Ehh...USA found 1 trillion worth of minerals...in Afghanistan.
LOL.
I guess I was wrong,it was oil pipelines...and minerals.
Funny,many "western" companies are digging around world for "resources"...Before war in ex-Yu they found oil in...Bosnia(there was US base near that area),also in another war region Kosovo they found simillar minerals too(big USA base in middle of it) and so on....I guess if you have valuable resources and your government is not corrupted enough,you might end up in a "civil war" one day.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37677987/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times
Saudi Arabia of lithium....discovered by "Pentagon scientists".
Lihtium is used in laptop batteries and also future for car batteries.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6867030.ece
Didn't I say that oil spill in Gulf was shady?
I guess they want to create enviroment disaster so people get sick of oil and start moving to EV technology....and guess who controls Saudi Arabia of lihtium???
News barely made it onto CNN and then disappeared,on Fox News they are arguing how "Talibans would benefit from this".
Hopefully all of the people of Afghanistan can benefit from a budding new industry for them.
Yes,people of Afghanistan.
Its amazing comments people are living on other sites....they act like this is something innocent,like they just found minerals by accident.
CIA knew about all these resources from Russians DECADES AGO,which explains why they got involved in Afghanistan in first place.Now "conveniently" in 2010 they "discover" all those minerals.
Wasn't it just reported that Bolivia was the Saudi Arabia of lithium? Wouldn't it have been a lot easier and cheaper to invade them instead of Afghanistan? They are much closer to us and I bet the CIA has more experience there too.
Quote from: Dog Walker on June 14, 2010, 03:11:18 PM
Wasn't it just reported that Bolivia was the Saudi Arabia of lithium? Wouldn't it have been a lot easier and cheaper to invade them instead of Afghanistan? They are much closer to us and I bet the CIA has more experience there too.
But they have a friend in Hugo and a deity in Che.
Bos, are you suggesting the US started a trillion dollar war so that it could make a trillion dollars? We in the US are falling behind in math, but that seems highly illogical. But hey, sometimes you can get just greedy and bored enough that anything sounds like a lark.
Quote from: Dog Walker on June 14, 2010, 03:11:18 PM
Wasn't it just reported that Bolivia was the Saudi Arabia of lithium? Wouldn't it have been a lot easier and cheaper to invade them instead of Afghanistan? They are much closer to us and I bet the CIA has more experience there too.
There is more then lithium...gold,iron,oil and opium.
Afghanistan is gold mine,it was NEVER exploited.Most of lithium there is EASY to access.That is reason they call it Saudi Arabia of lithium...its east to get it.
1 trillion is probably on low side,they are not telling us entire truth...there could be 3-5 trillion dollars worth of stuff.
Entire country is controlled by USA with puppet government,so companies like BP and Haliburton can exploit resources without any restrictions.
Its a gold mine,it doesnt get better then that.
Russians must have discovered all this and CIA found out then got involved in Afghanistan with famous mujaheddins and then 9/11 attack gave excuse for USA to enter country and do whatever US wants.
Oh yeah and cheap workforce,those companies can hire Afghans to work for $2 a day.
Quote from: St. Auggie on June 14, 2010, 09:33:00 PM
Bos, are you suggesting the US started a trillion dollar war so that it could make a trillion dollars? We in the US are falling behind in math, but that seems highly illogical. But hey, sometimes you can get just greedy and bored enough that anything sounds like a lark.
1.Trillion dollars for war are paid by....Americans,not companies who stand behind these wars.They are ripping profits while average American pays for war.
Haliburton overcharged US government on more then one occasion.
2.That money for war would be spent anyway,its not like USA is hiring more soldiers...those soldiers would cost regardless if they were in Afghanistan or USA.
If wasnt for war those soldiers would be at some USA base practicing for war.
Money made of exploitation of other countries doesnt go to Americans by "chosen ones" like Bush family,Cheney,Haliburton and other companies involved.Its their private war and you are paying for it.
Yes an american soldier stationed in the US training surely has an equal cost to one stationed on the other side of the world. Also when my cousin was killed in Af., that had the same cost as well, right?
Millitary is just a tool for politicians to accomplish their goals.Like I said,even when expenses get higher that price is carried by American taxpayers...they DONT CARE.
They also don't care about casualties,unless they need to get elected and they will pretend to care about people.
Your cousin dying is expense to your family,as far as these scums are concerned they will find replacement easily.
These people are same like CEO of BP...they dont care,when someone gets killed they think of themselves not victims.
BP is company involved in all this past...100 years.And you see how they are treating Americans in their own country.
