars. All US securities are paid out in US dollar amounts. Also, with the exception of TIPS, they are specified in a numerical amount. So a note will pay $1000, or will pay 3% interest or the like. That means if the value of the US dollar drops drastically, so does the value of your security. They don't pay you in your own currency, so you can't say "Well our currency is worth 6 times as much now so you owe us 6 times what the note says." They pay in US dollars.
Then there's the fact that a large part of China's currency having value and legitimacy is the reserves of US securities they hold. It is an investment, like any other, and without it, their currency would have problems. May seem silly to you but it is how the world works.
So this is not a case of China holding all the cards. It is more a case of economic mutually assured destruction. For China to attempt to liquidate all their US holdings would be disastrous to them as well. Putting all those bonds on the market would badly depress prices as it shook confidence of investors. China would have to suffer a massive loss to be able to do it, which would hurt their economy likely worse than it hurt the US's.
Also there's a very real possibility they could lose everything. So as I said, the notes are only worth something because they US says they are. Also it isn't as though they are physical notes/bonds anymore, they are just entries in a computer at the Department of Treasury. So, suppose China threatens the US with the liquidation of all bonds if the US doesn't let them in Afghanistan. In response the US confers with their allies and reaches a deal: This amounts to economic warfare and by US and International law, in the cases of war assets of the country can be frozen or nulled. Or all Chinese securities go away. The other countries like this, they also own US securities and they don't want to see the value of these tank. Now, all of a sudden, china has nothing. A massive amount of their net worth has been wiped out. They can't use the notes as leverage because they are void.
So please, enough with the "China owns the US!" crap. No, they don't, neither do any of the other holders of US notes (including the government itself and many US citizens).
This is a little too convenient I think. I wouldn't be surprised if this "find" eventually turns out to be much smaller than originally estimated.
-- INTJ Geek Blog http://www.intjgeek.com
American geologists working with the Pentagon have discovered deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium of incredible bounty, amounting to nearly $1 trillion
And prepare yourself for Copperman, Cobaltman, Goldman and Lithium Man.
I come here for the love
It stands to reason that any society below a certain wealth/developmental level will tend towards fundamentalism of various kinds and as wealth and developmental level increase in society freedoms starts to emerge.
Cause uber-rich Saudi Arabia is recognized world-wide for the freedoms in their society and their lack of fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi)...
This is probably the biggest curse one can heap upon afghanistan. Poor nations with tons of natural resources, can never make good use of these resources. I can see an Afghan situation now that promises more warfare, more involvement from nations in the Indian subcontinent (none of which will produce a positive result) and a population that will be plunged into even greater poverty than the current situation. Also, no one would probably want to be responsible for a mineral rich nation which has been the site of war for 30 years, whose ex-despotic leaders want power and will kill anyone in their way and whose population is now truly pissed with all the liberators and the oppressors fighting for control. I am not sure why Afghanistan deserves this.
It's not the US that gets the oil money in those countries. It's their corrupt Arabian royalty and what have you. They get REALLY rich. People shouldn't look to the US to make sure the average citizen gets money for resource wealth, when it is really the people within that country treating EACH OTHER poorly.
This reminds me of the Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy, where a mineral rush in Siberia prompted a war between China and Russia (with the US saving the day with their ubertechnology). Is this enough money to draw the Russians back in again? How much more volatility can that region hold? I can't see this as being positive for any country really.
My Taliban Avatar training is almost complete! I was worried I wouldn't have a reason to use it.
The price of gold on the market has little to do with supply. There are quite a few gold mines out there, and a positively staggering amount in storage. Gold's value has little to do with reality and everything with it being used as a hedge. It is one of the places people flee to when the economy does badly. It is actually a fairly lousy investment historically. Even if you take an extremely favorable "You bought in at the lowest of the lows in the the 70s and have it now at the highs," you still aren't doing that great when you adjust for inflation. If you take a more realistic scenario of buying after the spike in the 80s you find that you are about flat, inflation factored in. Gold is a good hedge, it tends to move counter to the market, not a good investment.
So what is likely to happen is the economy will pick back up. As it does, people will start dumping their gold to invest in things. Gold prices will slide down as a result and so on. There isn't a ton of historical data on this since for a long time the price of gold was declared by the government to be a certain amount, but it seems very likely.
Or, the gold standard types could get their wish, the US government declares US dollars to be backed by gold, outlaws the holding of gold privately for investment prposes, and compensates you at the rate of $35 per ounce, the price prior to it being unpegged :).
