National Treasure (Afghanistan Edition)

The NY Times breaks a story on Afghanistan that is a Great Gamechanger, but how?

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
By JAMES RISEN

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.

So instead of chasing goats, growing poppies and paying bribes, the locals can sell mineral rights, mine, chase goats, grow poppies and pay bribes.  And now there is more for which to fight and bribe.

John at Powerline notes the resource curse:

What happens when you superimpose a trillion dollars worth of natural resource wealth on a primitive society? That's what happened in Saudi Arabia, and the results were not pretty. A Defense Department memo quoted in the linked New York Times article makes the parallel explicit by suggesting that Afghanistan could become "the Saudi Arabia of lithium." Let's hope that doesn't turn out to be true.

And for a certain segment of the anti-war left, any war where the US has a potential economic stake is morally suspect (Darfur = good, Kuwait =bad).  Spencer Ackerman has some fun with this in a post titled "Vast Deposits Of Fodder For Conspiracy Theorists Discovered In Afghanistan".

EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN:  From a letter to the Times in 1983, explaining why the Soviets would never withdraw from Afghanistan:

Since the 1950's, thousands of Soviet geologists and engineers have probed and plumbed the extent and location of Afghanistan's enormous and untapped mineral wealth, which includes vast reserves of iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, precious stones, uranium, copper, bauxite and chrome. Already the Soviets are annually pumping more than four billion cubic meters of natural gas from north Afghan wells via a large pipeline directly into the Soviet Union.

Closer to home, this is from an April 2010 NY Times editorial:

Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, but it is not without prospects. It is believed to have huge mineral wealth, including copper, iron ore and rare earth minerals like lithium, used in making electric cars. Its agricultural areas can be more than self-sufficient if irrigation canals are rebuilt and access provided. Its carpets and textiles have a worldwide market.

With less corruption, better economic management and more focused international effort, it does not have to remain poor. It could begin financing its government and its further development from its own resources.

Comments

[Jane]

So now we know why Ear Leader agreed to continue the war in Afghanistan.

[Georg Felis]

Only a trillion? Pshaw! Our fearless leader could spend that in a month.

[Now just try and get it.]

I can tell you that any place that has been underprospected because of geopolitical concerns will harbor unexpected treasures.
====================

[Will this be a dismal day? Shall I go back and read the comments, when climate beckons?]

zerohedge has the transcript of a very interesting speech George Soros gave three days ago.
==================

[interested]

The Times is not yet if full re-elect mode, as this headline will read then "Obama strikes gold"

[Another one: All I hear is we should be more like China.]

Heh, all this stuff was known half a century ago. The prospectors found it, but the producers are scared of Pathans.

The comments are gold. Here's one's reply to "G-d is in control": Ged? Gid? I don't know who this person is you are talking about, but it sounds like he needs some serious deposing.
==================

[I can hear the currency presses running all the way over here.]

If this is Monday's bailout, we must be in Spain.
=================

[Bunky, stop sticking beans up your nose.]

OK, I'm off storm chasing. You guys prop up Europe while I'm gone.
====================

[narciso]

We're missing the main distinction, Wahhabism is what has made Arabia, a hellish place, although I admit Deobandism could be a close
second, so it's 'no blood for lithium' now,
kind of like the unobtanium on Pandora

[Jane]

I'm bummed. I sent an email to Fox and Friends about Abby Sunderland, which they read on air. My TV was in the midst of a "mandatory" shut-off-the-sound warning, so I never got to hear it. I happened to turn around and look at the screen as it passed by.

I coulda been a contender!

[BB Key]

OT
Drudge/Brietbart/Big Government has video of Rep. Bobby Etheridge, (Dean of the NC Dem Delegation) and a senior member of Ways amd Means Committee, accosting a college kid who asks if Etheridge is a 'supporter of the Obama agenda'

Summer fun?

[Extraneus]

Saw that BB. Why don't any of these assaultees say "If you don't let go of my arm, I'm going to defend myself."

I like Etheridge's line about "I have a right to know who you are." Really?

[DebinNC]

Etheridge was state school superintendent for 12 yrs. and a big advocate of character education.

[rse]

Am currently reading Andy McCarthy's The Grand Jihad and am astonished at how effectively Saudi money has allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to establish itself in American society.

