afghanistan becomes the saudi arabia of lithium?
June 14, 2010 by rumcrook™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.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
8 comments:
Hi Guys.
Actually the story is not new it was first aired in 2007,i just wonder why they bring it up now.Probably to have a reason to keep troops longer there!
Great. Another primitive troglodyte culture with precious resources coveted by western civilization.
I have to agree with Jewel, on this. Most likely much of the money they make from this will used to fund terrorism and overthrow republican governments that respect freedom of conscious, and that's something that wouldn't happen if this were in land controlled by a much more modern enlightened culture.
Actually we'd be much better off, if this discovery, turned out to be a mistake, and the Saudi oil fields dried up.
American Rose,
Well there's a bright side. What happens when they run out, or these resources are no longer useful to us, and thus are no longer valuable to us? Once Wealthy nations no longer have any use for oil, what do you think will happen to Saudi Arabia, and the Jihad, if they do not find another source of income? Its going to be much harder for them to run their war agianst the rest of the World when that happens.
Following up on American Rose's comment that these people are too stupid to find the resources themselves; yes, that's true
AND
They really don't even know why we need them.
The Middle East doesn't make cars. They wouldn't know what to use oil for, if we hadn't told them.
The ME doesn't make anything that uses Lithium either.
They don't invent anything.
When we find something we need in their land, we pay for it, and then, we have to explain to them why we need it? And, they stand around like the freaking monkeys at the beginning of 2001 going, "Wow?" And then, just like the monkeys, they try to beat the monolith (Western Civ) to death.
I know I'll be called a bigot for writing it, but it's just so true, isn't it?
Pastorius,
I saw that movie. Actually the "Monkeys" in "2001 A Space Odyssey," did not attack the Monolith. It caused some of them to start to develop higher intelligence leading to the evolution of modern big brained humans. The one's influenced by the Monolith were than able to use the stone tools they created to defeat the other Monkeys who were not influenced by the Monolith.
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