Kinda like Germany in the mid-1800s. They turned out OK... then went horribly wrong... then turned out OK again.
I mean the fact that a land that has seen loads of war and oppression across a good portion of history sits on an element that amongst other things is rather famously used in mood stabilizers.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Ridiculous.
Someone needs to inform whomver wrote this story:
* Mining-company geologists have been scouring the globe for centuries, looking for mineral deposits that are economically recoverable.
* Minerals do not know about arbitrary political boundaries, making it highly unlikely that this "treasure-trove", if it exists, is wholly contained in Afghanistan.
* Minerals are heavy and hard to extract, which makes it paramount that there be things that Afghanistan has none of, such as rail lines, roads, ports, docks, electricity, coal, fresh water, chemicals, a stable government, a stable economy, and much more. Lacking just one of those items can make mining an impractical venture.
* No bank is going to loan the hundreds of millions to billions needed to even begin to extract these minerals. Banks do not loan money into war zones with no history of a stable government or protection of private property, and when the only source of quasi-stability, the US military, is on a countdown to leave the country.
Finders keepers, loosers weepers...
It seems to me that the US is being ruled in effect by the power and influence of some of the major corporations. They are certainly pocketing the tax dollars paid by the citizens of the US, ostensibly for the "War on Terror" (the replacement for the "War on Drugs" which was very successful in generating corporate income I am sure). The corporations get richer, they sponsor the politicians that will continue to let them get rich at the expense of the American people, and its seemingly a juggernaut that can't be stopped. Obama seemed to be the common people's response to their awareness of this, and there has been a tremendous wellspring of support for him early on, but with the massive bailouts to banks and corporations who should rightly have been thrown in jail, not bailed out (and thus rewarded for willful stupidity and greed), I think that support is lessening. If they have found a trillion dollars worth of resources though, I expect the US will find a sudden need to remain longer - at least until the corporations have sucked Afghanistan dry and spit out the withered corpse. The Afghan people won't benefit en route though, just the Swiss bankaccounts of those Afghani warlords who are bribed to let the companies in to rape the countryside. I wouldn't all all be surprised that this "discovery" was a decade old and is the main reason the US is in Afghanistan now. Sadly, that would make my own country of Canada just as complicit.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
This is great news. It gives us leverage to do what I said a long time ago we should do -- sell Afghanistan to the Chinese.
Think of the benefits! We get a large reduction in our national debt, which is mostly held by China. They get a potential source of minerals. And we get to see our biggest competitor -- China -- stuck in a land war in Asia. It's a win-win-win scenario!
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
No only did China get rich, but it drew the attention of the large international corporations to the benefits of having a totalitarian state to shut the people up.
If anything, trade with China has put back the cause of democracy worldwide, and we are possibly on the downward slope towards a world wide corporate state.
Need more vespene gas
You report, Slashdot decides
Prevueing you're poast ownly hellps iff ewe no how two spel inn teh furst plase
The wealth of the deposits completely flattens the current GDP of Afghanistan, estimated at about $12 billion.
Only if it was all extracted in one year. If it was extracted over 83 years, then 1 trillion / 83 years = 12 billion, so it would double the economy. And only if it was started now, at 100% efficiency, and cost nothing to extract. So basically, this is potentially really good, but it isn't going to suddenly "flatten" the current GDP.
Also, opium is renewable.
I spoke about "uncontrolled capitalism". The kind of capitalism the USA tries to export. You see between black and white there are all sorts of other colours and shades of grey.
The by-products and chaos and pollution caused by mining operations will likely be more effective than bullets in crippling the Afghans.
What might really make the difference here is if they can build industry to work with the minerals they extract from the ground. In general, and this has been already worked over far better by others before me, resources alone are a curse. It is the investment in their use that might make the difference. If there is really $1T to be made out of extracting these raw materials then perhaps the US/UN/whoever would do very well to help educate and train the locals in how to turn these into industry, in the long run you need a country that can stand on its own feet and provide a living to its people. Personally, do I think that the world has the guts to rise to this challenge, I doubt it - I want to be wrong, but I think that we (the rest of the civilised world) will just ignore this and go for the quick buck again. The reason that Asia is taking the lion share of the economy these days is because the US and Europe have lost sight of this simple fact.
