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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.
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..
Great! Maybe now we can make our money back. What's the going rate for a dead soldier again?
Saudi Arabia is poor, because the downstream value of the oil is lost. The sales values goes to the corrupt ruling family, the ordinary Saudi lives in poverty.
It will be the same in Afghanistan. The raw material will be ripped out at the lowest cost (lowest cost meaning maximum pollution) and the real wealth of downstream value add will take place out of Afghanistan.
Just like the raw opium.
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.
This isn't a troll, but I don't really think anyone outside of the USA actually expected the americans to leave anytime soon when they were about to invade.
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!
OTOH, if discovery of these deposits were found as a direct result of US occupation, and Afghanistan sees resulting prosperity, the US's invasion could well be argued as benefiting the greater good... in half a century's time. For now, I think we can all accept that reasoning as bullshit. But historical opinion is always colored by affairs more recent, and so this assessment could eventually gain acceptance.
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/
Don't think that the money spent on wars is lost. It goes to those close to politicians who start wars. The war industry benefits hugely from any war.
Plus wars are invaluable to politicians. There's nothing better to rally a population than a war and good old military-based patriotism. No matter how bad you screw up, throw around a few patriotic phrases how "our boys" are defending "freedom" "for us" to satisfy the masses.
Why do American minerals always end up in the soil of other countries?
paai
Of course it is. You see, you are assuming the same people profiting from the enterprise are the same ones footing the bill. The one's profiting will buddies of Bush and Cheney. Execs of Haliburton, etc, etc. The one's left holding the bill are the American citizens.
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.
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!
What did you expect? The Soviets had a quarter of the country and had effective control of the industrial heartland of east-central Europe in Poland-Czechoslovakia-East Germany. Communism was on the march in Greece and Italy. It was in no way insane to think that the Soviets planned to push all of Germany into their camp and eventually dominate Europe.
Given the relative wealth and GDP of East and West, I'd say it worked out pretty well for the population at large. 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.
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.
I think you're confused. You seem to think the point of having troops in Afghanistan is to achieve some lofty goal, like ridding them of the Taliban (impossible) or "bringing Democracy to them" (laughable, see the history of how well the soviets did "bringing Socialism to them.")
No. The reason we're there - the only reason - is so that the money pump can operate transferring cash from USG coffers into the pockets of the military industrial complex. That's the whole thing, right there. Everything else is purest propaganda. We're not being "saved" from terrorism, the Afghanis have zero interest in our culture, the Taliban (if not by name, then certainly by culture) has a complete and utter lock on the region and the more we beat on them, the more sympathy they get. Which works great, because then we pump more dollars into the war, and the beat goes on.
The Afghan war represents the longest single conflict the US has actively been involved in (that means actually fighting.) The cost (profit) of the Afghan war so far has been 277,444,750,000 as I write this, it's more now by quite a bit. Follow the link, take a look. Remember: Every dollar spent goes into someone's pocket. They're not burning up, being lost or otherwise leaving the economy. They go directly from the US government into the pockets of the military and those that supply the military. Primarily the latter.
And what does the average person on the street here in the US benefit from this nearly 300 billion dollar corporate welfare program? Well, if you're employed by the defense industry, quite a bit. Otherwise, nothing. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are much more likely to produce terrorists now than they were before. Which, from the point of view of the MIC, is good, because that means more -- more wars, more airport scanners, more "security", etc. From the POV of the politicians, it means more erosion of the constitution ("emergencies", y'know), and more and more power focused in federal hands.
Our society has become the world's poison pill. I wish it weren't; I wish we had managed to make a constitutional republic work, it does seem like the optimum model, but we never really got close, and now... now I think it's too late. There is so little of either an honest republic, or a constitutional basis underlying what does exist... and our "democracy" is so twisted into a two-parties-not-of-the-people model... I can't see how we can pull back from the brink here.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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
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.
