The past week, in the US, provides a colorful real-time example of how very gullible our military and civilian leaders believe us to be (or, if you prefer, how bogged down in epic failure they are in Afghanistan).  Ever since the fiasco known as the Marjah Offensive, with its comical “government-in-a-box” mission, the news out of Afghanistan has been unrelentingly awful.  Just about every assumption behind our troops’ marching orders has been terribly flawed and delivered abysmal results; unfortunately, those mistakes are measured in the lives of Americans squandered on faulty premises and bad leadership.

By last week, all such bad news had reached a tipping point and some analysts were predicting that the situation in Afghanistan was “Iraq, 2006” all over again, and that public and political support for continuing the war would surely falter, if not collapse, soon. 

We had all recently digested such news as:

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatening to defect to the Taliban;
• NATO support falling apart — the Dutch government collapsed over the issue of supplying troops, Germans were revolted over the notion the fight was to protect the free market, the British are sending up distress signals that costs of continuing are unsustainable for them, and the Poles demanded a withdrawal schedule a few days ago;
• More American troops committing suicide than being killed by their enemies;
• Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s admission that the US is killing a “shocking number” of innocent civilians in its efforts to “protect” them;
• Lack of any Afghan support for the Kandahar Offensive Operation Process; Karzai’s recent Peace Jirga turned into such a resounding mandate for an immediate cease-fire that Karzai had to leave most of the proceedings out of the official report that would go to his US handlers;
• President Karzai has announced his intention to release prisoners being held in Afghanistan if there is insufficient evidence (per Afghan law) to hold them (good for him) plus he has petitioned the UN to remove Mullah Omar from their terrorist “blacklist”;
• The Taliban has undergone a resurgence due in part, it turns out, to generous donations from the US; evidently a goodly portion of the shrink-wrapped pallets of US dollars that were meant to purchase Afghan “hearts and minds” wound up rearming the Taliban who are now carrying out audacious attacks on US military installations and cutting a murderous swathe through the ranks of local officials that they deem collaborators;
• Recent reports allege that the Pakistani Intelligence Agency, ISI, has been training and arming the Taliban in Pakistan.  Pakistan, of course, denies this but, in his efforts to network with Pakistan, Karzai has been making decisions that seem to be pointedly directed at courting them;
• One of the most recent of such moves by Karzai was the removal/forced resignation of two cabinet ministers who were considered Western pawns by some (and valuable assets by others).  One of those ministers was Amrullah Saleh who headed the Afghan Intelligence Agency (NDS) and was allegedly despised by Pakistan’s ISI.

Needless to say, things are not shaping up the way that the White House and the Pentagon dreamed they would, in Afghanistan; so it is, therefore, not terribly surprising that the White House had its feelings hurt when the New York Times published a critical report on our deteriorating position in Afghanistan.  I read the Times report when it first came out, and, given the hubbub that ensued, I read it again several times afterward, to make sure I hadn’t missed something.  At no point did I experience a “well, blow me down” moment.  As a matter of fact, the article only served to make better sense of some “inconvenient truths” that have been emerging over the past six months or so.

Nevertheless, the report obviously hit an administration “nerve” because, within hours, Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, was leveling some pretty incendiary charges at the New York Times, calling the information inaccurate “if not fallacious.”  By Sunday Rice had cooled down some and shared with the Fox News Sunday audience that:

“We don’t have any basis for seeing it as the New York Times portrays it.” We have every confidence that the U.S. and NATO, working with our Afghan partners, will defeat the Taliban.  Hamid Karzai remains an important partner in the Afghan government.”

If those words truly represent Susan Rice’s viewpoint on our prospects of success in Afghanistan, that puts her in an ever-shrinking minority of neocon war boosters, old-guard military hacks and Tea Party Pollyannas – and someone might want to seriously reconsider her foreign policy cred.  Speaking for the White House, David Axelrod steered clear of any such “blue skies” storyline stating that:

“As to this issue, understand that Mr. Saleh [formerly director of the Afghan intelligence service] was fired by president Karzai so that may help color some of his interpretations.  And Mr. Karzai rejected his interpretation of this, at the end of the day, however we have always said the future of Afghanistan will involve political solutions, just as it did in Iraq, and ultimately if the Taliban is willing to lay down arms… that would be part of the solution. Meanwhile we are putting pressure on them everyday.”

