U.S. discovers 1 trillion dollars worth of minerals in Afghanistan

Also probably a pr strategy to revive flagging interest in continuing America's longest war. We need that lithium for a our i-phones.

 

BEAT LA faints...

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=5349927&postcount=124

 

We need to get all the soldiers in Iraq over to Afghanistan ASAP to secure these minerals.

Bath salts are way too expensive and something needs to be done about this immediately.

 

I have not been here as long as some of you guys, but I don't think I have ever seen MoonDogg actually post a comment, lol

 

Occasionally I get wordy if I have time. That has been limited lately by the micro-managers from hell.

 

Why not? Someone's gonna steal it, might as well be the people who've put in the most effort and time.

The Taliban will be shocked. lol "HOW DID WE NOT KNOW THIS??"

 

war makes a little more sense now

 

The Congo has more mineral wealth. It has not seemed to help them any. You need enough stability to build the infrastructure to extract the minerals.

 

you are kidding right? We're talking Afghanistan here man - I think being greedy over minerals sure beats people pushing drugs

 

Looks like some more news managment by the Pentagon.
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Timing of Afghan Mineral Story Wealth Evokes Skepticism

by Jim Lobe, June 15, 2010
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The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan’s soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon, which released the information.

Given the increasingly negative news that has come out of Afghanistan – and of U.S. strategy there – some analysts believe the front-page article is designed to reverse growing public sentiment that the war is not worth the cost.

“What better way to remind people about the country’s potential bright future – and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans – than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region’s potential wealth?” wrote Marc Ambinder, the political editor of The Atlantic magazine, on his blog.

“The way in which the story was presented – with on-the- record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM [Gen. David Petraeus], no less – and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense [Paul Brinkley] suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war,” he added.

The nearly 1,500-word article, based almost entirely on Pentagon sources and featured as the lead story in Monday’s “Early Bird,” a compilation of major national security stories that the Pentagon distributes each morning, asserted that Afghanistan may have close to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits. These include “huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial metals like lithium,” the story said.

Afghanistan’s total annual gross domestic product (GDP) last year came to about $13 billion.

One “internal Pentagon memo” provided to the Times‘ author, James Risen, predicted that Afghanistan could become “the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberrys.”

“There is stunning potential here,” Petraeus told Risen in an interview Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant,” he said of the conclusions of a study by a “small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.”

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose recent efforts to begin a reconciliation process with the insurgent Taliban have been criticized by the Pentagon, quickly seized on the report.

In a hastily arranged press briefing Monday, Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the report was “the best news we have had over many years in Afghanistan.”

Other commentators, however, suggested the news about Afghanistan’s underground wealth was not all that new.
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I'm Rich B-yotch!!!

 

is the mineral Unobtainium?

 

Well, at least it gives them so hope. As far as it bing a PR campaign- LOL. If so, why didn't they do this last year?

 

More like Spice

 

WEll they always have to trot out hopeful pr stuff continually. Las year it was the surge or the new guy McChrystal (remember all the stuff about what a stud he was). also you had Obama who would be smarter than Bush in his wars.

Now we have Obama not doing any better, McChrystal's genius tarnished. Apprarently Karzai thinks the Taliban will hold on so he wantys to cut a deal with them. Obama will be in a bind and not withdraw by 2011 in time for the election or be the guy who now has lost a trillion dollar bonanza in Afghanistan after he and Bush spent a trillion.

The white man's burden is a pain as the Euros discovered last century. The natives can be unruly and just so uncivilized. They just don't appreciate our pure hearted intentions.

 

Hardly. While $1 trillion sounds like a lot, it's 1/14 of the U.S. ANNUAL GDP. That's not exactly worth nine years of war. And besides, America is thirsty for oil, other stuff we either have enough of locally or can get far cheaper and easier through trade than a decade-long war.
And it's not like the US is just going to take it. There have been several contracts for oil in Iraq given to Chinese companies and BP. If we don't take the oil, we're not taking the minerals. We'll have to bid for them like everyone else, greatly cutting profits.

 

Sarcasm as to why we're there. Weren't we supposed to be looking for OBL like 8 years ago and still havent' found him? We've probably spent $2 trillion on this stupid war there. Hardly a great ROI.

 

Well it is up to $3 Trillion worth of minerals.......and Japan gets first dibs?

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100619b1.html

So......I am not to educated in the Afghan government.......but I do know they have been a thorn in the side of the US. With all we have done for the people in Afghanistan....Japan gets the first look?

Can someone explain this to me?

 

Well, here's the thing. It's their minerals and they'll do with it whatever they see best for their country. (Though I don't truly believe that they will do this, Karzai should be able to di it if he wants.)

Nothing was done FOR the Afghan people, though it could be argued that it benefited them in some ways. What was done was done because of terrorism, OBL, 9/11, etc.

Also, it doesn't say Japan is "first" and it doesn't say $3 trillion in that article.