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Timing of Leak of Afghan Mineral Wealth Evokes Skepticism
WASHINGTON - 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.
A man walks with his cow along a road during a dust storm in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, in this April 2005 file photo. Afghanistan could be holding $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits including critical industrial metals such as lithium, the New York Times reported on June 14. Such natural resources discoveries have not always proven beneficial for countries that lack the infrastructure for mineral extraction and transportation, and may lead to widespread corruption. (Reuters/Stringer) 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 one trillion dollars 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 dollars.
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.
As noted by Blake Hounshell, managing editor at 'Foreign Policy' magazine, the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) already published a comprehensive inventory of Afghanistan's non-oil mineral resources on the internet in 2007, as did the British Geological Survey. Much of their work was based on explorations and surveys undertaken by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980's.
The nearly trillion-dollar figure is based on a simple tabulation of the previous estimates for each mineral according to its current market price, according to Hounshell.
So, the question for many observers was why the article, which dominated much of the foreign news in the network and cable broadcast media during Monday's news cycle, was published now.
Risen himself suggested an answer in his story, noting "American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan."
Indeed, U.S. and NATO casualties have risen sharply in recent weeks; a four-month-old counterinsurgency offensive to "clear, hold, and build" in the strategic region around Marja in Pashtun-dominated Helmand province appears to have stalled badly; and a planned campaign in and around the critical city of Kandahar has been delayed for at least two months.
The latest polling shows a noticeable erosion of support for Washington's commitment to the war compared to eight months ago, when President Barack Obama agreed to the Pentagon's recommendations to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to bring the total U.S. military presence there to around 100,000 later this summer.
Moreover, what little support for the war remains among the publics of Washington's NATO allies - never as high as in the U.S. in any event - is also fading quickly. NATO and non-NATO countries, excluding the U.S., currently have about 34,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.
On the eve of a NATO ministerial conference in Brussels last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that Washington and its NATO allies had very little time to convince their publics that their strategy against the Taliban was working - a message that has since been strongly echoed the coalition's commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and by Petraeus himself.
Indeed, the administration is committed to a major review of its strategy in Afghanistan at the end of the year, and Obama himself has pledged to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July 2011.
Obama is already coming under pressure from right-wing and neo-conservative media - some of which have been cultivated by Petraeus, in particular - and Republican lawmakers to delay that date.
That view was seconded last week by former Petraeus aide, Lt. Col. John Nagl (ret.), a counterinsurgency specialist who is now president of the influential Center for a New American Security.
Nagl worked closely with Petraeus in authoring the much- lauded 2006 U.S. Counter-Insurgency Field Manual, which stressed the importance of efforts to influence media perceptions in any counterinsurgency campaign.
"The media directly influence the attitude of key audiences toward counter-insurgents, their operations, and the opposing insurgency," they wrote. "This situation creates a war of perceptions between insurgents and counter-insurgents conducted continuously using the news media."
In that respect, the appearance of the Times story Monday looked to many observers like part of an effort to strengthen the case for giving the counterinsurgency effort more time.
In an interview with Politico's Laura Rozen Monday, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani said he had commissioned the assessment of Afghanistan's mineral wealth. "As to why it came out today... I cannot explain," he said.
- Posted in
64 Comments so far
Show AllRe-posting from yesterday on this story:
On April 17, 1492, Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand granted Christopher Columbus the privileges of 'discovery and conquest.' One year later, on May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI, through his 'Bull of Donation,' granted all islands and mainlands 'discovered and to be discovered, one hundred leagues to the West and South of the Azores towards India,' and not already occupied or held by any christian king or prince as of Christmas of 1492, to the Catholic monarchs Isabel of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon.
Charters and patents thus turned acts of piracy into divine will. The peoples and nations that were colonized did not belong to the pope who 'donated' them, yet this canonical jurisprudence made the christian monarchs of Europe rulers of all nations, 'wherever they might be found and whatever creed they might embrace.' The principle of 'effective occupation' by christian princes, the 'vacancy' of the targeted lands, and the 'duty' to incorporate the 'savages' were components of charters and patents.
The Papal Bull, the Columbus charter, and patents granted by European monarchs laid the juridical and moral foundations for the colonization and extermination of non-European peoples. The Native American population declined from 72 million in 1492 to less than 4 million a few centuries later.
