I guess one trillion wasn't enough to get you to stay, America.
How about THREE TRILLION? Would you like to stay now??
"Afghanistan to allow mining of minerals" by Deb Riechmann and Amir Shah, Associated Press | June 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Officials are gearing up to award contracts to mine one of the world’s largest iron ore deposits buried in a peaceful province that has at least $3 trillion in untapped minerals, the country’s top mining official said yesterday.
Geologists have known for decades about Afghanistan’s vast deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and other prized minerals, but a US Department of Defense briefing earlier this week put a startling, nearly $1 trillion price tag on the reserves.
Then WHY is this the FIRST I EVER HEARD OF IT ALL THIS TIME?!?!
To CONVINCE a WAR-WEARY WORLD it is WORTH IT!!!
Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani called that a conservative estimate. He said he’s seen geological assessments and industry reports estimating the nation’s mineral wealth at $3 trillion or more.
For Afghanistan, a war-torn, landlocked country with virtually no exports, it is a potential windfall, although formidable obstacles remain including lack of investment, infrastructure, and adequate security in most of the nation.
“The ministry has been working closely with the international organizations, including the World Bank, the US Geological Survey, and the international mining and finance community for some time to ensure all of the Afghan people benefit from our rich natural resources for decades to come,’’ he said.
As if that ever happened anywhere when it comes to resources.
Shahrani plans to travel to Britain next week to present 200 foreign businessmen with information about the estimated 2 billion tons of iron ore at Hajigak in Bamiyan Province, where the Taliban and other insurgents have no significant presence.
The project is to be bid on this fall with contracts awarded late this year or early next year, he said.
Critics of the war in Afghanistan have been skeptical that the dollar amount of the country’s untapped minerals was being promoted at a time when violence is on the upswing and the international community is hungry for positive developments in the nearly nine-year-old war.
Yeah, I AM SICK as hell and ANGRY as s*** over the PROPAGANDA!!!!!
They argue that if impoverished Afghanistan is seen as having a bright economic future, it could help foreign governments convince their war-fatigued publics that securing the country is worth the fight and loss of troops.
Are you REALLY GOING to BUY this GARBAGE LIE to SERVE GLOBALISTS, world?
Still, without increased security and massive investment to mine and transport the minerals, it could take years for Afghanistan to bank the rewards.
Why not finish the article with an INSULT!
--more--"
I hope it is WORTH IT, America!
Soldier from Fall River dies in blast in Afghanistan
Maine soldier, 25, killed in Afghanistan
Soldier with New England ties killed in combat in Afghanistan
Other deaths
"3 Aussies, American die in Afghan copter crash" by Robert H. Reid, Associated Press | June 22, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three Australian commandos and a US service member were killed in a helicopter crash before dawn yesterday in a rugged area of southern Afghanistan where fighting has raged for days.
Five other international service members, including four Americans, died in separate attacks in the east and south, officials said. The latest deaths brought the number of international service members killed in Afghanistan this month to at least 62, including 41 Americans.
NATO and Australian officials said there was no evidence that hostile fire was responsible for the crash, although Qari Yousef Ahmadi, Taliban spokesman, said the insurgents shot down the helicopter with a rocket.
The Australian deaths are likely to increase pressure on the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to withdraw that nation’s forces from the conflict. The Dutch are pulling out their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan in August, and Australia has ruled out sending more soldiers....
Related: Australia's New Ma'am
Afghan officials said the crash occurred in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar, the scene of recent heavy fighting involving Australian and US special operations troops and Taliban fighters....
In a separate development, the UN reported yesterday that the use of opiate drugs such as heroin and opium has doubled in Afghanistan since 2005 — with nearly 3 percent of Afghan adults now addicted.
A FAR CRY from 2001, huh?
"U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer."
Related: WHAT OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR IN AFGHANISTAN
So the drug trade is almost dead, AmeriKa invades, and now it is worse than ever, huh?
The data suggest that even as the United States and its allies have poured billions into programs to try to wean the Afghan economy off drug money, opium and heroin have become more entrenched in the lives of ordinary Afghans, creating yet another barrier to international efforts to knock out support for the trade that fuels the Taliban insurgency.
Related: Drug Money Saving Banks
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Have you HAD it with the LIES and OBFUSCATIONS, American newspaper readers?
“The human face of Afghanistan’s drug problem is not only seen on the streets of Moscow, London, or Paris. It is in the eyes of its own citizens, dependent on a daily dose of opium and heroin above all — but also cannabis, painkillers, and tranquilizers,’’ said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Becoming MORE LIKE AmeriKa all the time!!!
Some "liberation," huh?
Some Afghan addicts say they started using drugs to blunt the agonies of the grinding war.
Which is completely understandable.
Give me a choice of misery while straight and misery while stoned and guess which one I'm picking?
In some areas, users also give opium to their children to quiet them, the report says.
Related: Afghans Need Taliban Return
They also give them to the kids because they are cold and sick in the refugee camps you never read about.
June is shaping up to be one of the deadliest months of the nine-year war for US and international forces.
Yeah, whatever, AmeriKa!
Related: Four British soldiers killed in road accident in Afghanistan
I guess the British soldiers are not that important because the Globe never reported that.
And you never saw this on the web site:
"CASUALTY OF WAR -- US Army soldiers carried a wounded comrade to a helicopter yesterday near Kandahar, Afghanistan.... (Boston Globe June 25 2010)."
And you really had to look for these:
"Petraeus will face complaints over rules to protect civilians" by Robert H. Reid, Associated Press | June 26, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Four US troops were reported killed and the bodies of 11 men, some beheaded, were found yesterday in rising violence across Afghanistan....
NATO reported that a US service member was killed in an insurgent attack yesterday in eastern Afghanistan and another American died after a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan on Thursday. NATO did not provide the exact location of the attacks.
A fourth service member died in an explosion yesterday in southern Afghanistan, NATO said. The US command said he was American.
Their deaths brought to 84 the number of international service members killed so far in June, which is already the deadliest month of the nearly 9-year-old war. At least 49 were American....
--more--"
KABUL, Afghanistan — Five international service members were killed in combat yesterday, NATO said. Two, including at least one American, were killed in two separate roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan. Two others, including an American, were killed in roadside bomb attacks in the east.
That brought to 89 the number of international troops killed so far in June — already the deadliest month of the nearly nine-year-old war. The figure includes at least 52 Americans....
"Afghan working for UN shot dead; Killed in Kabul traffic; battle in Kunar continues" by Deb Riechmann, Associated Press | June 30, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan man working for the United Nations was shot and killed yesterday in his vehicle near a busy traffic circle in Afghanistan’s capital, the world body said.
Elsewhere, US and Afghan forces battled hundreds of militants from an Al Qaeda-linked group for a third day in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said. Two US soldiers were killed Sunday in the first day of the operation....
The militants were believed to be members of the Haqqani group, a faction of the Taliban based in Pakistan that has close ties to Al Qaeda....
Ah, yes, the Haqqani network, yes:
"Haqqani.... credited with introducing suicide bombing to the region.... cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work.... He may have had a role in expediting the escape of Osama Bin Laden.... In July 2008, CIA officials confronted Pakistan officials with evidence of ties between Inter-Services Intelligence and Haqqani. Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul...."
In southeastern Kabul, a protest against NATO forces in Afghanistan turned violent as demonstrators clashed with police. At least 15 police officers and five civilians were wounded, according to Mohammad Khalil Dastyar, deputy police chief in the capital.
About 300 protesters blocked streets in the neighborhood of Qalacha. Some threw rocks through windows. A small group hoisted a banner that said: “We don’t want American occupiers.’’
And I DO NOT WANT THEM THERE KILLING YOU, either!!!!
An AP reporter at the scene heard gunshots, but it was unclear who was shooting. A police official said some of the protesters were shooting Kalashnikov rifles. Two police vehicles were damaged, and. police were seen arresting six suspects.
The protest was prompted by a raid that Afghan police and intelligence officials conducted Monday night at a madrassa in which three people were arrested, Dastyar said. One demonstrator said they were angry because foreign troops, with the Afghan forces, had torn up copies of the Koran and let a dog — considered unclean in Islam — rummage through a mosque....
A NATO spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Iain Baxter, confirmed that NATO forces took part in a search in Kabul last night and arrested a number of suspected insurgents. Separately, three Afghan soldiers were killed and seven others wounded since Monday morning in bomb explosions across the country, according to the Ministry of Defense.