We didn't just build the house, and the freight train has actually been running through its living room since the oil crisis of the 70s, if not before. Not only are people conditioned to it, they are actually taught to believe it is the very sign of Capitalism and progress.
However, if my lifetime has taught me anything, it is that macro economics is complete fantasy and voodoo. Perhaps it is OK and none of these numbers matter. It is not a rational market. It is brinkmanship. And the real capital is not money. Money is just one of the imperfect media through which the real capital of power and influence is wielded. Democracy, law, police, military, food production, energy production, and even entertainment are other media through which power and influence are wielded.
If the mining company were NOT corrupting those governement to begin with, or NOT accepting the corruption, do you really think it would continue ? jeez.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're an amateur geologist who thinks he's far smarter than he actually is.
The presence of mineral/gem samples from a given location means you have proof of the presence of mineral/gem samples. Nothing more, nothing less. Now the presence of such specimens means it's worth looking for the mother deposits, but it emphatically doesn't mean that such deposits are present in economically viable amounts/locations.
For instance if you google around you'll find all manner of gemstones listed as coming from Western North Carolina - but you won't find any major gem mining industry. Why? Because the deposits are thin and widely scattered, enough to support wildcat and hobbyist/tourist mines (and to produce the occasional world record emerald), but not enough to support full scale mining and extraction.
Here is the economic incentive to end opium poppy production. Farmers no longer have an economic incentive to grow opium it if the wealth is shared with them.
I predict that will not happen, however, and the country will still supply opium to the world.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Americans out!!! This not belongs to USA. Afghan People free from American pirates.
Handled right this could be a driver to bring Afghanistan into at least the 18th century.
Having said that there are still the enormous barriers of illiteracy, tribalism, corruption, etc
to overcome before any benefits accrue to the locals. About all that could be done initially is
some kind of extractive operation. As time goes by of course local industry could be built up
to take advantage of the base that extractive ops fund.
And of course the Leftwingantiglobaloanarchistdeathtochimpeymcbushitlercheneyburton crowd
will move heaven and earth to prevent any meaningful use of the resources. Not to mention the
mullahs who will see this as theft of Mooselimb assets and "against religion".
So now are the protesters repainting their "BUSH: NO WAR FOR OIL!" to "OBAMA: NO WAR FOR LITHIUM!" signs?
It just doesn't seem to have the same ring to it, in truth.
-Styopa
Actually, China is considerably more democratic than it was before, but you won't see it on the MSM news, nor on China's own national news. The democratic revolution has occurred, and is ongoing, at the local and regional level. In fact, in many cases, you might actually say that they're more "democratic" than many western equivalents - retaining popular voting for budgetary decisions and local representatives that you'll never hear of. And the likes of which are being increasingly quashed by "federal" laws and forces the world over.
Be careful, dear boy, that you don't miss seeing the rise of Chinese democracy as you belabor the loss of your own as you slide down into fascism. China hasn't been in this new mode for very long so far, but in the last 20 years, they've become almost unrecognisable from the previous political and economic selves. The same could be said for the USA .....
Once we get off oil we'll be using solar power, wind power, and unicorn farts to charge up our lithium batteries.
20 years from now you'll hear them saying, we need to get rid of our dependence on foreign lithium.
According to Wikipedia;
Lithium-6 is valued as a source material for tritium production and as a neutron absorber in nuclear fusion. Natural lithium contains about 7.5 percent lithium-6. Large amounts of lithium-6 have been produced by isotope separation for use in nuclear weapons. Lithium-7 gained interest for use in nuclear reactor coolants.
Enough said.
Oh wait, we already invaded, never mind. Nothing to see here, move along...
Though seriously, who would want to work for a mine in Afghanistan?
Like they don't seem to have enough access to high grade explosives.
You would have to have Mercenaries to guard your mine, and explosive depots. Sounds crazy, and also like some Mad Max movie.
We had no problem with them stoning their wives when they were our friends.
Hell, we don't have the problem with them - and I don't mean Taliban, but rather the "legitimate" and "democratically elected" internationally recognized Afghan government - doing that today, while Western troops ensure the state's existence! Their constitution explicitly declares the state as an "Islamic republic", states that Shari'a is the supreme law, and any law or provision of constitution contradicting Shari'a is null and void, and prohibiting any constitutional amendments that affect those clauses. In practice, this means death penalty for apostasy and adultery. And it's not just theoretical - there have already been a few well-publicized cases.
Is Osama Bin Laden there?
