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Afghan Tech Minerals — Cure, Curse, Or Hype?
Gooseygoose writes "The Pentagon revealed recently that Afghanistan has as much as $1 trillion in mineral wealth, a potential game changer in the ongoing conflict there. Many news outlets have picked up this story, some simply repeating the official talking points, while others raise serious concerns. Is this 'discovery' just hype, or will it truly alter the landscape of the Afghan war? Perhaps more importantly, can this mineral wealth (whether real or illusory) pave the way to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, or is it more likely to drive geopolitical feedback loops that plunge the region further into turmoil?"
Relatedly, Marc Ambinder wrote a few days ago in the Atlantic that the US had knowledge of vast mineral deposits in Afghanistan several years ago, giving the recent announcement the appearance of a PR campaign.
El Reg just thinks it is a complete PR exercise.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/afghanistan_mineral_report/
Extracting the wealth is neither simple or sensible.
wot no sig
Poor religious nutballs will just become rich religious nutballs. And if anyone thinks that the Afghan mainstream aren't a bunch of religious nutballs, go rent a documentary called Afghan Star (about the Afghan equivalent of "American Idol") and watch what happens when a female contestant dares to dance on stage.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It takes time to follow someone else's notes, written in Russian, get core samples (in a war zone).
If you read the original NY Times article, they did arial surveys over most of the country, not boots on the ground core samples.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Wooosh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx7a3leZJJI
"The Taliban were legitimate bad guys"
These are the same "Taliban" that the US funded for decades and for whom they provided training and other non-munition resources. The history of the US is one of hypocrisy and so many double standards that I wonder if you are on no one elses side other than your own perverted sense of morality and ethics.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
The Taliban has only existed since 1994, so that gives them at most 7 years of funding opportunity before they ran afoul of the US. Even so, I can only remember some anti-drug money going to the Taliban.
Ok, so you respond, we armed and funded the mujahedin, part of which eventually formed the Taliban. This is not what you stated in this post, though. Glad to know you never made a decision that went against your initial hopes, though.
"If you stop to think about it what purpose does the Iraq and Afghanistan wars serve the US?"
The Afghanistan war (not Iraq), was to destroy an enemy strong hold that planned and launched an attack on the US, targeting civilians, and succeed in killing more of them, than in any other foreign attack. (No, not referring to the attack on Pearl Harbor, that at least was an attack in military targets, an US civilian casualties was collateral damage).
Yes, most of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, but they were Al-Qaeda agents, basing out of Afghanistan.
If you attack another country, you expect them to do something back.
The purpose of the continued war in Afghanistan is to fill the power vacuum with a government that will not allow a similar thing to happen again.
The effectiveness of these two purposes, is matter for great debate. The reasons were pretty simple, the solutions are not.
Afghanistan is considered Central Asia, not the Middle East FYI.