What a difference a day makes!  According to a report in The Nation a few days ago:

“Saleh has been a favourite of the CIA, even as he drew fire from the Pakistanis. The agency is said to have pressured Karzai to keep Saleh in the intelligence post last year after he won re-election. Saleh had openly expressed his support for Karzai’s political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who like Saleh is a Tajik and was mentored by the charismatic militia leader Ahmed Shah Masud. Indeed, Saleh is said to have a portrait of Masud displayed prominently on the wall of his office at the National Directorate of Security, as the Afghan spy service is known.”

In 24 hours, Amrullah Saleh was demoted from valuable US asset, well-positioned within the Afghan administration, to disgruntled employee, willing to lie to discredit his boss. 

Dear New York Times:  All is Forgiven 

Can We Be of Service?

What with a looming double-dip recession, further erosion in Obama’s approval ratings, and a Secretary of Defense threatening to take a poleax to the Defense budget, things were not looking very promising for the Empire on Sunday night.  But never fear, come Monday morning the Pentagon pulled a remarkable, game-changing rabbit out of its helmet and now everything is looking much, much better.

Ironically it was, once again, the New York Times bearing the glad tidings that dusty old, worthless Afghanistan, riddled with graft, corruption and drugs, with a crackpot hoodlum at the helm is sitting on a gold mine (literally) and has been elevated, overnight to international “player” and coveted prize.

This revelation was timely, to say the least, since the increasingly shrill criticism of US efforts, both at home and abroad, has been that it is decidedly not worth it and that the Afghans are decades, if not centuries, away from being able to manage their own affairs – one of our ostensible objectives.  Just when all was looking inescapably grim, the discovery of untold, untapped mineral wealth provided Afghanistan with a ticket to the 21^st century – and a reason for the Pentagon to hang tough.

James Risen started his article for the Times with this breathless lead-in lest anyone miss the enormity (or the point) of his earth-shattering news:

“The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.”

“The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.”

One can almost hear cries of “Stop the Presses!” and Extra! Extra! Read all about it . . . except that some of it is “inaccurate if not downright fallacious.   The United States did not “discover” the deposits — the Russians did;  the $1 trillion dollar number is an educated guess, at best; and these are undeveloped resources in an undeveloped country so any actuaql impact on the Afghan economy probably won’t occur in our lifetime.

Blake Hounshell, of Foreign Policy, did some heavy-lifting to put the Pentagon’s Eureka! into perspective by plowing through the actual geological reports that provided source material for the Times article.   According to Hounshell:

“The story goes on to outline Afghanistan’s apparently vast underground resources, which include large copper and iron reserves as well as hitherto undiscovered reserves of lithium and other rare minerals.”

“Read a little more carefully, though, and you realize that there’s less to this scoop than meets the eye. For one thing, the findings on which the story was based are online and have been since 2007, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. More information is available on the Afghan mining ministry’s website, including a report by the British Geological Survey (and there’s more here). You can also take a look at the USGS’s documentation of the airborne part of the survey here, including the full set of aerial photographs.”

“Nowhere have I found that $1 trillion figure mentioned, which Risen suggests was generated by a Pentagon task force seeking to help the Afghan government develop its resources (looking at the chart accompanying the article, though, it appears to be a straightforward tabulation of the total reserve figures for each mineral times current the current market price). According to Risen, that task force has begun prepping the mining ministry to start soliciting bids for mineral rights in the fall.”

As it turns out the original, original surveys were conducted by Russian occupation forces who obviously decided that neither the minerals nor Afghanistan were worth it, because they left the surveys with the Afghans who, distracted by other things, have been sitting on them for decades.  Evidently, some Afghan under-secretary-of-something-or-other thought the Americans might take the bait and sure enough, the Americans came with their high-tech geological gizmos that measure the mineral veins and – if we are to believe Risen—spit out an appraisal real-time.  Evidently the topic came up during Karzai’s most recent face-to-face with Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, in May; when Karzai delivered his own back-of-the-envelope valuation of the Afghan mineral deposits claiming that the value is more like $3 trillion.  Whatever . . .