Opium is a Green industry, why would you want to supplant it with a bunch of mining operations... LOL
You'd destroy the eco system of Afghanistan! Imagine taking all those beautiful poppy fields and converting it into strip mines!
Not to mention what this would do to the price of Heroin! It would make China the sole supplier and it would price it right out of reach of most Americans!
I think it's therefore critical that we support green industries and and support renewable sources of recreational substances!
Write your congressman now!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The government need to get a blessing from the religious right in exchange for a cut (like they did in Saudi Arabia). And then the government needs to select the "right" countries, people, etc to do the work. Clearly no westerns would be allowed to take part publicly. I vote that the work should be given the Palestinians and other really poor Muslim countries. Reducing poverty would prevent the spread of terroristic tendencies.
Look at the nighttime photos of Kolea. The best one is more energy efficient.
ait, what? As far as I know my grandpa used his freedom to regulary vote (socialist) SPD, as did 30% of the population in the first elections after the war.
So did my Grandpa - even before the war. And good for them that they withstood the onslaught of CIA designed propaganda.
Oh, and 5,7% voted communist. And you know what: They were not getting any disadvantages for voting KPD.
For the USA and the CIA the SPD and KPD where more or less the same. If you look at some of the other post here you will see that the citizen of the USA still can not distinguish between socialism and communism.
IN A FREE AND EQUAL ELECTION.
If you call it equal when one political party gets huge sums from a foreign country to pay for their propaganda. If they actually get their propaganda designed by a foreign countries intelligence service.
And it just might be that without the USA's influence the SPD might have actually won that election first elections after the war. We never know of course.
Bolivia is one of the poorest country in the worlds with a recent history of mineral and oil resources, politics, and how little of the money provides economic wealth to the people of Bolivia. Instead Bolivia has children under the age of 11 going into mines because of their size.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44181
i'm going to go over there and ram my steel tipped boot down your miserable motherfucking throat you fucking piece of shit, how dare you fucking imply this great nation is full of unstable hotheaded individuals you miserable shitsucking asswipe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
China is not free. Even USA is like China in that regard because so many non-corrupt officials assert this misplaced trust in a militant capacity that forces the people to lifestyle and political choices that incur as a bad investment and liability. Just look to where there is liability or damage, and you'll see that USA is infiltrated by all kinds of foreigners that do their best to destroy domestic tranquility.
Wow!
US in Afghanistan at the right time? Coincidence?
you didn't happen to notice the military suppression of democracy activists exactly a year ago in iran?
the usa does plenty of evil in the world, and is full of bible thumping assholes, but this is its first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/estabinto.htm
meanwhile, this is the beginning of iran's constitution:
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/government/constitution-1.html
and this is a country where democracy has just been trumped by the revolutionary guards, where now you can wonder whether the country is a military autocracy or a theocracy. either way, officially, a bunch of grumpy old men interpret the will of god, somehow, and they now have their fingers on nuclear bombs. i don't care if you love the usa, hate the usa, love israel, hate israel, but a nuclear armed theocracy cum military autocracy should bother the hell out of you
but instead we have fools like you, who so hate the usa or israel, that they are willing to embrace an entity far far worse
friend: why can't you hate israel, hate the usa, AND hate iran?
why does your hatred of the usa and israel so blind your faculties that you wind up embracing a nuclear armed theocracy?
holy men who say they have a monopoly on interpretting the will of god, with nuclear weapons, isn't something that bothers you? no matter what the usa or israel does?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
heheheee
and i always thought what reason might usa possibly have to invade such a hellhole with nothing useful in it. i guess thats one possible answer, they probably had this knowledge decade ago, way before this silly war of terror. its clear to anyone that wars are not fought for ideals and justice but for money and power alone
This will kick off a whole new era of Afghani 419 Scams.
....
Request for urgent business relationship (imagine caps slashdot filter won't allow me to type in caps)
we need your help in excavating lithium and exporting it out of Afghanistan
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
Making sure the Nazi's stayed out of power in Germany doesn't seem as onerous as you make it out.
Not quite, it was more like ensuring we (or better our grandparent) don't swing all the way and vote socialist democratic party or worse communist party of Germany. The "right" party was the christian democratic union.
You see there is a fine line between making sure that evil-party X is not elected again and making sure that our favorite-buddy-party Y and no other is elected.
