October 15, 2009 11:14 PM UTC

Wrong on so many levels - Chinese copper extraction in Afghanistan

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• by: Fidel's dirt nap

Whilst American soldiers are shedding blood in Afghanistan, the Chinese are set up to profit off of their raw materials rather nicely:

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com…

EXCERPT HERE:

Resource-hungry China heads to Afghanistan Posted: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:01 PM

Filed Under: Kabul, Afghanistan

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Early on a recent morning we were driving to a shoot when an astonishing sight loomed up ahead of us. NBC News cameraman Steve O’Neill exclaimed, “It’s the Great Wall of China!”

The “wall” snaking before us, easily several miles long, was made of Hesco sandbags and circled a camp for Chinese workers. Though not permitted to enter the site, we could see rows and rows of neat white buildings with blue trim; the temporary structures looked exactly like the migrant workers’ housing at construction sites all across China.

Size apart, it was all somewhat unremarkable, except for the fact that we were in eastern Afghanistan.

The Chinese workers – several hundred technicians – are part of a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment in Afghanistan’s largest-ever infrastructure project, the Aynak copper mine.

Discovered in 1974 but virtually dormant since the start of the Soviet War in 1979, the Aynak mine is believed to contain the world’s second-largest untapped copper deposits and could propel Afghanistan into the ranks of the world’s top 15 copper producers.

How did we get this so wrong ?  This is one of the largest copper stashes in the world, close to Kabul, and somehow we just missed it ?  

By what stroke of massive incompetence did we just let an opportunity like this pass by ?  

I don’t say this as a spoils of war type thing either.  Isn’t the largest problem in Afghanistan mostly related to economic issues like employment of local Afghans, so they go to work everyday rather than grow opium poppy, join the Taliban, and/or blow things up ?  

How many Afghans could’ve we employed with an endeavor like this, instead of Chinese workers ?

This is shocking, because we are so stupid sometimes.  

What does this have to do with Colorado ?

Nothing.

Maybe thats the problem.  Are we not a state with a background and heritage in mining, and aren’t we a center for mining technology ?

Maybe I’m missing something here.  If I am, I’d be happy to hear it.