Was The New York Times' story on minerals in Afghanistan smart or the result of Pentagon PR?
KABUL, Afghanistan — The New York Times' lead story Monday about “nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghaistan” was the kind of journalism that seemed at first glance to be a game changer.
Suddenly, there was something worth fighting for in Afghanistan beyond an ill-defined counterinsurgency campaign: the lithium batteries that power our cell phones. The story even quoted an internal Pentagon memo that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” And the article went further, trumpeting United States officials' belief that Afghanistan could eventually be “transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world.
And of course we mustn't let China get it. We must stay there forever. Or until we've got all the money.
A question that many media watchers, military analysts and pundits are now wondering is whether The New York Times gave that story shape or whether it was somehow played by the U.S. military to see the value of the mineral deposits at a moment in time when Washington appears to be increasingly concerned about the public losing confidence in the war in Afghanistan.
At a recent conference on Afghanistan, attended by several of the most respected research centers, the topic that drew the most heated response was the relative positions of the foreign troops and the Taliban.
...
“I told them they had already lost,” said one conference participant, speaking on condition of anonymity. The conference was trying to sail “under the radar” and was not open to the media.
“If you have 46 countries and the world’s most developed economies unable to defeat a bunch of insurgents, then you are just finished,” the attendee added.
This view was echoed at another super-secret gathering last week, where a prominent Afghanistan expert told high-level officials that it was time to get out of the country.
“You cannot win,” said the authority. “Make a deal and leave.”
No, we'll more likely make a deal with our mining companies and stay. Hey, our troops died for fucking bananas on behalf of corporate profit, fer chrissake. We'll lose a lot more over lithium.
The upshot:
Afghans, of course, immediately began dividing up the spoils from this trillion-dollar treasure chest. If history is any gauge, then the same problems that have kept them mired in war and misery for so long — poor governance, corruption and the less-than-tender attention of the world community in general and their close neighbors in particular — will more than likely plague them again and the people will just shrug and add the theft of their national treasure to their endless list of grievances.
The "news" about the minerals in Clusterfuckistan is not exactly new, but the timing of the NYT story is becoming more and more suspect. I wouldn't put it past the neocons in the military one little bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment