Tag Archives: pentagon

Miss Universe Stefania Fernandez And Her Bikini Clad Army

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Here’s current Miss Universe Stefania Fernandez leading her bikini assault team in some sexy poses for what I’m guessing are some promotional shots for the upcoming Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas. I wish there were such a thing as bikini assault teams, drop them into enemy territory, have them charge at hostile combatants in their high heels and bikinis… Conflict resolve. I for one would gladly drop my weapon and let myself get bikini assaulted. I have other ideas on how to save the world with bikinis, I’m waiting for a call from the pentagon.

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Spike Lee Fans at the Pentagon?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

(Daily+Censored) A disgruntled Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, recently vented about WikiLeaks’s behemoth bequest to the media of 70,000 classified documents. Morrell told the Associated Press: “If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing.” I thought at once of Spike Lee’s film, “Do the Right Thing,” in which the owner of a Brooklyn pizzeria that has only Italian movie stars on its “Wall of Fame” is reprimanded by one of his black patrons for not including an African-American. All hell breaks out when the shop owner refuses to post a picture of a black celebrity on his wall. One wonders who the Pentagon might feature on its Wall of Fame—Osama bin Laden? Its appeal, on Thursday, to WikiLeaks to “do the right thing” and hand over, or permanently delete, whatever classified documents remain in its possession is based on voiced concern by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Admiral McMullen, and others in intelligence that these leaks jeopardize the safety of our troops in Afghanistan as they contain the names of Afghan informants. Of course, it’s not just safety, but morale others piped in. After all, it’s not exactly good for morale to find out that your government is concealing the real number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan nor is it good not just for the troops, but for national morale to learn that Pakistani spies are lunching with Taliban leaders. In the end, it’s a real game changer to find out that all fire may be friendly fire, so the Pentagon wants accountability, and possible criminal liability, from WikiLeaks for their disclosures of secret But, WikiLeaks is not the first to endanger covert intelligence operatives. Where is the Pentagon’s lust for holding those accountable who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame-Wilson? Was it good for the morale of intelligence agents to know that their identities, and their lives, have been politicized? Why is it that the congressional subpoena of Karl Rove was allowed to slip through the cracks? How is it that Rove, and those for whom he provided cover, managed to escape prosecution? Does the executive branch have lifetime immunity from criminal misconduct? More to the point, placing the media spotlight on WikiLeaks, and its Australian founder, Julian Assange, provides effective cover for other news of potentially graver consequence. For instance, we now know, from an AP exclusive report, that a handful of so-called high value detainees were brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2003 ” years earlier than previously disclosed then “whisked” into secret overseas prisons deliberately so that they would be deprived of access to attorneys. As a prominent lawyer tells the AP: “This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts.” And, speaking of shell games, all this Pentagon and media focus on WikiLeaks’ transgressions has managed to keep people from asking whatever happened to nearly $9 billion in Iraqi funds for which the U.S. Defense Department is unable to account. In a recent audit of how DoD money has been spent, the U.S. Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction according to AP, now says that “over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the U.S. for rebuilding the war-ravaged nation” has yet to be located. These funds are separate and distinct from more than $50 billion Congress appropriated for rebuilding that country. Why is there no outrage over what amounts to a slush fund for independent contractors, oil companies, and war manufacturers? WikiLeaks has graciously offered to let the Pentagon review, and redact, more than 10,000 documents that they now have in their possession. The Pentagon doesn’t appear to be the least bit moved by their offer. Ostensibly, doing the right thing for the Pentagon means destroying any evidence of misconduct, and adding yet another unwitting shill, Julian Assange, to ts Wall of Fame. http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/06/spike-lee-fans-at-the-pentagon/?utm_source=f… :+Dailycensored+(Daily+Censored) added by: treewolf39

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Krauthammer: Classified Leaks in Bush and Nixon Years Got You a Pulitzer Prize, With a Dem President You’re Condemned

