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No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode
- pdx 16y agoRegardless of the political motivations that sparked the announcement, I was excited to hear about it. I became interested in Afghanistan in 2001, along with everybody else. Before that, my only exposure to the country was my reading of "The Man who would be King", by Kipling. Everything that I've heard about the Afghanistan economy has had to do with opium and heroin. To have it announced that there was a very real possibility that there may be a way to grow their economy in a very real and significant way, and a way that benefits the rest of the world, rather than harms it, is exciting news to me.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoYour demographic is showing. Some of us became interested in Afghanistan back in '79, when the Soviets invaded, and President Carter (remember him?) re-instated draft registration. Seemed pretty important at the time, but seems to be forgotten now...
- pinstriped_dude 16y agoMaybe a large part of the audience here is born in the 80s?!
- cema 16y agoMaybe a large part, but not "everybody else".
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- pdx 16y agoI was, of course, aware of the soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but it wasn't an interesting thing to me. The Soviets were interesting to me, of course, but not the Afghans. 2001 made Afghanistan interesting in it's own right, not just a chapter in a Soviet story.
- bobbyi 16y agoI don't think it's fair to say that "everybody else" ignored Afghanistan until 2001. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was one of the more important events of the Cold War and was widely watched by the world.
- eru 16y ago> To have it announced that there was a very real possibility that there may be a way to grow their economy in a very real and significant way, and a way that benefits the rest of the world, rather than harms it, is exciting news to me. How about educating the population, improving the infrastructure and so on? Lots of places without any real natural resources seem to do fine.
- pdx 16y ago> Lots of places without any real natural resources seem to do fine Really? Who? Japan that's who ... and everybody marvels about how the heck they managed it. Who else? Not fair saying any country that had colonies once, even if they no longer do, as they got their "jump start" from the resources of their colonies. What country has actually succeeded without natural resources? Keep in mind that natural resources aren't just minerals. They may be geographic circumstance, such as "the only land route between X and Y", or ocean access, or "the shortest route between A and P", etc. It's very fashionable to say that you can get by on brains alone, but it turns out that more is generally required.
- eru 16y agoYour broad definition of natural resources makes it hard to bring counter examples. But what about South Korea? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River)
- heresy 16y agoKorea as a whole was a nation for over two thousand years; 99% of the population on the peninsula is of Korean ethnicity. After the war, citizens of South Korea volunteered, for no pay, to rebuild infrastructure (roads, factories). From the 60s through the 80s, there was one singular goal, namely, building the nation and becoming a prosperous society. I think that kind of scenario is a little harder to reproduce in the more heterogenous parts of the world. How do you propose getting opposing ethnicities in other countries to pull together like that?
- asolove 16y agoI guess what I don't understand is why thought this was good news. Look around the world at countries whose economies depend on non-labor-intensive natural resource extraction. Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. These resources form a natural monopoly and quickly become the subject of political power.
- k33n 16y agoI guess it's a good thing we replaced the Taliban with the CIA then.
- eru 16y agoThe US replaced the Soviets with the Taliban first.
- SwellJoe 16y agoBaby steps...
- thebigshane 16y agoI get your point, but that's not really accurate. More precisely, US prevented Soviet rule in Afghanistan by actions that ended up creating the Taliban. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
- eru 16y agoThanks for giving more information.
- sprout 16y agoSeems to be going great for Norway.
- houseabsolute 16y agoCanada too.
- tjmaxal 16y agoA guy called into NPR this morning and said he had a worlds almanac from 1967 with an article about Afghanistan's mineral riches.
- Groxx 16y agoCare to elaborate? Did it cover lithium / anything discovered, and not just theorized? Does anyone have a copy lying around they can check?
- mahmud 16y agoI listened to said NPR programme and the guy speculated the resources might have been known all along, but only now did the (high) price of these minerals and the (low) cost of their extraction make them more attractive. I, personally, have a more cynical and conspiratorial view of things: I think the U.S. intelligence cooked up the trillion figure in order to wane the production of opium for at least a decade, by promising Afghans a better bounty and a reason to form national unity. Mineral extraction is an expensive undertaking that can't be done by stealth mobile units in friendly pockets; the whole country has to come together. What strengthens my suspicion is the U.S's willingness to announce this "finding", despite the possibility of undermining its presence there. The Taliban can always say the Americans knew about this all along and have fabricated excuses to invade us. $50 on longbet, with a 10 year maturity :-)
- jseliger 16y agoI, personally, have a more cynical and conspiratorial view of things: I think the U.S. intelligence cooked up the trillion figure in order to wane the production of opium for at least a decade, by promising Afghans a better bounty and a reason to form national unity. A good rule of thumb: ignorance and incompetence explains well over 99% of the unfortunate aspects of the world and evil or deliberate planning well under 1%.
