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No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

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Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#41

Post by [deleted] »

pdx wrote: post #34
eru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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 are…

[deleted]

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#42

Post by kragen »

jseliger wrote: post #40
kragen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Luxembourg, Mallorca, and so on. The colonies thing is sort of dodging the question. How did England end up with India as a colony, or Belgium with the Congo? They had great military strength, grounded in their technological edge, despite being poorer in natural resources than India and the Congo. But that same technological edge can be used today to trade for resources inst…

They had great military strength, grounded in their technological edge, despite being poorer in natural resources than India and the Congo. India and the Congo weren't really countries when the Europeans showed up: what we now think of as those countries had vast collections of tribes more than anything else. They hadn't (and to some extent still haven't) undergone the unification that many European countries were un…

Are you extrapolating that the key was not the technological edge, but strong central government? I'm not persuaded.

(a) Some of the colonial powers were small tribes or collections of tribes themselves. England is one example, as you say, but Belgium and Portugal are surely the poster children for this. Spain is still a vast collection of tribes more than anything else.

(b) Some of the colonized regions had strong central government, notably the Inka empire Tawantinsuyu.

(c) Forms of strong central government have existed in many times and places in the past (Carthage, the Roman Empire, arguably the Roman Catholic Church before Westphalia, ancient Egypt, Axum, China at some periods, Tawantinsuyu, the Maya empire) without kicking off an industrial revolution. Indeed, the argument has often been made that it was precisely Europe's lack of strong central government, together with the current state of philosophy, that permitted the Industrial Revolution to begin.

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#43

Post by metamemetics »

jseliger wrote: post #39
mahmud wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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 pr…

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. 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 und…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#44

Post by RobertL »

bobbyi wrote: post #14

The 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 ?

I think that making money from mining copper is a lot better than making money growing poppy seed. But, maybe that's just me.

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#45

Post by JacobAldridge »

csomar wrote: post #37

If 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.

I 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

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#46

Post by c00p3r »

NYT 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.

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#47

Post by heresy »

eru wrote: post #35
pdx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 are…

Your 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 )

Korea 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?

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#48

Post by binarray2000 »

Folks, 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.

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#49

Post by eru »

heresy wrote: post #47
eru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 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 )

Korea 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 t…

> How do you propose getting opposing ethnicities in other countries to pull together like that?

Greed?

Re: No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1 Trillion Afghan Motherlode

#50

Post by thebigshane »

eru wrote: post #18
k33n wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a good thing we replaced the Taliban with the CIA then.

The US replaced the Soviets with the Taliban first.

I 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
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