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[..] Which brings us back to last week, when it was announced that United States’ researchers have found nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, in the form of huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium. Indeed, it was reported that Afghanistan may be the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” an element that is essential to the production of high-efficiency batteries that our green world demands.
These discoveries can change everything. If we do it right, Afghanistan will become a wealthy, reliable ally, a nation that will grow rich and that will help us increase our riches. If we don’t, some other nation like Russia or China will step in to help the Afghans cash in on this find, which would be a tragedy after all the work we’ve done there and after so many Americans who given their lives there.
The worst case, of course, would be for the Taliban to win the war and to control such riches. That would be a disaster, one that we cannot afford to let occur, but that result would also be representative of the ongoing struggle between the jihadists medieval world and the modern world. [..]
Such wealth and modern western technology and convienences did not bring the saudis culturally out of the seventh century. I’m not so enthusiastic as the writer is about this discovery in Afghanistan. As is the case with the saudis, it will likely mean Afghanistan will gain wealth and power while remaining culturally backward under sharia law, and like the saudis will use that wealth and power to place a stranglehold on the west and advance the global ambitions of islam. The last thing we need is another islamic country with vast natural resources we depend upon.
Why do so many analysts in the west fail to understand by now that material wealth is not going to change the mindset of the muslim world?