- metamemetics 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
- S_A_P 16y agoSo does this mean that the current war in Afghanistan is a war for lithium?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jaekwon 16y agoMaybe it's a preventative measure against the money given to Afghanistan going into the wrong hands, i.e. more terrorism.
- u48998 16y agoNew or not, this story in the NYTimes at least brought an old perspective to the new generation. Lot more people (due to Lithium take of the story) is now aware of the potential of Afghanistan, irrespective of the conspiracy theories etc.
- bfung 16y agoagreed, Marketing matters.
- ErrantX 16y agoI'm still not sure it will have an effect. Those for whom lithium mining represents a commercial possibility almost certainly already new about it from before - so what stopped investment then? I don't buy the concept that this fixes more problems than it causes.
- bobbyi 16y agoThe refute the discovery by citing a report from 2007 that says "Afghanistan has significant amounts of undiscovered nonfuel mineral resources". How does someone previously citing undiscovered resources contradict the idea of those resources now being discovered?
- joe_the_user 16y agoWell, If, hypothetically, Wire had shown that the military had no new information but simply took the previous general reports of resources existing and labeled that a "discovery", then Wired would have refuted the military's claims. Unfortunately, the wired article doesn't seem to provide enough information for this.
- RobertL 16y agoI think that making money from mining copper is a lot better than making money growing poppy seed. But, maybe that's just me.
- sfard 16y agoEven if the profits exist, "Who will be profiting" is a good question. Here are some points (1) Afghanistan's chunk of revenue from reserves will almost all come from Loyalties. They don't have engineers to design mines, no capital equipment to sell, no skilled labour, etc. At best, there will be a slight trickle of money to those serving food and cleaning at camps. (2) Loyalty revenue, in a country as corrupt as Afghanistan, is not going to go the people - at best a small slice might be used to build some infrastructure (3) All this foreign investment in the Country will lead to huge inflation which will make housing/food/etc even less affordable to the average afghani. Source: I've lived-in and worked on mining projects in the developing world and saw all this stuff happen first hand.
- hendler 16y agoThe wired article is interesting, and offers some perspective. But personally, the mineral news was news to me, and helps me understand a little more about what is at stake.
- csomar 16y agoIf US knows already (before the war) that Afghanistan is terribly rich with minerals, so that explains why they did the war and settled down. But how can we forget the reason US told us why they invading Afghanistan? Fighting Terrorism (under the name of AlQaida). The image is clear now. Edit: Assuming US knows that before war.
- JacobAldridge 16y agoI don't think you can argue, as the article kind of does via its sources, that these "discoveries" are of questionable profitability due to the infrastructure and security investment that will be required AND they were the lucrative reason we went to war in the first place. After all, if the Afghan War has already cost the US $739.8 Billion dollars [1], even $1 Trillion doesn't leave much for infrastructure investment and a reasonable profit margin. [1] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html
- c00p3r 16y agoNYT headline is an extremely powerful tool. It puts things into a spotlight. Why? There could be various reasons, to shift attention from an oil spill, for example. =) And of course everyone who are spending (or were spent) money for a war (British, Russian, US) were aware what they would get as a reward.
- binarray2000 16y agoFolks, let's finally bury this news as a PR-gag launched by Pentagon (or some other US government agency) spin-doctors. Why would they do it? People in western countries are tired of the war in Afghanistan. There's no real progress despite big plans of the western nations for this year alone. And until June 2010 western military forces have had more losses than in first three years of engagement there. So, because no one believes in the myths of "bringing freedom and democracy" and "building schools and civil society" anymore , we need a new reason to stay there: Resources! I'm not denying that they don't exist. But... 1. Until there is real analysis of the ground you cannot predict its size and value. 2. There's still a problem of how to export all that minerals from Afghanistan. Even with peaceful and unarmed population, the country doesn't have any notable infrastructure (trains, harbor), many of those areas are in mountains etc.