Ahhh..... Suddenly this hardon about staying in Afghanistan makes sense, despite leaving oil-rich Iraq some time ago. Seems odd they were looking, given that they're only (allegedly) there to prevent global terrorism and make afghanistan a peaceful democracy. Not like you accidentally probe for deeply buried minerals. And the gag? Even if they weren't looking for this, they'd now have to stay to prevent these riches falling into the hands of the Taliban and funding more 9/11s.
It's well known that great mineral wealth is highly correlated with corruption in government (esp. in 3rd-world countries). This is terrible news for the people of Afghanistan -- foreign armies and powers now have even more reason to be permanently in the country, extracting this wealth for their benefit, and poisoning poor residents with the waste products.
Graph of GDP/Capita-corruption correlation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3758798.stm
"In these countries, public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of Western oil executives, middlemen and local officials," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3758798.stm
"If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention... This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta. The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
As noted on the foreign policy blog this morning, this is very old (as in years) news. In addition, there is no consideration to the cost to actually extract the minerals and ores.
fp story here
But Iran is continually making progress and is totally absent any kind of total wackiness.
would you mind contextualizing this statement of yours please?
what i see is a nation that a year ago gave up all pretense to democracy, violently suppressed democracy and freedom activists, solidified the control of the government by its military wing, and continues to be de facto run by holy men, and is actively pursuing nuclear bombs
that's "total wackiness" in my book. how about yours?
Instead, they're the only nation in the world besides Israel able to rival our military technology.
and? so what? what is that supposed to mean?
either you support iran, or you don't. do you support iran, or not?
whether you do or do not support iran should, in a morally coherent mind, be completely independent of anything the usa or israel does. you should, for example, be able to hate israel, hate the usa, AND hate iran, if what drives you is intellectual honesty. unfortunately, there seems to be people in this world with so much hatred for israel and the usa that they are willing to excuse far worse crimes by far worse regimes. that sounds like you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Isn't that old news? I know that since roughly 20 years so I assume the "USA" know that far longer. This is in no way a "new discovery". What you think the last wars over Afganistan where about?
angel'o'spheere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Great, now we'll never leave, and we'll kill more innocent people to protect the mineral mines just like we did with the oil fields.
We've never actually been there to get terrorists or WMDs or bring democracy or anything like that. First it was for Halliburton and Arbusto (sp) to profit, then to let Blackwater use real people as targets in their training exericses, and now the mineral corporations will grease palms in Washington to cash in.
I bet our most corrupt mining companies with the worst track records for safety will get no-bid contracts to work there, except for now they'll be killing thousands of Afghani people instead of US citizens.
Call me old fashioned, but I liked it when we dealt with problems at home instead of stirring up trouble abroad. Bush introduced this concept that businesses can do anything and everything in the name of profit and Obama has done nothing to quash that.
Not enough Vespene gas!
Corruption increases with the square of the distance from Kabul.
Wait, you think that politicians and officials in Kabul are not corrupt, then?
Sorry to disappoint you, man, but that just ain't the case. The influence of the official Afghan government increases (quite possibly with the square of the distance) as you leave Kabul behind, but corruption? It's very high everywhere.
not 'Afghani'. they are Afghan (noun). it is the Afghan (adjective) government. there is no Afghani. there is a strain of cannabis called Afghani... but that is incorrect.
True wealth always has and always will be the preserve of the elite, For the same reason it does not matter who makes the
most money from these resources. It can be The 'elected' Afghan Government, The Western Contractors, or The Taliban.
The Afghani common man will hardly have a reason to rejoice over the news. In the today's globalized world, possessing
such mineral resources is hardly related to the country's overall development or prosperity.
The country's cause would be served much better, if they can find a source of good Governance. The form of government
that suits the country is subject to debate, and for me Democracy has not been the answer for every society's and
culture's need for government.
Looking from a regional perspective, in countries like China, Iran, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Oligarchy is the preferred style
of government. And i really would not mind the principles or the religion of the country's rulers as long as the common man is
benefited.
Billions of dollars of extra cash in the economy can in no way benefit people in a civil war situation. Rather Afghanistan could
really use a great leader from among its people, someone who can guide them on a path of growth and stability.
It isn't. Russia has known about this since the 80s.