Five hundred years after Columbus, a more secular version of the same project of colonization continues through patents and intellectual property rights (IPRs). The Papal Bull has been replaced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty. The principle of effective occupation by christian princes has been replaced by effective occupation by the transnational corporations supported by modern-day rulers. The duty to incorporate savages into Christianity has been replaced by the duty to incorporate local and national economies into the global marketplace, and to incorporate non-Western systems of knowledge into the reductionism of commercialized Western science and technology.
We see the parallels today between the actions and attitudes of the pope and European rulers during colonial times, and the actions and attitudes of 21st century powers like the World Trade Organization and multinational corporations. The United States, whose section 301 of the unilaterally-decided U.S. Trade Act gives the federal government the power to take unilateral action against any country that does not open its markets to U.S. corporations.
The examples of Western rape, pillage and plunder of the "Third World" (racist label by Western overdeveloped "First Worlders") where loss in revenue, livelihood, dignity, and biodiversity are seen, are too numerous to list here. Of course the purpose in all of this is to enrich the coffers of European and American corporations.
The bloody machinations of capitalism at work.
============
Keep in mind that the US military portion of empire is intended to preserve not only the international capitalist system but U.S. hegemony of that system.
Important point here made by Michael Parenti. The fact of the minerals existing, the amount that there may or may not be and the costs of the whole bloody endeavor are secondary to the fact that the multinational corporations will profit from the mere possibility no matter the reality.
=====================
"To be sure, empires do not come cheap. Burdensome expenditures are needed for military repression and prolonged
occupation, for colonial administration, for bribes and arms to native collaborators, and for the development of a commercial infrastructure to facilitate extractive industries and capital penetration. But empires are not losing propositions for everyone. The governments of imperial nations may spend more than they take in, but the people who reap the benefits are not the same ones who foot the bill. As Thorstein Veblen pointed out in The Theory of the Business Enterprise (1904), the gains of empire flow into the hands of the privileged business class while the costs are extracted from "the industry of the rest of the people." The transnationals monopolize the private returns of empire while carrying little, if any, of the public cost. The expenditures needed in the way of armaments and aid to make the world safe for General Motors, General Dynamics, General Electric, and all the other generals are paid by the U.S. government, that is, by the taxpayers."
- Michael Parenti, "Against Empire"
From,
"Chapter 3: Intervention: Whose gain? Whose pain?"
Indeed, the counterinsurgency must be given more time to be implemented as that would allow the U.S. military to rape and pillage Afghanistan's countryside in order to rob it of its natural wealth. This counterinsurgency has about as much chance of succeeding as the counterinsurgency did in Vietnam. But it would seem that America's generals and Obama seem intent upon trying to erase, as George H.W. Bush claimed he did after the first Persian Gulf War, the Vietnam syndrome while having no desire at all, it seems, to learn from history.
The idea of a counterinsurgency was thought about a great deal during the Vietnam conflict. It failed miserably just as the current plan will also fail in Afghanistan. Military leaders like Petraeus and Nagl, as well as Obama, do not seem to be able to get it through their thick heads that even though many Afghans do not like the Taliban even less of them like the presence of the U.S. military in their country dropping 500 lb. bombs on their fellow Afghans at weddings and funeral processions.
U.S-out of Afghanistan!
Afghans-resist the American empire!
Minerals worth one billion dollar. Sounds great but it is actually less than two years of DOD appropriations! If this number is correct the amount would be a drop in the DOD bucket.
If the war in Afghanistan is prolonged because of the mineral trove how is that different from Hitler invading the Soviet Union to get his grubby fingers on the manganese of Krivoi Rog, the coal of the Donetsk Basin, and the Caspian oil? It would not be different.
Endless war is Endless profit for the MIC.
Looking at where the Central Asian oil and gas fields are located, Russia to Northwest, Iran to the Southwest, China to the East, we have no choice but to put our bases in Afghanistan, if we want to be an Empire and not a Republic.
This entire story is a retread. Here's a USGS report from November, 2007 that has all the salient information that Jame Risen so breathlessly reported over the weekend:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2007/3063/
What is our (USA) minerals doing under the soil of Afghanistan?
First, we find our oil under the sands of Iraq, now this?
What the hell is going on?
This is how the imperial USA justifies the biggest armed robberies in World History.
Good Grief.
Everything gets misplaced some times, like WMD and pallets of shrink wrapped hundred dollar bills.
I guess you decided to take the red pill...Congratulations!!!
Three cheers for DCH!!!! Rah- Rah- Rah!!!!
"Now you will see just how far down the rabbit hole goes"
Re-posting from June 14, 2010
U.S. Foreign Policy = What's ours is ours.