Risen admits that it could take years to develop a mining industry, but he also guesses that the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

Continuing on in the “Happy Days Are Here Again” vein, none other than Gen. David Petraeus weighed in with this:

“There is stunning potential here. There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

Risen goes on to speculate that:

“The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.”

And cites Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines as stating that:

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy.”

The Pep Rally continues with similar comments like:

“The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.”

And we all know how hard it is to “astonish” American geologists . . .

The Pentagon (probably with Human Terrain reports in hand) evidently leaked an internal memo to Risen that asserts that:

“ . . . Afghanistan could become ‘the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.”

Way to get those social media types on board . . .

Eventually, though, Risen has to get to the real point and the poor man can’t be over-subtle given the Empire’s low opinion of the average taxpayer’s mental acuity, so here’s the red meat:

“American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.”

“So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.”

“Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.”

“Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.”

And who better to sort out such “endless fights” and safeguard the infant Afghan democracy? And who’s already on the job?  Well, it might take a long time but, by golly, we have to keep this treasure chest out of the hands of the Taliban – or we’re toast.

And if that isn’t compelling enough for you, there’s more, the really, REALLY scary part:

“American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.”

There’s even something for the “Greenies:

“Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. The big question is, ‘can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?’”

That’s rich . . .

* * * 

Despite the “Breaking News” feel to all of this, there is a background story that is somewhat less sensational.  In January, 2010 the Wall Street Journal carried a somewhat different story on the Afghan Gold Rush from Matthew Rosenberg of their London bureau:

“Afghanistan plans to delay awarding concessions for a major iron ore deposit and sizeable oil and gas reserves as part of a broader effort to stamp out corruption, the country’s finance minister said.”

“Of particular concern, said Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal in an interview Tuesday, is a major iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan that last year attracted bids from smaller Chinese and Indian companies. “We’ve put a hold onto the bidding process; it will have to be re-bid,” he said.”

“Putting the Afghan economy in order is one of the major issues to be addressed at a conference Thursday in London on Afghanistan’s future. Foreign ministers from 56 countries along with representatives from the United Nations and other international organizations involved in stabilizing Afghanistan are to attend, and European diplomats have in recent days said they are keen to hear Mr. Zakhilwal’s economic plans for the coming years.”

“Mining could be a major economic contributor. But the Mines Ministry has long been considered among Afghanistan’s most corrupt government departments, and Western officials have repeatedly expressed reservations about the Afghan government awarding concessions for the country’s major mineral deposits, fearful that corrupt officials would hand contracts to bidders who pay the biggest bribes — not who are best suited to actually do the work.”

“Mr. Zakhilwal said those concerns are shared by many inside the Afghan government, too. ‘I was among those who have been opposed to opening up new bids,’ he said. ‘It was not just the issue of corruption – but that is a real issue. We also need to do a review of how contracts are awarded, what lessons we’ve learned, what kind of transparency is needed to make the next best step.’”

“Still, he said there was no evidence of corruption in the awarding of the one major concession given out in recent years, a copper mine being set up by two Chinese firms, China Metallurgical Group and Jiangxi Copper Group.”

“That project attracted bids from all over the world, and there have been persistent reports of bribes being paid to secure it. Mr. Zakhilwal termed those reports “rumors” and held up the deal – under which the companies agreed to build schools, clinics, markets, mosques and a power plant — as a model for how Afghanistan could award future concessions.”

Memo to Pentagon: it would appear that the Afghans think that they are in charge of the Mother Lode.  It would also appear that the Chinese are actively buying up development rights in Afghanistan and, so far, no mushroom clouds.  So, if you want to stay in Afghanistan forever that’s your business, just find somebody else to pay for it. 

Sincerely,

A Taxpayer

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