Questions about the potential value of Afghanistan's mineral wealth

Juan Cole raises questions about whether Afghanistan's mineral wealth is easily accessible and it's true marketable value. Note that at the end of the article, he refers to articles in The Atlantic and Politico that provide further details on the story. One implication of Juan's post and the two magazine stories is that the alleged potential mineral wealth of Afghanistan might distract from how poorly the US-led military offenses are going and provide a rationale for extending the occupation and war. There is no doubt that the White House and the Pentagon have the resources to promote whatever propaganda they favor. And there are other disturbing aspects of the possibility of gigantic mineral extraction industries. They are environmentally distructive, create terrible work conditions, contribute to global warming, and are likely to consolidate the power and wealth of a few. So does war. So, the Afghanistan war would remains a losing proposition for most of the Afghan people and a continuing drain on the resoures of US citizens.


Meh story about $1 Trillion in Minerals in Afghanistan
Posted on June 15, 2010 by Juan Cole

The report that geologists have found $1 trillion in mineral wealth in Afghanistan is less important than it seems..

That Afghanistan has minerals is not in fact news. But none of the sort of research that would be necessary to place a value on them has been done, so no one actually knows what they are worth of if they are worth anything after expenses.

Then, for a country of 34 million, it isn’t that much money even if the minerals could easily be extracted and actually exist in the imagined quantities. If you mined $100 billion a year, that would be a lower middle class income for the country, but only for 10 years. And, then back to grinding poverty.

In contrast, the nominal gross domestic product of the United States is on the order of $14 trillion, year after year.

It is silly to say that $1 trillion in hard-to-mine minerals in a landlocked Afghanistan make it like Saudi Arabia. The latter has 267 billion barrels of petroleum that is fairly easy to get at and to export, which at today’s prices is worth over $18 trillion. Not to mention its natural gas.
The US will likely end up spending $1 trillion destroying things in Afghanistan.

So even if the whole benefit of the minerals went to the US, it would be in the hole.

Hype.
—
See also The Atlantic and
Politico.com.