What's yours is ours, too.
If we can see it, it is ours.
Even if we can't see it, it's ours.
You can have our depleted uranium trash.
All other nations are too stupid to have their own sovereignty.
Now hand it over or we will bomb the crap out of ya.
Oh! We're all ready doing that.
We'll send more bombs to dig those mines.
Okie dokie?
Kissy Kissy from the Land of Liberty
a trillion in minerals?
Fine but you could never actually get all those to market....there is always waste and some of those materials are at the top of mountains or under kandahar.....
also it costs a heck of a lot to mine in areas such as afganistan - hence why it's not been done yet.....so that offsets the value of those materials with the cost of gathering them.....
also it's no problem to blow up a country and cause a trillion in damages and add to that the trillion or more the war machine has probably spent........
none of that matters as long as it's WE THE PEOPLE that pay those costs and the corporate vampires that get the trillion in raw materials at little or no cost.......
but hey the vampires say it will HELP THE PEOPLE OF AFGANISTAN! AS if a corporate vampire will EVER share their ill-gotten wealth.....
"The latest polling shows a noticeable erosion of support for Washington's commitment to the war compared to eight months ago..."
And how is this going to increase public support for the war? How many people are there who would say, "Yes, the war is a horrible waste of lives and money, but now that we've found lithium, I'm all for it!"
The more likely response is what you see here in the comments: This just increases the level of cynicism and distrust of our war aims.
Given the way the military is able to dial up any stories it wants from our ever-compliant media (Minerals in Afghanistan? Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?), I'm really glad they're not better at propaganda.
Maybe the lithium will help treat our manic pursuit of war and our economic depression.
Joe
"The more likely response is what you see here in the comments: This just increases the level of cynicism and distrust of our war aims. "
Yes, but you didn't figure in the "Baaaaaaah" factor.
Since there are all these minerals there that will be good for Afghanistan and make the wealthy so Afghanistan will be successful -- if only we kill enugh of them -- uhhh... I mean if only we stick it out long enough for democracy (and free market) to flourish there (instead of letting the nasty Russians and Chinese get their grubby hands on those resources).
Anything can be justified if you get rich off it, and the barin is reduced to jello (mission accomplished on that last one).
If nothing else, just COMPLICATE the narrative and confuse everyone.
Thanks. I'm impressed. Going out to buy his book. So smart and disturbing. Teaching social science with honesty would be interesting for our schools and might enlighten "the masses."
You're right, but it looks like all we are going to do in terms of educating our children is to let people like the cretins on the Texas board of education print textbooks that will teach kids how the grand canyon was formed 5000 years ago during Noah's flood.
To keep the empire doing what it does for multinationals, you need to keep the public as ignorant as possible.
"major questions about the intent of the Pentagon"
Who they kidding?? I don't have any questions about the
intent of the Pentagon.
Screw them and the New York Times toooooooooo.
Yup!
Screw the Pentagon and the New York Times too.
This is exactly why we need journalists like Helen Thomas.
Looking for mineral deposits or hunting down Al Qaeda?
I thought the official justification for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan was to hunt down Al Qaeda, the organization that gave us 9/11.
It would seem that, if the mineral riches of the country have to pulled out at this stage of the game to seduce the citizenry into giving its support to this phoney war, a new low in desperation, utter shamelessness, and moral depravity has seized the Empire and the industrial and generally corporate entities it serves, not to mention the mouthpiece of U.S. imperialism, the New York Times and its debased reporters.
"Looking for mineral deposits or hunting down Al Qaeda?"
Ex-ACT-ly!!!
"a new low in desperation, utter shamelessness, and moral depravity has seized the Empire "
I would say that there are other lower lows such as The Battleship Maine, Tonkin Gulf, JFK, RFK, 911 and JFK,Jr.
Good point about the lows: I agree.
With the international companies and the US military around, what should be a blessing for any country turns out to be a curse. [Congo, Afghanistan, Iran etc.]
The corporate vultures cannot stand for wealth to be utilized and kept by the countries in which it is found. We the people of the US pay both in lives and in taxes for the military adventures sent to secure oil and minerals to benefit these companies. The execs of these companies get fabulously wealthy. What we get is death and taxes, and jobs shipped overseas. A smaller and smaller proportion of our taxes is used to fund our local needs like education, environmental protection and health.