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Charles Krauthammer on Friday made a truly wonderful observation about how differently the media handle leaks of classified information depending on whether there’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House. As the discussion on PBS’s “Inside Washington” moved to the Wikileaks affair, the Washington Post’s Colby King said, “I don’t see it as such a difficult issue at all for the Pentagon. It’s, you know, it’s our material, it’s not [Wikileaks’].” This led Krauthammer to ask, “How come in the Bush years and the Nixon years, when you leaked stuff that’s our material, classified material, you end up with a Pulitzer Prize, and now if you have a Democratic administration, you end up being condemned from left and right?” He continued, “I’m not sure I understand” (video follows with transcript and commentary): GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Let me touch on something in terms of we talked about last week, and that’s the Wikileaks issue. The Pentagon now wants to get its hands on all of these papers. What are the odds of that? We don’t know if this guy will give them up, I mean he’s publishing them everywhere. JOSH GERSTEIN, POLITICO: Right, well and there this fascinating bid  by Wikileaks, I think a pretty interesting play by them. They’ve actually gone to the Pentagon and said, “Well, yeah, we would love to discuss with you what’s exactly sensitive in here. Why don’t you come to the table and talk about it?” I think the Pentagon is saying they have not really been asked that, but that is what Wikileaks is saying, which would put the Pentagon in a very awkward position because they, you know, there’s talk of prosecuting these folks. They do not want to be sitting at the same table with them going through page by page… PETERSON: Well, Admiral Mullen says they’re putting lives at risk. COLBY KING, WASHINGTON POST: I don’t see it as such a difficult issue at all for the Pentagon. It’s, you know, it’s our material, it’s not yours. We’re not going to negotiate with… GERSTEIN: Well, but their materials may be in your newsroom as well. KING: That’s okay. GERSTEIN: Should they come over and pick those up? KING: They can ask us for it. We won’t give it to them, but they have every right to demand it. CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: But if it’s such a simple issue… KING: But you don’t negotiate it. KRAUTHAMMER: If it’s such a simple issue, how come in the Bush years and the Nixon years, when you leaked stuff that’s our material, classified material, you end up with a Pulitzer Prize, and now if you have a Democratic administration, you end up being condemned from left and right? I’m not sure I understand. I’m not sure I do either. After all, just how many Pulitzers were passed out to so-called journalists during the Bush and Nixon years for leaking classified information? And how many went to members of the Washington Post? Yet there’s the Post’s King for the second week in a row taking a position that he likely didn’t take in the previous decade or under Nixon, and probably wouldn’t if McCain was in the White House. As such, why the double standard?

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Krauthammer: Classified Leaks in Bush and Nixon Years Got You a Pulitzer Prize, With a Dem President You’re Condemned

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ABC Shoves Back at Shales, Insists Amanpour’s Memoriam for ‘All Who Died in War’ Borrowed from Her Catholic Church

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

ABC is fighting back against Washington Post critic Tom Shales asking if ABC’s new Sunday show host Christian Amanpour meant to send flowers and regrets to members of the Taliban in her overbroad eulogy on her debut as This Week host. Justin Elliott of Salon’s War Room blog  found remarks from Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president at ABC, that Shales’ criticism here is “utterly fabricated.” He can’t admit that Amanpour left the door wide open to speculation. Brent Baker noticed the slight, where Amanpour made no moral distinctions among the world’s war dead: “We remember all of those who died in war this week. And the Pentagon released the names of eleven U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan.” Technically, “all of those who died in war” could include a suicide bomber or an executioners of whole families. But Schneider insisted Amanpour’s Catholic upbringing played a role:  “Christiane took the language from a prayer that she says in her Catholic church every weekend. It’s a bidding prayer,” Schneider said. I’m a lifelong Catholic and have never heard the phrase “bidding prayer” — which could be a British usage . We often call them “prayers of the faithful,” where lectors read out general prayers, each specific to its parish. It wouldn’t be surprising for Catholics to pray for an end to war, but it might be eyebrow-raising to pray with the loophole phrase for “all who died in war.” That includes innocents, and could include terrorists. Schneider also accused Shales of “trying to create some kind of controversy out of something that is utterly well intentioned — which is to honor both U.S. soldiers that have died in battle as well as civilians and ordinary people who die in war all the time. Seems like a fairly non-controversial thing to do.” But wait — Amanpour said “all those who died in war,” not just U.S. soldiers and civilians.  Perhaps Amanpour goes to church every week, as Schneider suggested. But that’s not the impression many Christians have after her special “God’s Christian Warriors” in 2007. In one interview at that time, TV Guide asked about her own faith, and it came out much more muddled: TVGUIDE.COM: In the course of reporting this, did people ask you if you believe in God? AMANPOUR: They did. I always find it a difficult question. I’m born of a Catholic mother and a Muslim father and I’m married to a Jewish husband. So I have all of God’s wonderful shapes in my DNA. It has helped me have an inclusive look at what religion is all about. I instinctively retreat from division. I don’t want politics or religion to be a reason for division in my life or in other people’s lives. I see so much war, killing and hatred; I can always see why it shouldn’t be like that. Amanpour doesn’t declare she’s Catholic there at all. She seems like a natural fit for the secular liberal media elite.