He talks about a large mosque and Islamic center in Tucson and its connection to the Flying Imams.

I kept thinking "Tucson, Islamists, push for open borders and outcry over AZ's bill".

Great book but gut wrenching to think about what's happening and being ignored. More global financing would not be helpful.

[narciso]

Clearly it didn't take in his case

[There's an oscillation off Africa. Scroll to the natural thread.]

He don't need no stinkin' badges.
===========

[PD]

From the administration that cannot bring itself to use the term "war on terror," we now find that an oil spill presents us with the same kind of existential danger as a terrorist attack.

Obama: Gulf oil spill "echoes 9/11":

President Obama says the Gulf oil disaster "echoes 9/11" because it will change the nation's psyche for years to come, according to an interview with POLITICO, a news outlet.

"In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11," the president said Friday in the Oval Office interview. "I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come."

[What fools Obama and his backers be.]

PD, you should see American Thinker today on this.
==================

[Oh, no, we don't call it English.]

Hah, hah, we've got the image meme for 2012 making itself visible before our very eyes. It's all the shots of Obama in finest preppie attire putting 'spin' on the ball.
================

[matt]

we'll bail out and the Chinese will move in. Look how Iraq turned out for American business. A trillion spent?

[PD]

Methinks elevating the spill to the level of 9/11 is Obama's attempt to show that he can Deal With Important Issues, like a Real Leader must do.

Unfortunately, even were they equivalent, President 404's response to the spill is so detached, his leadership is entirely in abstentia.

[narciso]

As we see, this isn't particularly new news, only the scope of it, the latest Brad Thor
novel, revolved around a Russian plot to commandeer a huge emerald stockpile, and seek
revenge against the US's defeat of them, by propping up certain AQ leaders in charge

[Danube of Thought]

Minus 18 at Raz today.

Obama held hostage, Day 56.

[Clarice]

I think the comparison is an insult and the voters will see it that way, Ras has him at -18 even before that preposterous remark was known.

[Captain Hate]

Look how Iraq turned out for American business.

Isn't it true that we don't get oil from Iraq because Lurch wasn't happy with their environmental standards?

[Danube of Thought]

No blood for untapped minerals.

[Extraneus]

I guess he means that the public will be just as pissed at the oil industry as they were at Muslim terrorists after 9/11.

Stupid.

[Ignatz]

--President Obama says the Gulf oil disaster "echoes 9/11" because it will change the nation's psyche for years to come...--

Nice try, champ, but the echoes of Katrina are what everyone else on the planet hear.
Gateway pundit's headline says it all "Obama Tells Politico the Oil Spill is Like 9-11... Then Goes Golfing for 4 Hours"

--Saw that BB.--

This is getting confusing. Half of us call bunkerbuster bb and the other half call him bunky, both valued contributors. if circumstances force a response to the twit, suggest we rename him after his only strangely passionate interest; a subject he seems fixated on and which he spies everywhere and in every comment and figure of speech no matter how innocent.
For the sake of clarity and accuracy, bunkerbuster should henceforth be dubbed "homoerotic", although evidence suggesta "autoerotic in his mom's basement" is probably closer to the truth.

[Neo]

I fully expect "The Won's" speech on Tuesday to center on how he is going to stick it to BP on Wednesday, probably based on the "Madman Theory of the Presidency."
I expect BP to be congenial but unyeilding.

[hit and run]

Clarice:
I think the comparison is an insult and the voters will see it that way, Ras has him at -18 even before that preposterous remark was known.

Remember that time Bush whined that people expected too much of him,"I mean,I can't suck up all the terrorists with a straw."

[Clarice]

He is looking increasingly childish and petulant and incompetent, isn't he?

[PD]

Nice try, champ, but the echoes of Katrina are what everyone else on the planet hear.
Gateway pundit's headline says it all "Obama Tells Politico the Oil Spill is Like 9-11... Then Goes Golfing for 4 Hours"

"My pet golfclub"

[Porchlight]

Is he trying to invite a comparison with Rudy Giuliani's leadership post 9/11?

What a dumb, dumb, dumb thing to say.

