Afghan Tech Minerals — Cure, Curse, Or Hype? 184
Gooseygoose writes "The Pentagon revealed recently that Afghanistan has as much as $1 trillion in mineral wealth, a potential game changer in the ongoing conflict there. Many news outlets have picked up this story, some simply repeating the official talking points, while others raise serious concerns. Is this 'discovery' just hype, or will it truly alter the landscape of the Afghan war? Perhaps more importantly, can this mineral wealth (whether real or illusory) pave the way to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, or is it more likely to drive geopolitical feedback loops that plunge the region further into turmoil?"
Relatedly, Marc Ambinder wrote a few days ago in the Atlantic that the US had knowledge of vast mineral deposits in Afghanistan several years ago, giving the recent announcement the appearance of a PR campaign.
It is just PR... (Score:5, Informative)
El Reg just thinks it is a complete PR exercise.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/afghanistan_mineral_report/ [theregister.co.uk]
Extracting the wealth is neither simple or sensible.
Wealth won't help (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wealth won't help (Score:5, Informative)
This is a problem both the left and the right don't seem to be able to face. The majority of people in a lot of middle eastern counties support a kind of religious tyranny whether they are wealthy or not. Not all people, by any means, but a majority. Bring democracy and wealth to these places without liberalism is not going to get the results we want. In fact it's going to bring disaster, by giving radical religious tyranny democratic legitimacy and the wealth to throw their weight around.
The liberal part of rich liberal democracies is the most important ingredient. Democracy is more of a safety valve, the riches a by-product (and luck, of course).
Re:Several years (Score:3, Informative)
It takes time to follow someone else's notes, written in Russian, get core samples (in a war zone).
If you read the original NY Times article, they did arial surveys over most of the country, not boots on the ground core samples.
Re:I don't think he mean what you think it mean (Score:3, Informative)
Wooosh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx7a3leZJJI [youtube.com]
Re:We're forgetting someone (Score:3, Informative)
These are the same "Taliban" that the US funded for decades and for whom they provided training and other non-munition resources. The history of the US is one of hypocrisy and so many double standards that I wonder if you are on no one elses side other than your own perverted sense of morality and ethics.
Re:We're forgetting someone (Score:3, Informative)
The Taliban has only existed since 1994, so that gives them at most 7 years of funding opportunity before they ran afoul of the US. Even so, I can only remember some anti-drug money going to the Taliban.
Ok, so you respond, we armed and funded the mujahedin, part of which eventually formed the Taliban. This is not what you stated in this post, though. Glad to know you never made a decision that went against your initial hopes, though.
Re:The more the merrier (Score:2, Informative)
The Afghanistan war (not Iraq), was to destroy an enemy strong hold that planned and launched an attack on the US, targeting civilians, and succeed in killing more of them, than in any other foreign attack. (No, not referring to the attack on Pearl Harbor, that at least was an attack in military targets, an US civilian casualties was collateral damage).
Yes, most of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, but they were Al-Qaeda agents, basing out of Afghanistan.
If you attack another country, you expect them to do something back.
The purpose of the continued war in Afghanistan is to fill the power vacuum with a government that will not allow a similar thing to happen again.
The effectiveness of these two purposes, is matter for great debate. The reasons were pretty simple, the solutions are not.
Re:Might as well try this too (Score:2, Informative)