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ABC Shoves Back at Shales, Insists Amanpour’s Memoriam for ‘All Who Died in War’ Borrowed from Her Catholic Church

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Gulf Oil Disaster: Evidence that demands investigation and verdict

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Dear Congressman/Senator, I am deeply concerned with the handling of the cleanup and containment effort of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. As such, it is now the time to lay aside partisan issues, and issue a criminal and ethical investigation into the Obama administration’s dealings with BP oil, evidence of prior knowledge for the spill, and the relationship of money exchanged in return for complete collusion and complicity in this whole situation. Clearly, after citing the circumstantial evidence below, you should see that a criminal investigation into the roles of the Federal Government under the Obama administration and BP Oil, in the events leading up to the creation of this disaster, to the lack of federal response is warranted and overdue. EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS AN INVESTIGATION AND A VERDICT 1. Barack Obama received more money from BP Oil than ANY OTHER politician in the last 20 years – Republican or Democrat. (Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64420A20100505 ) 2. Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to Barack Obama, lives in a luxury Washington D.C. apartment given to him by a high-level BP Oil Staffer (L.A. Times, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/rahm-emanuel-bp-gul-oil-spill… ) 3. Goldman Sachs, a part owner of BP, was the second highest contributor to Barack Obama, giving him just a little over $1 million (CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/20/obama.goldman.donations/index.html ) 4. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs was also the chairman of BP oil. He stepped down from BP in 2009 ( Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland ) 5. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, BP gave more money to Obama (Washington Independent, http://washingtonindependent.com/226/does-exxon-mobil-support-obama ) 6. George Soros, Who Helped Bankroll Obama’s 2008 campaign, is an aggressive investor in oil, and he is instrumental and is influential in Brazilian Oil Company Petrobras. (The Guru Focus, http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=33828 ) 7. Curiously, CEO of BP, Tony Hayward dumped 1/3 of his BP stock holdings($2.1 million dollars) weeks before the oil rig explosion (The UK Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7804922/BP-chie… ) 8. Coincidentally, Goldman Sachs dumped 44% – 4,680,822 shares – of its stock in BP Oil weeks before the spill – no other oil company, just BP. This also represented an unusual transaction, being two times the size of any normal stock trade for an institution its size. (Raw Story, http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0602/month-oil-spill-goldman-sachs-sold-250-million-… ) 9. Weeks before the oil spill, Haliburton acquired Boots & Coots, a Houston-based oil well intervention/oil safety/oil spill cleanup company, an investment criticized by many as an “unwise” investment at the time (Houston Chronicle, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6952547.html ) 10. It has also now been learned that President Obama stands to make over $85 Million over the next 10 years due to this “accident.” It seems as though Vanguard, Pres. Obama’s asset holdings company, dumped all of his shares of BP oil stocks in the weeks before the “accident.” http://www.twawki.com/?p=6768 11. On March 31st, Obama lifted a 20 year moratorium on offshore drilling, opening the Gulf of Mexico to new exploration and new competition amongst oil companies (Bellona, http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2010/US_drilling_moratorium_lifted ) 12. As early as February 2010, BP engineer referred to this particular rig as a “nightmare rig.” (AOL News, http://www.aolnews.com/gulf-oil-spill/article/bp-engineer-brian-morel-called-dee… ) 13. Jimmy Harrell, chief operator for Transocean who owned the rig was well aware of problems and warned of such a disaster. Harrell is quoted is telling an unknown person on the phone, “”Are you f****g happy? Are you f****g happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.” ( Mother Jones http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-happen ) 14. BP representatives knowingly and willfully gave the wrong orders on how to prevent an explosion on the rig. In order to control the pressure, cement(known as mud in the industry), is normally thrown down to seal of leaks. Instead, BP reps overruled the opinions of the workers and ordered sea water to be thrown down. This is clear evidence of criminal negligence, ineptitude, or criminal sabbotage. (NOLA.com, http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/hearings_bp_representa… ) 15. The United States Coast Guard, an arm of the US Military under the control of the commander-in-chief, President Obama, has become severely compromised. It has now been “rented out” to BP, who is using it as a private security detail/bully force in the region, using intimidation, cover-ups, lies, as weapons, and not allowing media to remotely come close to any BP workers in the region. The Coast Guard is also directly and indirectly involved in turning away foreign aid, as well as PRIVATE and STATE entities which are proven to help more effectively in preventing damage to their coastlines. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0617/expert-bp-running-gulf-prison-warden/ 16. There has been LITTLE TO NO response on the part of environmental groups and agencies regarding the damage that is being done to the ecosystem and environment in the region. This can only be regarded as suspicious. One can only wonder why they have not only remained silent, but they have praised the Obama administration’s actions. 17. We know that there are three poisonous gasses being released from the oil rig area. These 3 gasses are: Methane, Benzene, Hydrogen Sulfide. This does not include the byproducts of the dispersants which are also being released in the air. It is feared by many scientists and experts that benzene has the capability of igniting itself when it chemically reacts with the right concentration of gasses already present in the region. 18. With the Obama administration’s prolonging, knuckle-dragging, and delays in turning away help and aid, their actions only cause the scenario mentioned above all the more frightening. In a worst case scenario, according to scientists and other experts, the ignition of benzene would result in something akin to napalm, burning everything in its path. The US Coast Guard is following unlawful orders from President Obama in enforcing the denial of the 10th amendment to the states affected by this disaster. The Federal Government has NO AUTHORITY to tell a state how it will clean up or prevent damage to its coastline. It is also imperative that the governors of all states affected convene an emergency, [cont] You might click on the link and send a letter to your reps, if you still believe your voice matters. added by: samantha420