Whenever we demonize a country, invade or occupy it, the underlying reasons are ONLY:
1. They have something that giant international corporations want.
2. The US military contractors stand to gain incredible profits.
3. The Congress and President have been paid off to support these conquests.
Everything else is a fairy tale. Our press has become the Grimms brothers. They print stories about crazy ogre leaders who need to be driven out, princesses that need rescuing, gnomes with magic mushrooms explosives, maniacal trolls who capture children, bearded wizards who hide in caves.
Joe
Watch it Joe, you are sounding like Gen. Butler.
I take this as a compliment, so thanks. Your comment made me look up Gen. Butler. I have never read "War is a Racket", but it sounds like a keeper.
Joe
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/624.html
Plus more Butler here from:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/Parenti_Quotes.html
The most dramatic interventionist testimonial was given in 1935 by the US Marine Corps Commandant, General Smedley Butler:
"I spent thirty-three years in the Marines, most of my time being a hlgh class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1910-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. In China in 1927 l helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
I had a swell racket. l was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."
It was intended as a compliment. While you are checking into Butler, pay note to the Businessmen's Plot, which he foiled. Also, note that a Bush was involved.
HURRAY to THAT!
"Now Hear This" it's not about the oil, it's about lithium for your electric car batteries!! These guys are good in a f'ed up kind of way!
Excuse me while I spin around now!!
This Obomber guy can sure sieze an opportunity.
Or is it Petraeus's openning salvo in his bid to become the next president after all he did "Win one for the team" in Iraq sort of right?
Kind of makes you dizzy, all this spinning.
I think I'm going be a little sick, perhaps the general could hold the little bag for me.
I sure hope I don't miss and get any on those shinny metals.
Oh dear! It appears that Gen. David Petraeus got a bit dizzy from his own spin. I hope he hurled into his shoes.
"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."
Can we be so easily swayed to support more killing? If so, what does this say about us?
Baaaaah........
In the second half of the 20th century, countless wars and insurrections were "managed" to keep the Soviets at bay.
Why were the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s ? We seem to forget their influence in Iraq. Their designs on Iran and their good friends in Libya and Algeria.
The energy wars of the late 20th century were fought for access to oil. Lithium, a key to energy in the 21st century is in short supply and will be a "must have" resource.
"Betray us" is using the alleged Afghan mineral wealth as a threat against NATO and their European Masters.
If you join us, you will have access to this wealth. If you go against us, there will be no lithium, and no energy future for Europe.
The three primary blocs in the 21st century will be based on Europe, the US and China.
China is pulling ahead in the alternative energy race. It needs access to lithium to maintain their lead.
So far, the Afghan war has been extremely successful in keeping the South Pars gas out of the proposed IPI pipeline (Iran - Pakistan - India). The northern extension to China through destabilized Pakistan will keep the pipeline on the back burner. And then... we can "attack" Iran and take this IPI option off the table.
The US must control the access of China to the mineral and energy wealth of the non-alligned world. Rather than compete, the US must maintain "traditional" alliances and create new alliances with puppets like Karzai.
China is not pursuing the naked imperialism of the US. It is following the Japanese model and competing economically. It is inrteresting that Japan is waivering towards China: a traditional ideological enemy.
The US is betting against capitalism. China is betting against imperialism. Afghanistan is in the middle. The US is trying to force Europe's hand through "coercion"
The people of Afghanistan just want to be left alone.
"Wait a minute, I thought we were there to beat back the Taliban and Al Qaeda because of 911? Are you telling me that's just a cover story", he said sarcastically.
God help them if we find Unobtainium there!
Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stieglitz estimated a couple of years ago that the Iraq war cost us in the range of $4 trillion. Afghanistan is a bit cheaper than Iraq so far, but we've certainly spent more on the war than our vast wealth under their opium fields is worth, and we've almost spent more than the street value of their heroin for that matter.
The next problem will be how to get the lithium without disrupting the heroin supply to Wall Street. Oh dear. Oh dear. There is just one challenge after another.
This is old news. Like China, we need to bring emperialism into the 21st century. It's much more profitable to bypass the military, support whatever govt. has power, and bring lots of money. Of course, in a fragile economy we cant' afford to hurt the weapons industry. What about all those jobs making drones and fighter jets. Not to mention supporting BP who supplies most of the petrol for our death machines in the middle east.
Indicative of the bleak prospects for the future is the only candid coverage of the news is broadcast on the Comedy Channel
We'd be better off if the Pentagon & their corporate masters would all take a big hit of that lithium they've discovered. Pharmacologically, lithium tends to moderate one's obsession with SPC's (Small Penis Compensators).
