Early last week the New York Times "broke" the story of vast deposits of lithium, cobalt, gold, iron,and copper in Afghanistan. Much of the talk currently revolves around the risks of operating in Afghanistan where current regulations are considered as inhospitable to the bottom line as Afghans are to occupying armies.
Afghan officials have interpreted their mining regulations in such a way that if a company is awarded a concession to explore and then discovers valuable minerals, the government can tender the concession back and rebid it, undermining any incentive for a foreign firm to actually find large deposits, he said.
“They can take it back after you discover something,” Mr. Yeager [a Colorado-based geologist and former consultant to the Afghan mines ministry] said. “That needs to be corrected.”
The timing and tone of the article quickly aroused suspicion around the world, and many Afghans are understandably skeptical that their country's "reconstruction," not resource exploitation and the extension of American hegemony, is the reason the Pentagon announced years-old data.
"The Pentagon memo," wrote the Asia Times,
may have been an effort to attract international interest in the mining sector before the auction in the next few weeks of the 1.8 billion-ton iron-ore field in Hajigak, which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion, according to the British-based Times. ...
The memo coincided with a visit to India by Wahidullah Shahrani, the new Afghan minister of mines, to solicit bids for Hajigak after a planned tender was canceled last year because of a lack of international interest, the Times reported. Shahrani was appointed with US backing in January after his predecessor was sacked for allegedly taking bribes from a Chinese mining company - a charge he denies.
Personally, this doesn't seem any more conspiratorial than most economic endeavors between unequal partners. I say this not to excuse this latest joint venture between American power and private industry, or distract from the fact that Afghanistan has much more at stake here than America does, but to place this "news" in the context of America's culture of consumption. Our government has helpfully identified a silver (er, lithium) lining to the quagmire called Operation Enduring Freedom for a society captivated by personal electronics and private automobiles. I have, therefore I am.
The success of our newest reason for occupying Afghanistan depends on a selfish, defensive myopia, a sort of "genesis amnesia" about the true cost of wealth, power, and the "freedom" to consume as many non-renewable resources as we want. We don't have to wait until the next time our military tows another coalition of willing corporations into a country rich in minerals, oil, and the impudence of self-determination. We can start right now by demanding that US troops and tax-payer funded contractors not be placed in the service ofJ.P. Morgan or any other firm doing business on the graves of American soldiers and Afghani civilians.