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If these riches are accessible, why haven't the US helped the national government exploit it during the last 20 years of occupation, or themselves? Seems like a

If these riches are accessible, why haven't the US helped the national government exploit it during the last 20 years of occupation, or themselves? Seems like a bit of a sensationalized headline.

kesselvon 5y ago
They weren't accessible because of the ongoing Taliban insurgency, which is now the sole existing government.
ianleeclark 5y ago
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/how-afghanistans-president-helped-his-brother-secure-lucrative-mining-deals-with-a-us-contractor https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/how-afghanistans-pre... We did.
- olsonjeffery 5y ago
  This is the actual story. The US has been de facto doing business with anyone, especially the Taliban, to get raw resources (in very dangerous and environmentally damaging ways) for use in some markets for many years. I'm curious what happened to those arrangements and facilities. I think most of the people profiled in the OCCRP are stateside now (Emily Scott King is in beautiful Miami).
- samizdis 5y ago
  Thanks for posting that, I'd been blissfully unaware of that murkiness. On a side note, "artisanally mined" looks like a euphemism for "dug out of the dirt with spades and bare hands by the desperately poor serving brutal overlords", or something similar. Pretty much like the "artisan" child cobalt miners of Congo. See [1] Is my phone powered by child labour? [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-cobalt-child-labour/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-coba...
traceroute66 5y ago
Wasn't the old joke that the US only invaded countries where there was oil ? (i.e. in answer to your question, the US would have "helped" if it was oil that was in the ground)
- somethoughts 5y ago
  I think Key & Peele covered the topic well in this one! But We Have Oil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jcmFNxRzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jcmFNxRzQ
  - MikeDelta 5y ago
    Key & Peele are great at bringing serious topics to the attention, but also just poking fun at typical characters we encounter in daily life.
- hncurious 5y ago
  Oil is largely a red herring, in this case anyway. Julian Assange in 2011: "The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war" https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688 US veteran that oversaw training of Afghan forces, 2021: "I would sit in on staff meetings, because part of my position there was with a Joint Command that was building the Afghan military and police force — the division that I worked with was about training and policy for the Afghan police. And that also included arming and funding them. I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment." https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-big-money-funneling-operation-afghanistan https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-big-money-funneling-operati... And now said equipment is confirmed lost or in the hands of the Taliban: "A U.S. defense official on Monday confirmed the Taliban’s sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous." https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-army-taliban-185017ba2944eb43392a0ad8ffffb25f https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-army-taliban-185017ba29...
yorwba 5y ago
Afghanistan's largest export in 2019 was gold with a total value of $968 million (43.2% of all exports), up from $7.35 million in 2014. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/afg https://oec.world/en/profile/country/afg
- pjc50 5y ago
  Interesting. It's up spectacularly even from 2018. It looks like the Taliban have had control over this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/22/taliban-afghanistan-mining-peace-talks/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/22/taliban-afghanistan-min...
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  Where is opium on that list? Isn't Afghanistan the world's #1 exporter of opium?
pjc50 5y ago
They're not very accessible, they're in Afghanistan. They face the same problem the US occupation did in reverse: the country is inherently inaccessible. There are a few scattered bits of railway. There are a few long mountainous roads out. It is landlocked. It is uneconomic to ship raw minerals other than by rail or sea, since they have low value density. Step 1 would be "build a thousand miles of railway", especially if they're thinking of shipping to China. (This is why the a mainexport was opium: very high value density makes it worth shipping over the passes. Same goes for gold mentioned in a sibling comment)

If these riches are accessible, why haven't the US helped the national government exploit it during the last 20 years of occupation, or themselves? Seems like a bit of a sensationalized headline.

kesselvon 5y ago

They weren't accessible because of the ongoing Taliban insurgency, which is now the sole existing government.

ianleeclark 5y ago

https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/how-afghanistans-president-helped-his-brother-secure-lucrative-mining-deals-with-a-us-contractor https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/how-afghanistans-pre... We did.

olsonjeffery 5y ago
This is the actual story. The US has been de facto doing business with anyone, especially the Taliban, to get raw resources (in very dangerous and environmentally damaging ways) for use in some markets for many years. I'm curious what happened to those arrangements and facilities. I think most of the people profiled in the OCCRP are stateside now (Emily Scott King is in beautiful Miami).
samizdis 5y ago
Thanks for posting that, I'd been blissfully unaware of that murkiness. On a side note, "artisanally mined" looks like a euphemism for "dug out of the dirt with spades and bare hands by the desperately poor serving brutal overlords", or something similar. Pretty much like the "artisan" child cobalt miners of Congo. See [1] Is my phone powered by child labour? [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-cobalt-child-labour/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/06/drc-coba...

traceroute66 5y ago

Wasn't the old joke that the US only invaded countries where there was oil ? (i.e. in answer to your question, the US would have "helped" if it was oil that was in the ground)

somethoughts 5y ago
I think Key & Peele covered the topic well in this one! But We Have Oil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jcmFNxRzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jcmFNxRzQ
- MikeDelta 5y ago
  Key & Peele are great at bringing serious topics to the attention, but also just poking fun at typical characters we encounter in daily life.
hncurious 5y ago
Oil is largely a red herring, in this case anyway. Julian Assange in 2011: "The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war" https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688 US veteran that oversaw training of Afghan forces, 2021: "I would sit in on staff meetings, because part of my position there was with a Joint Command that was building the Afghan military and police force — the division that I worked with was about training and policy for the Afghan police. And that also included arming and funding them. I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment." https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-big-money-funneling-operation-afghanistan https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-big-money-funneling-operati... And now said equipment is confirmed lost or in the hands of the Taliban: "A U.S. defense official on Monday confirmed the Taliban’s sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous." https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-army-taliban-185017ba2944eb43392a0ad8ffffb25f https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-army-taliban-185017ba29...

yorwba 5y ago

Afghanistan's largest export in 2019 was gold with a total value of $968 million (43.2% of all exports), up from $7.35 million in 2014. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/afg https://oec.world/en/profile/country/afg

pjc50 5y ago
Interesting. It's up spectacularly even from 2018. It looks like the Taliban have had control over this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/22/taliban-afghanistan-mining-peace-talks/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/22/taliban-afghanistan-min...
anonAndOn 5y ago
Where is opium on that list? Isn't Afghanistan the world's #1 exporter of opium?

pjc50 5y ago

They're not very accessible, they're in Afghanistan. They face the same problem the US occupation did in reverse: the country is inherently inaccessible. There are a few scattered bits of railway. There are a few long mountainous roads out. It is landlocked. It is uneconomic to ship raw minerals other than by rail or sea, since they have low value density. Step 1 would be "build a thousand miles of railway", especially if they're thinking of shipping to China. (This is why the a mainexport was opium: very high value density makes it worth shipping over the passes. Same goes for gold mentioned in a sibling comment)