[bunkerbuster]

Thanks Ignatz! Even if I'm not attracted to you, per se, I'm flattered that you'd take the time and make the effort to visualize me in a sexual setting.

[Sue]

Porch,

I think he is trying to invoke Bush's bullhorn moment. You can't fake leadership. I hope that is apparent to the mushy middle by now.

[Sue]

One of the regulars at AT said it best...Obama is lazy. Very lazy.

[Disgusted]

From tents to palaces to world domination with their primitive woman-hating religion. Great news.

[narciso]

I'm trying to think of a proper parallel to Obama's stunts, maybe if the second wave of attacks had hit the West Coast, and the Library Tower and say the Prudential building
in San Francisco had also been targeted, and
the administration was still focusing on Argenbright as the major area of attention

[fdcol63]

"No blood for ore!"

[Jane]

I fully expect "The Won's" speech on Tuesday to center on how he is going to stick it to BP on Wednesday, probably based on the "Madman Theory of the Presidency."
I expect BP to be congenial but unyeilding.

I expect his speech to be all about the need for cap & tax legislation

[Jane]

"homoerotic"

Shouldn't that be homophoberotic?

[Danube of Thought]

Malaise.

[daddy]

Just watched the Holland/Denmark soccer game. 2 tables full of orange shirted Holland fans very happy at their 2-0 victory.

Was seated next to a Brit. Had a fun chat. He was bummed I didn't hate him, and likewise I was bummed he didn't hate me. Many chuckles about that. We tried on and off to hate each other thru the Denmark/Holland contest but were only barely able to keep each other awake, much less generate any animosity.

Regardless, it's now minute 45 of the Jap/Cameroon game and even tho' the Jap's controlled Taiwan from the 1890's until 1945, and were frequently ruthless about mandating the speaking of Japanese only and stuff like that, the consensus among Delores, Angel, Peggy, William, and the other bartenders, cocktail gals and regular customers at the Malibu is that they are pulling for Japan over the Cameroonies, WW2 atrocities notwithstanding.

[anduril]

So instead of chasing goats, growing poppies and paying bribes, the locals can sell mineral rights, mine, chase goats, grow poppies and pay bribes. And now there is more for which to fight and bribe.

TM gets that about right. There's no reason why the discovery of vast mineral riches would mean that Afghans would stop chasing goats--or the local dancing boys--any more than those pastimes ended with the discovery of vast oil reserves in other Muslim countries. They should feel free to sell their mineral riches to people who know what to do with such treasure, but I still don't want them coming here.

[BB Key]

Ignatz,
You have a reply to my post at 9:03 referencing Rep. Bob Etheridge D-NC confused with bunkerbuster.

But since you brought it up, the Etheridge video has now gone viral and even the liberal McClatchey rag , Raleigh N&O has picked it up.

Keep fanning the flames and Etheridge is toast in what 6 months ago was a safe seat. I think his Republican opponent is one of Sarah's Mama Grizzlies

I am not a regular but I have been commenting here for over a year.

[jimmyk]

President Obama says the Gulf oil disaster "echoes 9/11"

I wonder why he didn't say it "captured our imagination."

[Danube of Thought]

"Vuvuzuela" sounds like a dirty word to me. They gotta ban those things.

[Rob Crawford]

I wonder why he didn't say it "captured our imagination."

C'mon -- the only thing that captures his imagination is a Jew getting his head sawed off.

(Apologies for my bluntness.)

[Jane]

So how did they find all these minerals?

[narciso]

Here's part of the answer, Jane, from the article:

In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.

During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.

Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.

[fdcol63]

Yeah, "captures our imagination" sounds like he relishes dreaming up even more barbaric and heinous ways to murder Jews.

[Danube of Thought]

Must read stuff excerpted by Roger Kimball. Gets me fired up.

[narciso]

Heck, we block development of our own resources notably in the great White North,
oil,gas, timber, et al, but we're going to be mining it in Afghanistan. That being said this
seems a better course than 'the devil's excrement' or opium,

[Clarice]

A provocative article by James Lewis suggesting Obama was in on the Gaza flotilla provocation.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/the_gaza_flotilla_ambush_what.html>WH okayed flotilla farce

[jimmyk]

we block development of our own resources

There's a WSJ story today about the Obama administration supporting nuclear energy for Jordan. Yet he seems more ambivalent about it for his own country.