I'd love to whack them good and hard with a sack full of it.
BTW - Afghanistan's mineral resources (gold, silver, copper, lapis lazuli, turquoise) were known way back in 1300BC.
Not exactly news, now, is it.
Afghanistan minerals, ooh boy. If this works as usual then secret meeting have already taken place among officials of the various governments, mining companies, and naturally the halliburtons of the world. Next we need accounts set up in the various world financial centers so that very little of the money actually flows back to Afghanistan. Also required is a system allowing the Afghan infrastructure needed by the mining companies to be financed through debt to the Afghan people and not to the mining companies. Well, I’m sure you know the rest; Afghan minerals show up on the world market at very favorable rates to industries in developed countries, environmental problems build up in Afghanistan over the years, and last but not least, after a number of years the IMF moves in because the Afghan people are having problems making payment on their infrastructure debt. I wish there was another way!
DUH, this writer is about as stupid as the American public.
Why doesn't anyone bring up the simple fact that the public pays for the wars while the corporations keep the profits ?
How will corporate profits ever pay back trillions in public war debts for Iraq and Afghanistan ?
Wolfowitz used the argument of Iraq's resources paying for the war with Congress...were they thinking that we would create a Federal oil company (many nations do) that would put the "profits" back into the treasury to pay for the wars....some $4 Trillion at this point ? Even if that was done, there would be no profit after the war and occupation expenses.
No, it's more like rob the taxpayer to pay for the wars and then rob the taxpayer again for the commodities.
This is criminal corporate fascism at work.
And check this out. A tax supported agency, U.S. Geological Survey, is about to do a geophysical survey of Afghanistan.
https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOI/USGS/USGS/10CRSS0014/listing.html
So they've got minerals,but where is all that great Black Opiated Hashish we are fighting for!With that we don't need the Lithium!
peace
what was "always-all-too-obvious-to-the world"
reasons for US wars - land and resource grabs -
is simply being DEFINED. that's all.
americans have always been aware that this is really what it's about.
the TEST is this:
NOW that americans can be "shown" a "REAL" reason for "our wars" -- LAND AND RESOURCE GRABS that will be "worth it" (a Trillion dollars' worth of Minerals)......
are americans going to be "more supportive?"
because if SO - as they HAVE been for all american wars , in reality -
it will show - if not to americans themselves who WON"T admit that it is so - that
Americans DO SUPPORT WARS for LAND and RESOURCE grabbing.
conclusion:
Americans ARE a people who love war of conquest and land grabbing and resource grabbing....
but simultaneously like to beat themselves on the brow that they are "reluctant" to do it and "we were forced to do it".
it is pure baloney.
these wars are , in reality, underneath all the supposed "soul searching" , what americans SEEK.
if americans REALLY were "reluctant" imperialists....
then one might as well say they were "reluctant" in the extermination of the Native Indians.....
in neither case is there any truth in it.
what the Native Indians WERE, as well as mexicans, as the "western frontier".......afghanistan and the east is today .
this is the modern version of american "gold rush".
in fact - the saying by some Native Indian chiefs of old stays true today about "americans" as the modern counterpart of the "white man":
"Gold -- the shiny metal that makes the white man crazy".
"resources and minerals in afghanistan, oil, gas, timber, etc....the things that make the American crazy".
as america "was" - so it IS : a warloving culture bent on land and resource grab :"to gather as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others" (general smedley butler, us marines, 1933).
And looking at the bigger corporate globalization picture:
NOW THIS IS A HUGE CONCEPT THAT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT !
Why go to war on the other side of the world for oil when deep and vast reserves exist in this hemisphere ?
worth the read:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19660
I am convinced that it is about global hegemony for Big Oil. Oil from Iraq and Central Asia (also gas) will be sold mainly in Asia as shipping it here is too expensive. But this requires $Trillions in military costs which of course the oil corporations do not pay. This is certainly corporate imperialism and may qualify as corporate fascism.
And Iran is now the new evil on earth as they are in a perfect location to supply Asian markets with their own vast oil and gas reserves as well as being the shortest pipeline route to market Central Asian reserves ? So Big Oil would love to destroy their competition. There is a pipeline route already planned to go from Iran to Pakistan and India via southern Afghanistan, but I would expect our military to block that route.
