A bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little, but a Pentagon study says it may have among the world’s largest deposits of lithium. Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesU.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan -- New York Times
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.
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My Comment: In a society and a culture like Afghanistan's, mass development and exploitation of its raw resources will probably only benefit a few .... and even then I am skeptical. But if this report is true .... and I suspect that it is .... it will change the dynamics of the war appreciably, with other countries and commercial groups recalculating their involvement in this conflict. On the top of this list .... I would include China, Pakistan, India, and of course .... the U.S..
2 comments:
ah, now we have a purpose for staying there? We seem unwilling to eliminate the poppy industry, which helps Taliban, and if we did, the farmers would turn in despair to the Taleban, but now we might be able to forge a new approach: let the income from this vast economic boom subsidize the farmers NOT to grow poppies--sort of the way we subsidize American farms.
If 90 percent of the world's heroin he comes from Afghanistan, shouldn't that poisonous crop be eliminated?
I think you are probably right about right about it benefiting a few only. And I have to wonder just how long our gov has known about this. If they could be industrialized that would be great so that we could get them out of the drug business.
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