http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?emc=na

6/13/2010 11:52:15 PM

Afghanistan exporting something besides opium and terrorists? Incredible!

Quote :

"“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines."

Quote :

"The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources... Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts... American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth... With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully... "

6/14/2010 12:48:41 AM

Quote :

"American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth..."

Hahahaha, no, please, let China have that shit. See if it's worth trying to keep the Afghans from acting like something other than a sackful of rabid cats.

6/14/2010 3:08:23 AM

Indians failed
Brits failed
Russians failed
Americans are failing
Chinese will fail

6/14/2010 8:52:31 AM

Quote :

"See if it's worth trying to keep the Afghans from acting like something other than a sackful of rabid cats. "

what if the resource they need is rabid cats?

6/14/2010 10:00:02 AM

Our grandparents will be fighting in Korea.

6/14/2010 10:49:53 AM

I really hope the Afghans can take this and build a life for their grandkids.

6/14/2010 11:42:40 AM

I'ma rent a backhoe and uproot that tree.
I want to know where the gold at.
I want the gold.

6/14/2010 12:17:24 PM

and let the new wars begin!

6/14/2010 12:53:01 PM

The grandchildren of our grandparents will be serving in Germany and Japan.

6/14/2010 12:59:06 PM

This news is probably the biggest break for Afghanistan I have heard about. In a long time. That and the fact that the local population really doesn't like the Taliban at all. Now if only the government could get out of it's own way.

6/14/2010 1:33:40 PM

Even if the government weren't corrupt and incompetent, it wouldn't be able to unify the country. The various factions will fight over the resources to such an extent that traditional mining will be out of the question. Massive amounts of private security will be necessary, as well as constant efforts to placate local populations, some of whom will inevitably be forced of their land to get at the really sweet minerals.

Holy shit. I meant all of that seriously, then I realize that I basically just described Avatar.

Afghanistan is Pandora, and the Afghans are like the Navi except regular sized, brown, easy to kill, violent, non-environmentalist, fractious assholes whose standards of life could be vastly improved by the mining...OK, so the analogy only carries so far.

6/14/2010 1:39:51 PM

Just like how oil wealth completely stamped out islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia.

[/devils advocate]

6/14/2010 1:42:45 PM

Admittedly I don't know much about internal Saudi politics, but I would wager that Saudi Arabia is far more of a functional country than Afghanistan.

6/14/2010 1:46:25 PM

6/14/2010 1:46:32 PM

End America's dependence on lithium now! Don't spill my daddy's blood for electric cars!

(Yes, trolling, but I couldn't help myself when I heard it was lithium)

6/14/2010 3:39:38 PM

Congo may be the most mineral-wealthy nation on Earth.

Just in case you weren't already depressed.

6/14/2010 3:41:27 PM

Fortunately lithium can be used to treat such depression.

6/14/2010 3:43:26 PM

Hahah. Yea I agree that it doesn't solve anything. But it does give the country resources to pAy for it's own security at some point and give the people something to be hopeful for.

It does make you realize how ass backwards things are when a country can't even leverage it's own land for $Texas

6/14/2010 4:08:01 PM

Good, perhaps they won't be a generation of liberal pussies...

6/14/2010 4:52:52 PM

^Fresh meat.

You guys are delivering. Many thanks.

6/14/2010 5:22:10 PM

I probably have around 50,000 posts in political forums from over the years. Not exactly "fresh meat".

6/14/2010 5:52:07 PM

Quote :

"veteran Afghan hands say the “discovery” of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is hardly new. And some detect an echo of Petraeus’ effort to “put a little more time on the Washington clock” for the Afghanistan surge as he once described his public relations strategy to buy time in the U.S. for the Iraq surge. The Times report itself notes the Pentagon agreed to discuss the minerals discovery as a rare good news story amid many more disturbing reports coming from Afghanistan. “The ‘discovery’ of Afghanistan’s minerals will sound pretty silly to old timers,” one retired former senior U.S. official based in Afghanistan writes. “When I was living in Kabul in the early 1970’s the [U.S. government], the Russians, the World Bank, the UN and others were all highly focused on the wide range of Afghan mineral deposits. Cheap ways of moving the ore to ocean ports has always been the limiting factor."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0610/Afghanistans_mineral_find_and_the_Washington_clock.html
We've known about these reserves for 40+ years.