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
So it isn't a guarantee, that hardly makes it a bad thing in and of itself.
It does provide a chance for Afghanistan to get out of the hole it is currently in.
The country needs a functioning economy and government. Natural resources, while probably the worst in terms of often being easily "captured" by corruption or the dictator/royalty/etc are great in terms of ease of ramping up.
Afghanistan is not going to build a functioning financial services export sector in the next decade, or even a functioning factory based industrial sector, or become a tourist destination. The rest of the world is not going to let them make an economy on opium that isn't forced to be corrupt.
That the US is currently waging a war in the country strangely enough increases the chances that the country can use the resources to bootstrap itself into stability.
Doesn't mean it is certain by any stretch. But the chances before this was found were exactly 0, now it's a small positive number...
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
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.
I wish I could mod you to +6. Excellent.
I went to Iraq twice, '06-'07 during the surge and most of '08. I have plenty of friends who have been to or are currently in Afghanistan. I would love to see these two countries get their act together and be successful. It's been done in the past by other countries/cultures. BUT the way to make it happen is not by pointing our guns at them.
Unfortunately this find will only be of minimal help to the average Afghani. The only ones who will really profit are western corps and a few corrupt Afghani officials (read: Taliban). Furthermore, if Afghanistan allows western corporations to simply buy contracts to extract the minerals, even the corrupt Afghani officials will hardly see anything. If Afghanistan really wants to turn this into a long term benefit, they need to develop the ability to process these materials. The article mentioned lithium. Take the lithium and instead of selling it as lithium, turn them into lithium batteries, then sell them. Greater profit margin for the Afghani people and more jobs for them.
Of course none of that really matters. Opium will always be more profitable for them especially when it's being protected by the CIA and pharm corps.
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.
Even so, a third of the country lives on less than a dollar a day, and although that percentage has come down a lot
[...]
Still think mining has brought Ghanaians out of poverty?
Yes. It might not be as effective in reducing poverty as say, removing developed world trade barriers to agricultural products, but I'd say you already have evidence that mining (which according to the CIA constitutes 25% of Ghana's economy) does help Ghana's citizens.
As to your rebuttal to point 5, I think most of us are aware that mining isn't a clean industry and a lot of rock and earth has to be moved and processed in order to get the valuable minerals and metals. It doesn't warrant the vilification (even in the title "Dirty Metals") cited in the report you mention. From the introduction of this report:
About This Report
The purpose of this report is to show you how much metal there is in your life--from the gold in your jewelry to the aluminum in your automobile--and to explain how it was produced. If you live in the United States, your annual consumption of "newly-mined"minerals (as opposed to those produced from recycling) comes to 21 metric tons*--just over 57 kilos a day.1 This report will show you what lies behind that stupendous lode of copper and tantalum, gold and platinum.We'll explain how the mining of these and other metals damages landscapes, pollutes water, and poisons people.We'll show you why modern, industrial mining is one of the world's most destructive industries. And finally, we'll show you what we as consumers and concerned citizens can do to clean it up.
Given this sort of slam and the peculiar religious beliefs (apparently, it's our religious duty to clean up mining because we exist and consume minerals that someone else sloppily mined). My take is that it is Ghana's responsibility to clean up its own mess. If they chose not to, then I'm not going to second-guess them. The only real global consequences are a little more toxic metals in the oceans, which remains an insignificant problem as far as I'm concerned compared to its positive effect on reducing poverty. You seem to feel differently, even to the point of expending your own resources and effort to bring about a change. I have no problem with that either.
Finally, I don't know this Joan Baxter, but merely citing that she is a BBC correspondent doesn't fill me with trust. As I see it, the BBC (and much of British media) already has a blatant pro-environmentalist bias which Baxter seems to fit right into. Would a flawed or even deceptive book threaten her relationship with the BBC? Maybe in earlier days it would. I doubt it would now, unless some crime were involved in the publication.
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