Another basic answer for the war and oil connection would seem to be that war is a great way to rob the Federal treasury and make all of us subsidize MIC profits. We pay inflated pump prices and also pay for their wars. Halliburton, for example, makes money both ways with profits from producing oil and profits from energy resource wars. Thanks a lot Dick for pushing two tax subsidized wars and loading the public with debt for private profit.
The oil and war monster marriage may be the greatest scam on earth, including members of Congress holding investments in Big Oil and the MIC or at the very least being bribed via campaign donations from oil and war interests. Etc.
I wonder if they consider the opium to be "mineral wealth"?
As reported in the gardian.co.uk/The Observer
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions
By Rajeev Syal
gardian.co.uk/The Observer
December 13, 2009
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
**************************
Gee, I wonder who the "organised" criminals he is refereing to are?
*****************************
As reported in the New York Times:
March 20, 2010
U.S. Turns a Blind Eye to Opium in Afghan Town
By ROD NORDLAND
The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.
*****************************
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
---George Orwell, 1984
What good are these resources without roads, train lines and a port?
Most of the mineral deposits are in the mountainous regions that would be even more difficult (i.e. costly) to extract and ship.
Dear johnny hempseed:
Black Afghani is the best on earth.
Back in 1969 tourists were greeted in Herat by kids selling one kilo slabs for $25.00
I was in Afghanistan for about a month and have wonderful memories.
I consider myself fortunate to have experienced their culture before the ravages of war.
there is an extremely harrowing and moving film everyone ought to find and have or watch:
"THE KITE RUNNER"
about afghanistan during the soviet occupation (and we all know how the USA basically instigated the chaos in afghanistan to SPILL over into soviet territory that forced the soviets to get into afghanistan - in the futile effort to "prevent" the spill into USSR :"we have just given the USSR its own vietnam" .
in the film - whatever else people might think of afghani culture - they had their own beautiful ways , rich culture and history and people who truly loved their own ways and land.
they celebrated every year - harvests, good season, the sun, etc. - with Kite FLying contests....and it is the story centered around 2 boys who were the closest of friends...the "servant" boy and his father living , as was tradition, with the "master" in the household compound.
and how the "master" boy - betrayed the friend one day when bullies raped the poor kid who was the "KITE RUNNER" who would run miles to claim the fallen kite of a rival as their trophy as winners saying to his friend "for you - i will run to the ends of the earth" , and the rich kid didn't try to help and became ridden with guilt all his life...knowing that his friend was just raped and STILL wouldn't give up the Kite he had run for to claim for his friend ....and never gave an excuse ....and they were separated by the war ...and the rich kid came to america to be a successul author ...and one day got a mysterious call from an old man that knew them that said :
"you can still become a GOOD person" -- by risking going back to afghanistan under the taliban to save and take a small orphan boy being used by the taliban or warlords as a "girl" .
and he did - he found his courage even risking his life...
and it turned out that THAT little "girl/boy" used as a sex-slave by the warlords or taliban - was the son of his old childhood friend . and the chief rapist was now the grown up teenager who once raped the poor servant boy , who as an adult, had died defending the old house compound until the "family" returned from exile in better days that they hoped for. and that was how his little boy was taken to become a sex-slave.
and in this experience - the "rich" author - realized at last that the little "girl/boy" that he was saving to bring to america with him and adopt as his own - was not JUST the son of his old childhood friend that he had betrayed...but this was HIS nephew - and that his childhood friend , the "servant boy" , was actually his half-brother because his father had fallen in love with a woman of a different tribe that was considered "low caste".
and he realized that while his half-brother all his life was an illiterate - to whom he would read books - and that poor servant half-brother dreamed that one day he could read too so that he can read the stories that the "rich kid" liked to write...
his half-brother indeed taught himself how to read in order to be able to write a simple letter to his childhood friend, saying how much he missed him and hoped the best for him always, and "for you - will run to the ends of the earth"...as always.
it ends with the author (whose new wife is barren) - adopting the nephew who is of course so traumatized and in a shell within himself...until one day - he showed a kite to his nephey and started teaching him the technique that he learned when a child from his half-brother that made them champions as children....
and the nephew started to come out of his shell...and when the kite broke and flew away ...the author ran to take the kite back to his nephey -- and the nephew spoke for the first time......"but....it is so far away...".........
and the author - the uncle - as he was running for the kite - just like his dead friend and half-brother in old afghanistan ...
yelled back :
"FOR YOU -- I will run to the ends of the earth".
thank you, teddy...
If the poor Afghans do have almost incredible mineral wealth, they are about to get well and truly screwed by Rio Tinto and others.