U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

This will completely alter the economic landscape in Afghanistan and maybe the war?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html

Anyone want to give odds on how long it takes before we see a "US went to war in Afghanistan over mineral rights" conspiracy theory from the tinfoil hat brigade?

There will be some interesting books written.

Damn you for stealing my thread!!!!

Anyways......

WE ARE NEVER LEAVING AFGHANISTAN NOW. NEVER.

"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."

A trillion dollars in minerals rights could certainly help "stabilize" that area of the Middle East, maybe even Saudi Arabia type "stability"?

Uh, no. Lots and lots of countries have a trillion dollars worth of oil reserves or more. Libya, for example, has significantly more. Saudi Arabia's reserves are worth perhaps 20 times that much. And mining has got to be a lot more expensive than drilling.

Still, this does change the landscape assuming that the mineral deposits are reasonably readily extractable.

Haha. Great, just great. We sent our boys and girls to die over there so we could give them their country back rather than annex it as a territory so now they can do what they will with these new found minerals. We've SOOOOO de-evolved from the pride that the Human Species once was. Everyone these days in the West lives under an honorary pussy government.

I'd wager that rather than working for us, this just means that the former/still shithole just got to be a LOT more tasty target for China, Russia, and various middle-eastern megalomaniacs.

In a rational world, we could get the Towelies together and say "Look, we have the technology and you have the raw material so why don't we quit fighting over superstition and get rich together."

Sadly, nothing about that part of the world is acquainted with "rational"

"No blood for Niobium!
No blood for Niobium!"

Mine, baby, mine!

If The Afghans cause an environmental disaster during ore extraction, Obama will know whose ass to kick!

As opposed to the gas pipeline we already known about being one of the reasons?

Sounds like a heck of an opportunity for these many unnamed countries to turn a buck.

It's ours cocksuckers! We found it!

Seriously though, this gives us a reason to win the war: we can't let the Taliban (or China, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, et al.) to get their grubby hands on this money.

That, and this will mean jobs for the region, especially if we do it properly (unlikely) instead of handing it over to the Afghans (likely).

We're going to fuck it up somehow.....

It's what America does.

Panama Canal? Gone.
Iraqi Oil? Gone.
Afghani Minerals? *Sigh*

Gone where?

We never took it. I'm saying we missed a chance.

There would be no point in having "took it". Amerca's domestic oil supply is met sufficiently by other sources. However, US oil companies hold a large percentage of the contracts to develop Iraqs oilfields. This, along with overall control of Iraq, gives the US substantial leverage over developing rivals in China, India and elsewhere.

I don't care about "US oil companies", I care about the Treasury.

How the fuck else am I supposed to fund a triumph?!

I suppose the thing is that the Treasury cares more about the oil companies than it does about itself.

Great. This will be "The Beverly Hillbillies" meets reality TV with a Muslim twist: "We've given a nation of feudal goatfuckers prone to misogyny and clan warfare 100 billion dollars. Let's see what happens."

Actually probably the same thing that happens in Africa--all the treasure will sit in the ground, unused, because one clan/tribe will be too busy killing another tribe over a patch of dirt.

What Volpone said.

Africa had conflict diamons. Afghanistan will have conflict lithium or whatever.

Blood Lithium!

It sounds almost as cool as Gold Pressed Latinum!

Also, this conflict has sort of made the Afghanis and us like family.

I'm reminded of a great life lesson:

Like Nigerian oil? Not so much.

They certainly all try to. Of course a trillion dollars isn't nearly as much as you think it is when it comes to the scale of national economies, and a trillion dollars worth of deposits is an income stream totaling a trillion dollars at current oil prices over many years, not cash in hand.

If you're skeptical about there being lots of countries, stable and otherwise, sitting on roughly a trillion dollars or more of oil reserves then you don't really know anything about oil and you need to make google your friend.

^Afghanistan's current GDP is $13 billion. Compared to their national economy, this is a major deal.

Of course, it won't end up helping them much. But that will be for political reasons, not economic ones.

Large enough deposits of those would break the Chinese lock on the market for rare earth elements.

"Come + listen to a story bout a man named Akmed,
a poor mountaineer barely kept his daughters wed,
then one day he was shootin' at some trucks,
now he's gonna be rollin' in the bucks

Chromium that is....blue gold.....Kabul Tea"

Do they have any women fugly enough to play the part of Miss Hathaway? I'm betting they have more than their fair share!