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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."
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.
As a german, that comment makes me puke. Of course not everything done to us by the US after the war was out of pure altruism, but hey, we just happend to lay waste to a huge part of the developed world. Allowing germany to continue to exist should be considered *nice* in that situation. And helping us to develop into a fairly wealthy country was fucking awesome. (Oh, and rose-colored "ostalgie" glasses aside, whatever politically fuelled the US did to us was topped tenfold by what the russians did to east germany.)
I do not approve of everything the US does today, but saying their behavior after WWII was "the opposite of benefiting the greater good" is so far from beeing reasonable I might have to consider I just have been trolled.