Afghanistan's wealth

[Topaz]

The Afghanistan could be one of the richest countries in the world with the find of 1 TRILLION dollars worth of mineral deposits. The Govt there knows of lithium, iron, gold, niobium, cobalt, chromite, natural gas, oil, precious and semi-precious stones. China and India have bids in to contract the mines, with China having the contract for the copper and there's a contract for iron ore later this year. China and US could be biding for the others but the US is busy fighting the Taliban. IF peace eve has a reason for being surly the Taliban and the government could come to some kind of agreement. Then again, greed does some ugly things. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100614/world/us_afghanistan_economy_minerals

[bill_barilko]

All Old News and timed to coincide with increasing opposition to foreign military presence in Afghanistan.

[jbg]

An article in yesternday's New York Times shows the real motive of the invasion of Afghanistan. The motive was to make money for industrialists (link, excerpts below). The capitalist apologists for the comfort of the bourgeousie at the expense of the toiling and industrious Afghan working class will say that the invasion was in response to 911 and that the discovery of minerals came after.

We all know better. 911 was a combined plot of Israeli and Republican agents to mask the exploitation of Afghan workers (some of the world's hardest-working people) to open Afghanistan up to just the kind of capitalist exploitation that has motivated workers to flee from South Korea to the North and from Florida to Cuba. The same people that want to fry the world with global warming to protect dividends.

Workers of the world unite!!! Mao Mao Mao Tse Tung!!!

Excerpts of article:

June 13, 2010

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan

By JAMES RISEN

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 BlackBerrys.

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.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

****************

Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.

Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.

“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

[Guest TrueMetis]

I believe that when said minerals start flooding into America at dirt cheap prices.

Edited June 15, 2010 by TrueMetis