US to Plunder Afghanistan’s Mineral Riches
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Endless US aggression in Afghanistan has nothing to do with combating terrorism (America supports it), everything to do with controlling the country, using it for oil and gas pipelines, part of encircling Russia and China with US military bases, and plundering vast Afghan mineral riches – likely worth trillions of dollars, a prize corporate predators covet.
They include barite, chromite, coal, cobalt, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, enormous amounts of highly-valued lithium and other rare earth metals vital for high tech products, natural gas, oil, precious and semi-precious stones, potash, salt, sulfur, talc, zinc, among other minerals.
The nation is a resource treasure trove, a key reason why US occupation is permanent, unjustifiably justified by war, the idea not winning it, just waging it endlessly, a forever war.
On Thursday, Trump met with US-installed puppet president Ashraf Ghani, developing Afghan resources discussed, code language for plunder by US corporate predators.
A White House statement said “(t)hey discussed economic development issues, including how American companies can help quickly develop Afghanistan’s rich rare earth mineral resources.”
“They agreed that such initiatives would help American companies develop materials critical to national security while growing Afghanistan’s economy and creating new jobs in both countries, therefore defraying some of the costs of United States assistance as Afghans become more self-reliant.”
Translation: Ghani agreed to let US corporate predators plunder his country, helping America’s economy, not Afghanistan’s, doing nothing to improve the lives of its people, exploiting them instead.
If Ghani balks at any time, he’ll be removed and replaced by a more compliant puppet, the way imperialism works.
The scheme has nothing to do with defraying the enormous cost of endless war, everything to do enriching US corporate predators, along with controlling Afghan mineral riches.
Pre-9/11, Taliban officials met with US oil giant Unocal in Houston regarding construction of a trans-Afghan pipeline.
The 1999 US Silk Road Strategy Act aimed to develop US regional business opportunities, along with undermining, destabilizing, and isolating Russia, China and Iran – a new Great Game to control vital resources in this strategic part of the world.
Clinton administration talks with Taliban officials broke off in 1999, resumed by Bush/Cheney, again ending unsuccessfully.
The rest, as they say, is history, 9/11 followed, four weeks later Afghanistan attacked, a war planned months in advance.
Another key reason for launching it was reviving opium production, largely eradicated by the Taliban, a key source of income for the CIA, Western banks and other financial interests, besides organized crime.
Things are virtually never as they seem, the public lied to about bin Laden, a CIA asset when alive before perishing from illness in December 2001, the 9/11 mother of all false flags, and why America launched war on humanity in its wake, beginning in Afghanistan following the Clinton administration’s rape of Yugoslavia.
Trump continues what his predecessors began, escalating wars he inherited, threatening North Korea with likely catastrophic war if launched, Iran on his target list, maybe Russia and China to follow.
Today is the most perilous time in world history, things worsening, not improving.
Hawkish generals in charge of US warmaking threaten humanity’s survival, nuclear war an ominous possibility, a doomsday scenario if launched.
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