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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."
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....
Obama has already promised that America will be out of Afghanistan by 2011. Didn't you get the memo? Surely he was briefed on this top-secret information before he made his decision. Looks like it's a good day to be Chinese - they certainly won't be bothered by our moral concerns.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
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Even worse, in the end the only ones who will benefit are the corporations.
And those corporations employ people, people who need haircuts, food, transportation, cell phones, and other stuff, people who pay taxes, people who need to get educated, people who get salaries.
And while it might be nice for Afghanis if Afghanistan could become the Switzerland of Asia--you know, build nice hotels, make world-class chocolate, and handle large, shady monetary transactions anonymously--that's not in the cards. This may not be quite as good, but it still beats the Taliban and ... well, whatever economic basis Afghanistan had before.
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.
I think this would have to be a huge boon for Pakistan as well. With Afghanistan being land-locked there are only 2 directions to the sea to ship it out, Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan would be wise to collect fees for providing the infrastructure to get ore to port.
To be clear, our "war" in Afghanistan isn't just about blowing up weddings (although that is a terrible part of it); we are also trying to "nation build", which means establishing things like schools, other government services, government itself, and the beginnings of an economy not based on heroin and terrorism.
I'm not involved in this project but I imagine that part of that last effort was that we sent out some scientists to poke around and see if there were some natural resources that might help. Apparently they hit the jackpot, but digging the jackpot out of the ground might cause more problems than it solves (it's difficult to predict).
This article from the Atlantic would beg to differ. Basically, the benefits to the economy are extremely short-lived for the populace, with all long-term possible gain from the natural resources going to the mining companies.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-next-empire/8018/