Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth

Just when you thought all the news from Afghanistan was bleak — the Pentagon has released a new study on Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth:

“The Pentagon back-study found huge deposits of iron, copper, gold and rare valuable minerals used in high-tech industries. US Central Command General David Petraeus called the potential, ‘stunning’,” said CBS’s Tom Popyk.

In fact the New York Times quotes a Pentagon memo saying that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” — AN ELEMENT crucial to the batteries that power our laptops and BlackBerrys.

And how do we know about all those minerals in Afghanistan?

Old Russian charts left over from the Soviet occupation, which were discovered by American geologists in Kabul in 2004. They arranged to outfit an old Navy plane with imaging sensors to map 70% of the country.

The results were so good that the geologists equipped an old British bomber to actually map the mineral deposits in three dimensions.

So think about that for a moment — Afghans — who have now been occupied by the British, the Russians, and now a NATO force led by us will, I’m sure, be pleased to find out that Russian maps, US Navy aircraft, and a converted British bomber have been meticulously surveying their country’s mineral wealth, and that a US General is openly talking about the economic potential of digging it up. Although whose economic potential is unclear:

“The only country to sign a major mining deal so far is China”.

Hmm. We liberate Afghanistan, China gets the minerals? Do you get the feeling we may be in Afghanistan for a long long time?

Now this…