"Discovery" in Afghanistan? Nothing new, just propaganda

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"Newspapers do not give facts, they fool the people regularly."-New York Times, May 16, 1921

Salon

If you really believe the breathless propaganda from the NY Times that the Army only recently "discovered" vast mineral deposits in Afghanistan, I have an oil free estuary in Louisiana to sell you.

You also need to read these:

No, U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ $1T Afghan Motherlode (Updated) [Wired]

and

The Mineral Miracle? Or a Massive Information Operation? [Atlantic]

and

Afghanistan's mineral find and the Washington clock [Politico]

The public is starting to wake up and realize that hope and change is really just more perpetual war and lies, so of course the riches of Afghanistan are "discovered" to stiffen our greedy resolve.

Never mind that we've known about the minerals since the days of our proxy war against the USSR in the 1970s. Read the first linked article and learn how American geologists have been working with the pentagon for over 25 years on this and have even published books on the mineral wealth there.

For those too lazy to click over, here is the salient quote from Wired:

One retired senior U.S official is calling the government’s mineral announcement “pretty silly,” Politico is reporting. “When I was living in Kabul in the early 1970s the [U.S. government], the Russians, the World Bank, the U.N. and others were all highly focused on the wide range of Afghan mineral deposits. Cheap ways of moving the ore to ocean ports has always been the limiting factor.”

At least two American geologists have been advising the Pentagon on Afghanistan’s wealth of mineral resources for years. Bonita Chamberlin, a geologist who spent 25 years working in Afghanistan, “identified 91 minerals, metals and gems at 1,407 potential mining sites,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2001. She even wrote a book, “Gemstones in Afghanistan,” on the topic. And Chamberlin worked directly with the Pentagon, after they commissioned her to report on sandstone and limestone caves mere weeks after 9/11.

“I am quite surprised that the military is announcing this as some ‘new’ and ’surprising” discovery,’ she told Danger Room in an e-mail. “This is NOT new. Perhaps this also hints at the real reason why we would be so intent on this war.”

And Jack Shroder, a geologist at the University of Nebraska, told the Associated Press in 2001 that mineral deposits in Afghanistan were so rich, they could be vital in rebuilding the country. He’s collaborated with Pentagon officials since the 1970s, when he worked on mapping the country. In 2002, Shroder was approached by several American companies who hoped to start mining the country.

How stupid does Obama's administration think we are?

How does massive mineral wealth make our unjustified war moral or legal?

Killing for minerals is just as evil as killing for oil.

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Media in the Age of Obama

Must Watch

The New School graduate program in International Affairs hosts a conversation between Gary Younge and Ian Buruma that considers the medias coverage of the Obama White House. Has their coverage affected global perceptions of American politics, the War on Terror, or the meaning of American leadership? Buruma and Younge offer their views.

Gary Younge, Alfred Knobler Journalism Fellow at the Nation Institute, is the New York correspondent for the Guardian and the author of No Place Like Home: A Black Britons Journey Through the Deep South (Mississippi) and Stranger in a Strange Land: Travels in the Disunited States (New Press). He is also a contributor to the Nation.

Ian Buruma is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is the author of Murder in Amsterdam and was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making an especially important contribution to culture, society, or social science in Europe.