[centralcal]

DoT, the piece you linked (that gets you all fired up) was written by the fellow in the Green Room at Hot Air known as Dr. Zero.

I think he should have his very own blog. His writing is always superb.

[Porchlight]

I think he is trying to invoke Bush's bullhorn moment.

Sue,

I think you're right. And I think he'd probably die before he'd admit it.

[Jane]

Thanks Narciso. So apparently finding the minerals is all Bush's fault.

[Captain Hate]

cc, you're exactly right; Dr Zero is the schizz and puts AllahPerv and Ed BoresMe to shame.

[narciso]

Btw, Doc Zero does have a standalone blog, in the LUN

[narciso]

There's him, Dab yn Hugh (sic) J. E. Dyer, Lori Ziganto, basically the whole GR team
is first rate, although McLeod seems to slipping on a host of areas

[Sandy Daze]

14 June 2010

~ Flag Day ~

Baghdad

ref res @ 0919:

In 2002 I lived in el Obied, Sudan (roughly south-central) as part of an international peace monitoring effort in the Nuba Mountains.

El Obied is either the second or third largest city in Sudan after Khartoum. The Catholic Church in El Obied is beautiful and was built by the Comboni Order, in 1961.

In the 1990s immediately across the street from this Church, Saudi money (presumably Whahibbi, but I did not know enough back then to ask) funded the building of a mosque. My interpreter/translator told me how all the residents knew that the mosque was placed specifically in that position as a counter to, of course, the Church. The mosque was known as the “Church Mosque” because everyone knew of the Church there well before.

And, oh yes, lest there be any doubt, the mosque minarets were taller than the Church bell steeple. The significance of what the Saudis were declaring was not lost on anyone.

As to the mosque at Ground Zero, there can be no doubt that this is an effort to claim supremacy over that land. It must be stopped. If completed what they will be saying is, “Islamic warriors destroyed the World Trade Center ‘temple’ of your capitalism. We have built our ‘temple’ (a mosque) on top of those ashes. We are stronger than you. Submit.” Or as Osama Been Laden said in December 2003, “What are we calling you to? We are calling you to complete submission to his will, complete submission to Sharia Law.” This is no different than the Temple Mount.

We may not be waging a religious war; but that they are, there can be no doubt.

~+~

Their enabler in chief is unfortunately our Poseur In Chief. The PIC.

~+~

Obama, the African Colonial by L.E. Ikenga (LUN) remains extraordinarily insightful and prescient now just 11 days short one year being published at American Thinker. Please give it a re-read.

His latest statement, equating 11 September with the Oil Spill is despicable. Despicable is as despicable does.

~+~

BTW - did anyone see "We Con The World"? I am sure some have. I think it is a tremendous effort. This type of ridicule is e x a c t l y the kind of thing that will, if prepared for the PIC , get inside his head like a mind worm. We need more of it. A hit song that takes him down.

Take good care,
Sandy

PS ref daddy at 1052: I tell my Brit associates over here that what the PIC is saying and doing is all about the PIC and not about Americans, the PIC sent the Churchill bust home, the PIC gave the Queen an iPod of his speeches, the PIC gave the DVDs that were not in European format to the (then) PM and so on. The PIC hates the English because they were the colonial ruler in Kenya and elsewhere. Simple. This oil spill is, for the PIC, and perfect opportunity to assuage his increasing sense of incompetence while at the same time, beating up on the British. Read Ikenga's piece. Spot on.

The PIC is a ****.

[Clarice]

Take care, Sandy!

[narciso]

I though so, too, having studied up on Nkrumah, Kenyatta, and Cabral in college,
Adjami and my Argentine friend, both recognized the type from different but similar angles

[Jane]

Hey Sandy- good to see you.

[matt]

that has been my thinking all along, sandy.Obama is the great anti-colonialist, probably influenced by his time in Indonesia as well, except his stepfather was probably one of the corruptocrats so prevalent over there.

It is a natural default position for someone who changed his name from Barry Soetero to Barack Hussein Obama.

[JM Hanes]

"What happens when you superimpose a trillion dollars worth of natural resource wealth on a primitive society?"

