Afghanistan

Is America starting to wake up?

After recent reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government officials received bags of cash from Iran, it's no surprise that Afghanistan would be near the top of a ranking published last week of the most corrupt countries in the world. The Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization based in Berlin and operating in 70 countries, ranked the Central Asian country second only to Somalia and tied with Myanmar for its perceived level of government corruption.

Will the American serfs have to pony up yet again?

The United States and the NATO allies are preparing to disengage and soon withdraw from Afghanistan and even the most vocal advocates of the "long-term commitment" do not anticipate more than five years of active US and NATO involvement. All the local key players — in Kabul, Islamabad, and countless tribal and localized foci of power — are cognizant and are already maneuvering and posturing to deal with the new reality. Irrespective of the political solution and/or compromise which will emerge in Kabul, the US is leaving behind a huge powder keg of global and regional significance with a short fuse burning profusely: namely, the impact of Afghanistan’s growing, expanding and thriving heroin economy. The issue at hand is not just the significant impact which the easily available and relatively cheap heroin has on the addiction rates in Russia, Europe, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and the consequent public health, social stability and mortality-rate issues. In global terms, the key threat is the impact that the vast sums of drug money has on the long-term regional stability of vast tracks of Eurasia: namely, the funding of a myriad of “causes” ranging from jihadist terrorism and subversion to violent and destabilizing secessionism and separatism.

There’s a great deal of chatter in the press and online about the tremendous US$1-trillion-dollar mineral “discovery” in Afghanistan headlined by The New York Times recently. Most of the discussion seems to centre on whether or not this is really news and whether or not the NYT was played by the powers that be for purposes of their own. Few, if any, people seem to be questioning the value of the so-called discovery itself. The US$1-trillion-dollar figure, at best, cannot be anything more than the wildest of hopeful guesses. One does not have to be a geologist or an engineer to understand why. When geologists find outcropping mineralization, or other signs that an economic deposit of minerals may be present, that is not called a discovery. Even if the signs come from the latest scientific equipment flown over the country, as the U.S. government appears to have used, the result is still just an anomaly: a hopeful indication of where to look. And anomalies are like opinions: Everybody has one.

And there are those who wonder why the US has spent countless dollars and thousands of dead soldiers protecting a few desolate mountain passes in Afghanistan. And no, it turns out it is not just the opium trade. The NYT reports that "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 article continues, "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." Ah yes - "previously unknown." Yet the punchline of the piece : "The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists." Because $1 trillion worth of minerals just lie there waiting to be discovered almost 10 years after the initial incursion. Next thing you know FCX already had an entire mining infrastructure in place just in case a contingency like this miraculously occurred. In the meantime, look for gold prices to plunge as the newly uncovered gold deposits are rumored to be "large" enough to once again refill Fort Knox and to push the supply curve three miles to the right.

The latest stunner from the CIA and the Obama administration via Wikileaks. To wit: "This classified CIA analysis from March, outlines possible PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany and France for a continued war in Afghanistan. After the Dutch government fell on the issue of dutch troops in Afghanistan last month, the CIA became worried that similar events could happen in the countries that post the third and fourth largest troop contingents to the ISAF-mission. The proposed PR strategies focus on pressure points that have been identified within these countries. For France it is the sympathy of the public for Afghan refugees and women. For Germany it is the fear of the consequences of defeat (drugs, more refugees, terrorism) as well as for Germany’s standing in the NATO. The memo is a recipe for the targeted manipulation of public opinion in two NATO ally countries, written by the CIA. It is classified as Confidential / No Foreign Nationals."

Supporters of an escalation of the Afghanistan war often respond to criticism by asking "okay smart guy, what would YOU do to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan?"

Here's one answer ...

Nobel 'Peace' Prize winner Obama escalates war in Afghanistan in act of Orwellian tragedy.

Bottom line: The wars are unnecessary, and they are draining resources which could be used to reduce unemployment and help the economy.