A God has cursed it

Afghanistan will never again know freedom

The New York Times provides us with the grim 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.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

The Afghanis have long known bitter war even though their place was believed to be little more than an impoverished wasteland. The wasteland, it appears, can yield a better fruit than opium. It is thus not hard to imagine the fate that awaits Afghanistan now that the Superpower can plunder it without organized opposition. If one believed riches to be a good without qualification, Afghanistan's future will likely debunk that belief.