Thread: NYT: Nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits discovered in A-stan

This is a game changer in soooooo many ways.

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.

Continued...

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

Excellent.

Get the Corp of Engineers on that yesterday.

Let the corruption begin.

Originally Posted by Commodore

Excellent.

Get the Corp of Engineers on that yesterday.

Why?

A. The military isn't a for-profit venture
B. We don't own the deposits.

Blood for lithium!

Originally Posted by Tanngrisnir3

Why?

A. The military isn't a for-profit venture
B. We don't own the deposits.

well to cover the cost of the war on terror and replacement of the wtc, and pentagon reapirs would be a start.

I don't think it was unknown that Afghanistan has mineral resources.

All those caves that we were bombing and AQ fighters were taking refuge in were actually a vast network of mines.

How can they put a dollar figure on it at this point? It will take years of drilling before they actually know what is there and how economically viable it is.

Originally Posted by CSA

well to cover the cost of the war on terror and replacement of the wtc, and pentagon reapirs would be a start.

Which doesn't obviate the facts that:

A. We don't own those deposits
B. The military is not a for-profit venture.
C. The current gov't of AFG had zero to do with the WTV.

JFC.

Originally Posted by Tanngrisnir3

Which doesn't obviate the facts that:

A. We don't own those deposits
B. The military is not a for-profit venture.
C. The current gov't of AFG had zero to do with the WTV.

JFC.

Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.

We absolutely cannot go in and take this wealth from the Afghan people. We'll have to bribe the Karzai Kronies to steal it from them instead.

its a catch 22. If Karzai asks even a third party to assess whats there and what it may be worth, he'll most certainly mine it.

This is what countries do.

But since we propped Karzai, looked the other way and blessed what appears to be a tainted election process that kept him in power, no matter what, we own part of what goes on afterward, for now, forever. Money disappears? royalties not making it to the people? We will own part of that guilt. Just another Shah.

If he mines it and even several years down the road we buy any of it, which as minerals are sold as commodities I believe we will of course buy some, (we do use a huge amount of resources but that won't mean anything), even at market prices, we will be taken to task for going there for the lithium, nickel whatever.......

I see no reason we cant replace Karzai, or simply work with the legislative body and ignore him.

Originally Posted by jviehe

I see no reason we cant replace Karzai, or simply work with the legislative body and ignore him.

Uhh, because he's the elected head of their government?

interesting piece dissecting the 'announcement' by the editors of Foreign Policy mag...


Say what? Afghanistan has $1 trillion in untapped mineral resources?

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.

rest at-

Say what? Afghanistan has $1 trillion in untapped mineral resources? | FP Passport

Originally Posted by pramjockey

Uhh, because he's the elected head of their government?

Diem was 'elected' too.