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals-graphic/14minerals-graphic-popup.jpg)
Nice timing. Just when public support for the war in Afghanistan is at its lowest. But oops....US Geological Survey, British Geological Survey, and the Pentagon have know about this for years.http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources)
But more to the point, how exactly does anyone expect this to help the Afghan people? An incredibly corrupt central government, many provincial governments run by warlords and drug-lords, a population of farmers, an active insurrection...color me skeptical but I doubt this will be Afghanistan's saving grace. If anything the fight for control of valuable resources could make things worse.
Do we finally have an answer for the reason behind continuation of an unpopular, and perpetual war?
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources
QuoteSay what? Afghanistan has $1 trillion in untapped mineral resources?
Posted By Blake Hounshell Monday, June 14, 2010 - 1:20 AM Share
I'll get to the main point in a little bit, but bear with me for a second ... A series of recent news stories has deeply damaged the Obama administration's case for continued patience with U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign, which has shown little discernable progress despite the best efforts tens of thousands of additional American troops and an all-star lineup of top military officers.
First, let's talk about Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. Remember the chatter earlier this year about how he'd gone crazy, threatening to join the Taliban and all that? That discussion died down a little after Karzai checked all the right boxes during his May visit to Washington.
Then came the "peace jirga" -- after which Karzai abruptly fired his intelligence and interior ministers, reputed to be two of the most competent members of his cabinet (technically, they resigned). The intelligence minister, Amrullah Saleh, told his side of the story Friday in a jaw-dropping interview with the Times. According to Saleh, Karzai no longer believes the West can win the war and is looking to cast his lot with Pakistan and the Taliban; an unnamed source told the paper that Karzai had suggested that the Americans had carried out a rocket attack on the peace jirga. Karzai has apparently also asked the United Nations to remove Mullah Omar from a key U.N. blacklist.
Next came revelations that Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, is still deeply involved with the Afghan Taliban (yeah, blow me over with a feather) despite heated denials to the contrary.
Meanwhile, the drive for Kandahar looks to be stalled in the face of questionable local support for Karzai's government, the Taliban is killing local authorities left and right, and the corruption situation has apparently gotten so bad that the U.S. intelligence community is now keeping tabs on which Afghan officials are stealing what.
In short, things don't look good for the United States ... which makes me suspicious of the timing of this attention-grabbing James Risen story in the Times, which opens with this mind-boggling lede:
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."
Wow! Talk about a game changer. The story goes on to outline Afghanistan's apparently vast underground resources, which include large copper and iron reserves as well as hitherto undiscovered reserves lithium and other rare minerals.
Read a little more carefully, though, and you realize that there's less to this scoop than meets the eye. For one thing, the findings on which the story was based are online and have been since 2007, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. More information is available on the Afghan mining ministry's website, including a report by the British Geological Survey (and there's more here). You can also take a look at the USGS's documentation of the airborne part of the survey here, including the full set of aerial photographs.
Nowhere have I found that $1 trillion figure mentioned, which Risen suggests was generated by a Pentagon task force seeking to help the Afghan government develop its resources (looking at the chart accompanying the article, though, it appears to be a straightforward tabulation of the total reserve figures for each mineral times current the current market price). According to Risen, that task force has begun prepping the mining ministry to start soliciting bids for mineral rights in the fall.
Don't get me wrong. This could be a great thing for Afghanistan, which certainly deserves a lucky break after the hell it's been through over the last three decades.
But I'm (a) skeptical of that $1 trillion figure; (b) skeptical of the timing of this story, given the bad news cycle, and (c) skeptical that Afghanistan can really figure out a way to develop these resources in a useful way. It's also worth noting, as Risen does, that it will take years to get any of this stuff out of the ground, not to mention enormous capital investment.
Moreover, before we get too excited about lithium and rare-earth metals and all that, Afghanistan could probably use some help with a much simpler resource: cement.
According to an article in the journal Industrial Minerals, "Afghanistan has the lowest cement production in the world at 2kg per capita; in neighbouring Pakistan it is 92kg per capita and in the UK it is 200kg per capita." Afghanistan's cement plants were built by a Czech company in the 1950s, and nobody's invested in them since the 1970s. Most of Afghanistan's cement is imported today, mainly from Pakistan and Iran. Apparently the mining ministry has been working to set up four new plants, but they are only expected to meet about half the country's cement needs.
Why do I mention this? One of the smartest uses of development resources is also one of the simplest: building concrete floors. Last year, a team of Berkeley researchers found that "replacing dirt floors with cement appears to be at least as effective for health as nutritional supplements and as helpful for brain development as early childhood development programs." And guess what concrete's made of? Hint: it's not lithium.
UPDATE: Missed this Wall Street Journal story earlier. Money quote:
[T]he Mines Ministry has long been considered among Afghanistan's most corrupt government departments, and Western officials have repeatedly expressed reservations about the Afghan government awarding concessions for the country's major mineral deposits, fearful that corrupt officials would hand contracts to bidders who pay the biggest bribes -- not who are best suited to actually do the work.