This reeks of some misinformation in the making.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
we didnt have computers, machinery, steel mills, or lithium mines. we had guys running around planting corn, raising cattle, and working in hand tool shops.
we were 'poor' but we were somewhat free, and that freedom increased along with prosperity, who knwos which caused the other.
but go visit a mineral rich state like west virginia and then tell me 'mining cures poverty'
A source of prosperity other than poppy production could change Afghanistan from being a perpetual failed state into a real developing nation. What this really means is that leaving is more appealing. Optimally, we could leave a military base there to monitor Pakistan and do the anti-terrorist stuff without bankrupting the US or having huge casualties.
if the US said 'we cancel all your treasury securities' it would be effectively the US defaulting on a couple hundred billion dollars worth of debt. when you default on your debt, your 'credit rating' goes to crap and nobody wants your currency anymore. the middle east could move oil off the dollar if China wanted them to, think if China was a bigger customer than the US was, why wouldn't they just move oil to sell in Euros or RMB? secondly, what if they just decided to short the US dollar and liquidate their treasuries at the same time? why not?
Ask yourself this question, How many different resources did the US discover and exploit between 1776 (the birth of the nation) and 1902 (discovery of the oil in Texas and CA)? Compare the answer to what Afghanistan has recently discovered and that $1 trillion now looks like a drop in the bucket. Not for nothing, I always thought the only viable industrys for Afghan were opium and war. So from my perspective this is good news.
The Catholic Church before Martin Luther, for all it's many flaws can not be called fundamentalist because it at least put some effort into helping the poor and actually reading the second bit of the book - the bit about Jesus, not being merchants in the temple etc.
There were plenty of things wrong with it but they are different things to what was wrong with various televangelists, Jim Jones or even Oral Roberts who while honest in most things still imagained he had the power to damn the entire continent of Australia to hell for the indignity of an airport baggage search.
You can't blame the evildoers of the past dressed in sheeps clothing for the evildoers of the present doing the same.
We knew it years ago, so we made terrorist and dropped bombs to Afgani villages.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
no.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
(I am Russian, if anyone didn't notice yet.)
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I hope Afghanistan rolls out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Petroleum_Fund_of_Norway type of fund for its citizens.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Wouldn't surprise me. Bet the conspiracy theorists are already using this one.
main() {1;}
When exactly did they first make this discovery?
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First we take over their drug trafficking, we take over their oil - and surprise surprise - we take over their mineral wealth - run of course, by our trusty US corporations.
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Then we shall have more Iran's, more Iraq's, more Bolivia's, more Cuba's, etc., etc., etc...
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"The revolting peasants have flags just like ours, but theirs are on fire".
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
We always knew why America entered Iraq but the Afgan secret was kept well hidden till now.
Gentlemen, start your flamethrowers :-)
why US sent its troops to Afghanistan. So basically it is now bye bye Afghanistan.
And I don't think Americans or American companies are in any position to call others corrupt. Anybody who sees how they are dealing with Oil spill and what happened in Bhopal would understand this. Sheesh " $500 as compensation is more than enough for Indians".
According to a Wired article http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/no-the-military-didnt-just-discover-an-afghan-mineral-motherlode/ this is old news, from 1995, and possibly the 70s.
the truth finally comes out on why the americans and canadians are still in there
No.
Just look at mineral-rich African nations. The mineral wealth will make a handful of Afghans ludicrously wealthy, and other than that will almost exclusively benefit foreign corporations. From the perspective of the average Afghan, this means nothing except that the local thugs who make their lives miserable will be armed with more modern weapons.
I fear that between local corruption/oppression and foreign exploitation will only serve to provide even more fuel for the recruiting efforts of religious extremists. If we could find a way to use this wealth to help lift all Afghans out of poverty and into a comfortable standard of living, Afghan-operated terrorist groups would dry up overnight, but we all know that the corporations who control the American government would never allow such a thing to happen.
suggests this has been known for a few years
The Afghans have been blaming the USSR, now Russia, for withholding detailed information about mineral & gem deposits for a couple of decades now. Even US researchers call bullshit on this "new discovery". As to why this is being hyped all of a sudden, I will let everyone think of a reason for themselves.
Related: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/no-the-military-didnt-just-discover-an-afghan-mineral-motherlode
This cracks me up, see when we don't need oil anymore we'll need lithium for batteries. batteries that will go bad over time. lithium-ion, lithium polymer, nano-lithium polymer etc... You wonder why electric cars are not abundant yet? Battery cost is insane.
Money hasn't helped them but buy weapons.
Afghanistan will always be a mess until there is a STRONG LEADERSHIP as a counterbalance.
Only thing some of those idiots understand.