Posted on 06/13/2010 6:27:46 PM PDT by americanophile
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So it wouldn’t take that much for them to move on in. They’ll probably do it through business first. Like they have in South America.
“Far be it from the Afghans to discover this for themselves.”
1. they are too busy growing poppies.
2. Its hard to discover this with 7th century technology. Not much demand for lithium back then.
Well, if Iraq is any precedent, we’ll probably spend a trillion fighting the war in Afghanistan, and then hand the minerals over to the Chinese and the French. That’s what we did in Iraq.
Heavens forbid that we should seek any recompense for our expenditure of blood and money.
GAMECHANGER. Now Russia will simply wait us out (since we’ve announced when we’re leaving) & move in.
Yep, lithium is a key thing in hybrid cars ;-)
Now if only we can get the stupid snaggle-toothed knuckleheads to actually start mining, maybe they can quit growing those cloud-9 poppies and we can leave.
“How far is China from Afghanistan?”
They share a common border in the Northeast of Afghanistan.
A decade or two ago, an economics historian made a most extraordinary discovery, something unique in economics. He discovered the one and only known 100% correlation between economic national prosperity, and economic national decline.
Mining. Nations and national groups that mine are prosperous. The more they mine, the more prosperous they are. As they mine less, their nation is in decline. The discovery that this has been true in all times and places that mined was unheard of, and he spent another decade trying to disprove the theory, which he could not.
This is because mining is at the center of economic development. In every direction it stimulates the surrounding economy many layers deep.
This bodes very well for Afghanistan.
IIRC it has been known for having jewels and, I think, some gold, since antiquity. But the worst logistics this side of Antarctica plus an extremely insular population have kept out development. They need to build modern roads and rail roads before they can exploit their mineral resources. Pre-Bush they had little of the former and literally zero of the latter. The Taliban and the drug lords would rather keep them poor and centuries behind the rest of us and would rather build IED’s than either.
Makes sense.
But, still, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Why would they come out of the woodwork, we have more than enough here.
There is indeed a God and He’s am American! God Bless America! Take that where the sun don’t shine, America-haters of the world!
I always remember what an econ teacher told us about the creation of wealth.....only three ways...Mining, Manufacturing and Agriculture. I have been fascinated with this subject ever since.
I was thinking of your (2) when I wrote my post. Just 1500 more years, and they’ll be getting civilized. Maybe 1000. Maybe even 500. But probably not 50, or 100.
Karl Rove !!! You magnificent Bast@rd!!!
huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithiumAnd if there's anything the Moslem world really needs, it's lithium.
Great! Now they have every reason to succeed.
We will never leave Krapganistan
I wish I still had that reference. But I do remember that it was for serious economists only, and I needed one to explain its significance.
The author was meticulous with his research, however. He wanted it to be bulletproof.
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