Bring on the Coalition of the Digging - By Christopher Hitchens
Bring on the Coalition of the Digging
Why are we so focused on the problems Afghanistan’s vast mineral deposits could bring?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 21, 2010, at 11:10 AM ET
The breathtaking news of the latest estimate of the latent mineral wealth of Afghanistan, already partly understood but now confirmed by two systematic aerial surveys conducted in 2006 and 2007, has already been downplayed as a possible force-multiplier of the country’s existing miseries. Huge deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium (a key ingredient in the manufacture of laptop batteries) could not only intensify the determination of the Taliban and their allies to retake the country and enrich themselves into the bargain; it could also give an incentive to the country’s other enemies: its warlords and its parasitic oligarchs and those among its neighbors who are less choosy about what kind of government the nation ends up having. Indeed, it was only a short while ago that the Afghan minister of mines was removed, under U.S. pressure, for allegedly taking a $30 million bribe to steer an enormous copper-extraction deal to China, a country whose resource imperialism is already a disgrace everywhere from North Korea to Darfur.
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