6/14/2010 7:47:40 PM

Why $1 Trillion in Untapped Mineral Deposits Has Me Depressed

Quote :

"A host of readers sent me this article about Afghanistan's vast natural resource find, but Erin "Charlie" Simpson was the only one whose pessimism about the find matched my own. I have been reading Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion in between editing chapters of my dissertation (which is tough enough to do when my local coffee shop has the World Cup on all its televisions), and Collier describes the characteristics that "trap" countries in cycles of civil conflict: low income, slow growth, and dependence on primary commodity exports. I don't need to tell you Afghanistan has the first and third characteristics in spades, and you may have noticed that Afghanistan has already been in a pretty miserable cycle of civil conflict since the PDPA coup in 1978. Does this resource find make civil war more or less likely? The statistics, I'm afraid, suggest the former."

http://bit.ly/dyG9MT

6/14/2010 8:44:50 PM

Wait, so is this why the jews caused 9/11?

6/14/2010 9:17:19 PM

Quote :

"Good, perhaps they won't be a generation of liberal pussies..."

Hahahahah look at you, I wanna pinch your lil cheeks

6/15/2010 5:44:47 PM

Isn't he just precious? He's going to grow up to be a fine soapboxer one day.

6/15/2010 5:58:25 PM

This will change nothing at all.

(not ever, but not for at least 50 years)

6/15/2010 6:10:43 PM

Quote :

""But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions --not just treaties and declarations --that brought stability to a post-World War 1/ world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States ofAmerica has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood ofour citizens and the strength ofour arms. The service and sacrifice ofour men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. [b]We have done so out of enlightened self-interest --because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better ifothers' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.""

Sounds an awful lot like "white man's burden".

6/15/2010 8:53:59 PM

Why do you think I posted a movie poster based on Rudyard Kipling's story set in Afghanistan where two white men literally become benevolent god-kings?

6/15/2010 8:58:27 PM

Same reason I posted the quote of the first black President speaking of his benevolent policy abroad that, nevertheless, seeks to impose the will of the rich world on the poor through force.

6/15/2010 11:17:16 PM

Quote :

"seeks to impose the will of the rich world on the poor through force."

And what exactly is the "will of the rich" in this case?

6/16/2010 9:39:06 AM

Women's rights, secular government, open trade(especially with us), assistance in crushing extremism and the drug trade, etc. All the things that are vital for good PR by western politicians but really not important to rural muslims.

6/16/2010 10:01:58 AM

so rural muslim women enjoy being stoned to death and subjugated to the whims of a male-dominated society. I had no idea.

surely, if given the option and information, they would choose their current lot.

6/16/2010 10:07:57 AM

^2

They might be important to rural Muslim women, and to people who appreciate freedom, prosperity, and meaningful culture.

I have to give you credit for being that open with your opinions, though. It must take a lot of nerve to come out and say that things like women's rights and secular governance aren't for everyone. I just hope you don't think of yourself anything like a liberal, progressive, or radical.

[Edited on June 16, 2010 at 10:13 AM. Reason : ]

6/16/2010 10:10:40 AM

I don't think it my place to fix the world, nor am I capable of doing so.

Muslim women voluntarily impose veils and other restrictions upon themselves when living in Western democracies. Maybe it's cultural Stockholm syndrome, but it happens nonetheless.

6/16/2010 10:23:48 AM

the key word in your post is VOLUNTARILY.

there are people who voluntarily hire women to kick them in the balls.

6/16/2010 10:26:19 AM

Quote :

"I don't think it my place to fix the world, nor am I capable of doing so."

And you're perfectly entitled to your cynicism. In the meantime, there are plenty people who do think freedom, democracy, and prosperity are values fit for export, and who acknowledge the fact that more free, democratic, and prosperous the world is, the safer we are.

6/16/2010 11:12:49 AM

Good point. Let's borrow trillions from China to force democracy and "freedom" on people that don't want it. I think it's worth sacrificing our own standard of living if it means we can impose our way of life on the entire world. After all, many empires have tried it before, and they never really ran into any problems.

6/16/2010 11:25:36 AM

I have to give you credit for being that open with your opinions. It must take a lot of nerve to come out and say that things like freedom and democracy aren't for everyone.

Why is it, in your opinion, that the West - according to you - is somehow predisposed to valuing freedom, democracy, and prosperity, while the rest of the world - according to you - supposedly values servility, tyranny, and poverty? Since you seem to suggest that these constitute the "ways of life" for Westerners and peoples of developing countries, respectively. I'm just wondering. Is it genetic? Embryological? Something in the water?

[Edited on June 16, 2010 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ]

6/16/2010 11:46:03 AM

The issue isn't whether I think freedom and democracy is for everyone. I think everyone should be free to live their life and have a say in their own government. The issue is whether we should go around bombing, invading, killing, and nation building in order to transform every country into whatever the politicians in power at the time seem to want. Many people in Muslim countries believe that Shariah law is the way to go, for instance. They're wrong, but it's not up to us to tell them how to live.