Resource rich western Africa should answer that question. The stability of Saudi Arabia looks like an accident of history in comparison.

All those "realists" who contend that Afghanistan is an unimportant backwash seem positively oblivious, if not outright hostile, to the concept of strategic interests -- whether our own or others'. Afghanistan's poverty stricken disarray has kept it from being a serious player in the region in and of itself. As in the case of Iraq, however, sacrificed on the altar of domestic policy and anti-Bush hysteria, the practical advantages of a democratic, U.S. friendly, ally at the very crossroads of an ever more threatening anti-American axis seem strikingly obvious. As does the folly of cutting Israel off at the knees -- completely aside from any other sympathies or lack of them. The prospect of immense resources in the middle of an al Qaeda training camp could be the mother of Great Game changers.

Neo:

Obama will be sticking it to us with cap 'n trade on Tuesday night.

bunky:

Reduced to "Thanks for caring," yet again, eh? You seem a little confused about who's the target in the target practice here. You're a floating fish of stereotypical talking points in a temptingly convenient barrel.

[narciso]

Yeah you look at the Boschian landscape of Sierra Leone under the RUF and Liberia, before Sirlear the tea sipping paradise of Joe Wilson's Niger, even the Mad Max like kleptocracy of Nigeria, and one wonders

[narciso]

The incomparable David Warren seems to have figured things out well, in the LUN

[Danube of Thought]

Agreed Dr. Zero writes beautiful stuff.

[LouP]

Lithium? As in lithium batteries? Isn't that one of the center-pieces of the new, golly-gee-whiz, green energy movement, and the creation of all those new green jobs?

It will be interesting to see the response to this one. Probably gonna be much like the environmental response to the GOM non-spill (What spill? Where's the environmental outrage?).

[Ignatz]

--Ignatz,
You have a reply to my post at 9:03 referencing Rep. Bob Etheridge D-NC confused with bunkerbuster.--

BBKey,
Not persactly.
Someone referenced you as BB after your post which is why I labeled you one of our valued contributors.
My suggestion was that we refer to bunkerbuster henceforth with the name "homoerotic", as it seems to be his one area of real interest, to avoid confusing references to you and the real "bunky" in future.

[Sue]

I have a question...if it turns out the democratic nominee for senator in SC, Greene, is a republican "plant", what is the big deal? Democrats voted for him. Unless all of those votes are frauds.

[Jane]

Why would they plant a guy who didn't campaign, have a sign, or anything else. WHat would be the point - to show how positively stupid the moonbats are?

[Ignatz]

--WHat would be the point-to show how positively stupid the moonbats are?--

Trying hard to think of a better point. Failing.

[Captain Hate]

I agree with Sue and Jane; if the donkeycrats didn't want to portray their constituents as a bunch of clueless dunces, they wouldn't pursue this "plant" theme. However they never seem to tire of calling themselves victims of some nefarious thing or other, no matter how unsympathetically they present themselves.

[Jane]

Etheridge is about to hold a press conference.

[Jane]

Obama interrupted that victim Ethridge, who was whining about how tough it is to be an elected official.

[Sue]

Ethridge should offer his resignation. Right before they put the cuffs on him for assault.

to show how positively stupid the moonbats are?

If that was the plan, it worked like a charm.

[Walter Sobchak]

No War For Iron Ore!

[matt]

Pakistan's ISI; The Burqa comes off! LUN

[Clarice]

mtt, I can't get that link to work.

[bobdog]

So, fully realized, a trillion in new revenues would raise the GNP of Afghanistan to what, a half trillion?

[Janet]

The link to Oceanaris usually works for me, but it takes a long time to connect (a long time in computer land, so maybe a minute or two).

[Clarice]

Thanks, Janet.

[Boatbuilder]

I don't think that the people who voted for Greene are moonbats. Racialists is probably a more apt description. For those who voted for him, and those who want to deny him the primary win.

It does put the Dems into a very amusing bind. The default reaction--it's the racist Republicans'--or the racist rednecks'--fault, doesn't really work.

I don't think that even The Magnificent Bastard could have thought this one up. But I'm betting he's having a good laugh!

And please don't call me BB.