Is THREE TRILLION BUCKS BURIED in the GROUND WORTH IT, world?
"Taliban attack on major base is turned back; US, Afghan troops repel ground assault" by Robert H. Reid, Associated Press | July 1, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — US and Afghan troops repelled an attack yesterday on one of the biggest NATO bases in eastern Afghanistan by militants who used a suicide car bomb, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic weapons in a failed attempt to breach the defenses.
It was the third ground assault against a major coalition base in Afghanistan in the past five weeks — a sign that the insurgents have not been cowed by US efforts to ramp up the war.
After we were told we were winning.
Eight militants were killed in the attack, which occurred at the airport base on the outskirts of Jalalabad about 75 miles east of Kabul on the main road between the Afghan capital and the Pakistan border....
In a text message to the Associated Press in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said six suicide attackers killed 32 foreign and Afghan security forces. The insurgents often exaggerate their claims.
HOLLERS the POT-CALLING NEWSPAPER KETTLE!
The Jalalabad attack followed a May 19 ground assault against the giant Bagram Air Field north of Kabul and another three days later against Kandahar Air Field in the south.
Those attacks, though militarily ineffective, have raised concern in the NATO mission about the audacity of the insurgents in the face of overwhelming NATO firepower....
Then WHY would it RAISE CONCERN if it is INEFFECTIVE?
This smells like the SAME LIES as VIETNAM!
On June 15, a senior Pentagon official, Michele Flournoy, told a Senate committee that the number of complex attacks had been dropping since February, suggesting that was a sign the Taliban’s capabilities were diminishing.
You GOTTA LOVE the LYING U.S. MILITARY, you REALLY DO!!!
Yesterday’s attack occurred hours before the US Senate confirmed General David Petraeus as the new commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus replaces General Stanley McChrystal, who was fired after he and his aides made derisive comments about Obama administration figures to Rolling Stone magazine.
Petraeus is due to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels today en route to Kabul, the alliance announced.
The attack was part of a pattern of rising violence in eastern Afghanistan, despite the US focus on operations in the Taliban’s southern strongholds in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Or maybe BECAUSE of the U.S., huh?
And that Pentagon puke testified what?
A US service member died of wounds suffered in a gunbattle with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, US officials said without giving further details. That brought to 59 the number of American troops who died in June in Afghanistan.
Is it WORTH IT, America? Are the LIES WORTH IT?
Fighting has been underway since Sunday in the eastern province of Kunar with insurgents believed responsible for a roadside bombing that killed five American service members on June 7, according to US statements.
Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in the first day of the operation. About 600 US and Afghan troops are taking part, the US statement said.
Insurgents with close ties to Al Qaeda — such as the Haqqani group and followers of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — operate in the east along with mainstream Taliban fighters.Oh, Haqqani AND Hekmatyar, huh?
"Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the favored warlord of the ISI and CIA. Casey was said to be particularly fond of him as both shared a goal of extending the fighting beyond Afghanistan into the Soviet Union itself. He was a ruthless fighter, who also led several raids into USSR territory. He was also a major drug trafficker. Almost half of all the covert weapons directed at Afghanistan were sent to his group"
Also see: CIA's Ace-in-the-Hole in Afghanistan
Yup, ONCE AGAIN an "insurgent" turns out to be a CIA ASSET!!!!
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Did you know we are ARMING THEM, too, America?
See: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: False Flags Flying High in Afghanistan
Good way to keep a war going, huh?
And another reason to DOUBT whatever you read in the AmeriKan newspapers!
"Militants attack aid compound in Afghanistan' Violent reply to increased US presence" by Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times | July 3, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Six militants armed with suicide bombs stormed the compound of an American contractor working for the US Agency for International Development in the northern city of Kunduz yesterday, killing four security officers in an assault that left all the attackers dead, according to Afghan officials and the aid contractor.
AID = CIA, folks.
The security officers killed included one Briton, one German, and two Afghans who worked for Edinburgh International, the firm guarding the Kunduz compound of DAI, a consulting company that contracts with the American development aid agency to help bolster governance, development, and economic growth in other countries.
In other words, spies.
The Kunduz assault was the latest in a string of Taliban attacks on foreign workers and compounds, especially those doing development work, in what has seemed to be a response to American and NATO forces increasing the pace of their military operations in the country....
--more--"Into the breach you go, 'murkns!