There are plenty of countries around the world that aren't free. This is one of them. There are people rotting in jail here for victimless crimes. Maybe we should work things out here before we start on the rest of the world. We don't have the resources to do it. We're borrowing money (and paying interest) in order to cover the bill. We can't afford it, and it's going to come to an end, and when that happens, we'll have nothing to show for it except an unpayable debt and thousands of dead Americans. We don't have the ability to invade and rebuild every country that doesn't meet our standards.

Plus, there are consequences for interventionism. Terrorism, at least from Al Qaeda and the like, exists precisely because of our foreign policy. If we would mind our own business, no terrorist group in the Middle East would put forth the time and energy to attack us here.

[Edited on June 16, 2010 at 1:32 PM. Reason : ]

6/16/2010 1:28:04 PM

^^ Do you really think that Congress' desire for "world freedom" really outweighs the inherent human desire for power?

6/16/2010 1:42:47 PM

^

I have no idea what you're getting at.

^2

In other words, you think it would be nice if the people of Afghanistan were free, but you're not willing to fight to prevent their being subjected to the worst kind of servility, particularly if that involves spending money and actual fighting, and especially if it upsets the training regimes of some imperialistic death cult.

That's fine. You're entitled to hold this insular world view. Just don't expect people who give a shit national security and universal human rights to take you seriously. And don't go thinking of yourself as anything like a radical. You have more in common with Pat Buchanan.

[Edited on June 16, 2010 at 4:02 PM. Reason : ]

6/16/2010 3:58:55 PM

Quote :

"In other words, you think it would be nice if the people of Afghanistan were free, but you're not willing to fight to prevent their being subjected to the worst kind of servility, particularly if that involves spending money and actual fighting, and especially if it upsets the training regimes of some imperialistic death cult."

Sounds about right. Do you support invading and rebuilding every nation isn't free? If not, why aren't you willing to fight to prevent their being subject to "the worst kind of servility"? Besides, wasn't the point of going to Afghanistan to find the terrorists, not to build democracy?

I don't think this point of view is radical at all. We're 14 trillion dollars in debt. I think the radical position is that we should create money and destroy the value of our dollar in order to fight wars all over the world.

6/16/2010 4:36:24 PM

I don't consider myself a radical for opposing our current wars. It's a sane, conservative opinion.

6/16/2010 5:12:08 PM

Quote :

"Besides, wasn't the point of going to Afghanistan to find the terrorists, not to build democracy?"

It's reasonable to assume that these goals are intertwined to some extent. Finding the big name terrorists doesn't help us much if, as soon as we leave, the country continues to be a haven for new terrorists that come along and set up shop. Until a government is put in power that doesn't sponsor terrorism, we won't have accomplished much.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, it would probably be easiest to install a dictatorship and give it enough guns and money to suppress such elements and keep them busy. Realistically, though, we could never get away with setting up anything other than a democracy. We'd never be able to get support for anything international again, military or otherwise.

Quote :

"Do you support invading and rebuilding every nation isn't free? If not, why aren't you willing to fight to prevent their being subject to "the worst kind of servility"?"

Well, for my part, I support using various means at our disposal of changing those nations. In practical terms you can't always jump straight to "invasion," but when you've got to launch military action anyway (say, because a country is full of people who orchestrated a sneak attack on you), you might as well go whole hog while you're over there.

If North Korea acts up much more and a fight starts I'll say "bomb the fuck out of 'em and don't stop until we set up a new government there." Fortunately in that case I suspect we'll be able to get Japan and the RoK to foot most of the bill.

There is a dollars and cents component to this, and like so many things it depends on what you attribute more value to. My thought is that, in the long run, we can save a lot of money by setting up friendly -- or at least, non-hostile -- governments. Certainly I'd rather get this business in Afghanistan over and done with now, if we can, rather than leave it all half-assed and end up back there fighting al Qaeda II: Osama Strikes Back.

6/16/2010 5:59:42 PM

Well said.

Quote :

"Do you support invading and rebuilding every nation isn't free? If not, why aren't you willing to fight to prevent their being subject to "the worst kind of servility"?"

There are obviously certain conditions that have to be met before military intervention becomes the appropriate response, and of course the feasibility of such an endeavor has to be considered.

I would say that if the humanitarian situation is particularly dire, and/or the regime in question presents a significant threat to the national security of the United States or its allies, and military intervention is seen as a feasible, then yes, we should seriously consider a policy of regime change and nation building.

Needless to say, Baathist Iraq and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan met both conditions several times over.

[Edited on June 17, 2010 at 9:47 AM. Reason : ]

6/17/2010 9:45:21 AM

The problem with "setting up" a new government is that the people will always regard that government as foreign. Especially if the force that installed that government was responsible for killing thousands of your fellow citizens.

6/17/2010 1:35:50 PM

Maybe they will. I dunno, the governments of Germany and Japan have worked pretty good for the past 65 years or so.

6/17/2010 1:45:44 PM

well

6/17/2010 2:00:07 PM