A Golden Future For Afghans?

IBD Editorials ^ | June 17, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff

[Kaslin]

Geopolitics: With the war in Afghanistan mired in uncertainty, news that the country has vast mineral treasures to exploit suggests a brighter future. But there's potential turmoil as well as copper and lithium in them thar hills.

Reports earlier this week that not only those minerals but cobalt and gold have been discovered in the Central Asian hot spot, just waiting to be mined, gave fleeting hope that the yield of the newfound wealth, estimated at close to a trillion dollars, would offer an enticing exit from the bloody conflict and a new and prosperous civilization. If only.

Sobriety quickly set in, with level-headed analysts and commentators explaining how the dazzling find could well exacerbate, not end, the war.

As any cursory history will show, Afghanistan's long-forsaken topography is surrounded by lusting powers. China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India — those powers may be throbbing for conquest anew.

If the loosely defined country's poppy-supported tribes have repulsed or exhausted invaders throughout history, these new deposits of wealth may be unable to resist more determined aggressors.

On top of that stark scenario, Afghanistan, almost by definition, means government by corruption — a now-heightened fact that American nation-builders have not been able thus far to bury.

The new wealth — unless the country can be turned overnight into a free-market system regulated by reliable property rights — almost certainly will enrich tribal chieftains and terrorists.

The stage sets itself for endless recombinations of alliances and feuding factions. As for external influences, already China is reportedly inking deals to extract these alluring minerals from the Afghan earth.

[SorosOwnsObama]

Bet ya the Chinese will be awarded the contract to develop these resources and then export them to China. Hasn’t the Iraqi government done this will oil contracts?

[ScottinVA]

A golden future? It’s there if they want it, but being dumbassed muslims they’ll mismanage it, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda will take control of it.

[SpaceBar]

It's much easier to let the swollen capsules of papaver somniferum ripen in the hot Afghani sun than run a modern mine profitably.

[gandalftb]

It was Chinese assayers that discovered the mineral wealth of the Tethyan Uplift in the AfPak theater 40 years ago.

The Chinese are very busy with a consortium of companies developing the Pakistan mining areas. That is a prime reason for the Chinese development of the port of Gwadar.

All this talk about Afghan mineral riches is just plain nonsense for many years to come. Gold and Lithium is a mines by product of copper ore, that is the base ore that is so plentiful along with iron.

The problem is that the ore is very heavy, so heavy you have to move it by rail car to the smelter.

Slight problem, no railroads in Afghanistan, nada anywhere near the mining areas. Oh, and no paved roads in the area either and lots of Taliban and weapons.

Unless John Wayne and the War Wagon shows up, all of this is just loose talk for the next 15 years minimum.

[Cindy]

Thanks Gandalftb for the ping.

All news to me.

It did seem like a pretty sensational story.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s another thread (saw it for a second, lost it) that this find is three times larger than first thought, it’s a matter of quantity, not so much a matter of recency. :’)

There’s an anecdote about Cortez — the King of Spain asked him to describe his conquest, and Cortez crumpled up some paper and tossed it onto a table. :’)