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Pentagon buys $82 million a month in fuel from BP, despite spill

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

This is why our government is not taking action – The Pentagon is the largest user of oil in the world, more than any other single nation or corporation, and they get it from BP. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0705/spill-continues-pentagon-buying-bp/ added by: samantha420

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End Gulf Oil Spill With ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (Updated)

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The Marine Corps’ most (in)famous technologist has a solution for the Gulf oil spill: Blow the crap out of it, with the Mother of All Bombs. Over the past decade, no one in the Corps has been more creative, more persistent and more migraine-inducing in his pursuit of warfighting gadgetry than Franz Gayl. Some of his ideas were rock-solid, like small spy drones and bomb-resistant trucks. Eventually, the Pentagon bought tens of thousands of the trucks, due in large part to his agitating and whistleblowing efforts. Other concepts of his were more fringe: oribiting troop transports, super-strength exoskeletons, laser guns that could roast insurgents alive. Now Gayl, a civilian scientist (semi-) employed by Quantico, may have come up with his most dramatic idea yet: Use a 21,000-pound megamunition to generate a king-sized shock wave that would force those leaking pipes on the seabed shut. Deploying the GBU-43 MOAB — known as the “Massive Ordnance Air Burst” or “Mother of All Bombs” — would be “proven, safe and ‘green,’” Gayl tells our pal David Axe, of War Is Boring. The bomb consumes all its own fuel, after all. And it’s not a nuclear weapon, like the one the Russians allegedly used to shut down out-of-control wells. If there are no MOABs to be had, Gayl adds, a Vietnam-era Daisy Cutter will do just fine. Either one … can be enclosed in a simple pressure shell, that is augmented with several tons of liquid oxygen canisters, and lowered to just a few meters above the leaking well head. An oxygen-enhanced MOAB or Daisy Cutter detonated at a water depth of 5,000 feet will indeed have an interesting effect on all the well-related plumbing and equipment that is above, at, and slightly below the sea floor…. The exploding MOAB or Daisy Cutter would have an incredible implosive-sealing effect on oil plumbing within the immediate vicinity of the detonation. Gayl’s active, active mind hasn’t stopped looking for ways to bring technology to bear to solve the most intractable problems. Nor does he limit himself by exploring the implications of those solutions. For instance: what would happen if the Mother of All Bombs went off-target at the bottom of the Gulf? UPDATE: Gayl sends along this handy set of slides, depicting how the MOAB vs. spill operation might work. added by: Omnomynous

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Zoinks! CNN, USA Today Shocked Kids Prefer Cartoon-Endorsed Products

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It didn’t take Velma, Shaggy or Scooby to uncover this mystery. In a June 21 study published in the medical journal Pediatrics, researchers from Yale University “discovered” that food products with characters on them affect children’s taste preferences, which may explain why food companies have been advertising with cartoons since at least the 1960’s . CNN.com and USA Today used the study to promote advertising restrictions and victimize consumers: “Characters from TV and movies have appeared on food products for years, but until now little research has been done to examine how they influence children’s food choices,” Sarah Klein wrote on CNN.com. Additionally, Klein chose to present the data from the study that best reflected her cause: “Fifty percent of children say that food from a package decorated with a cartoon celebrity such as Shrek tastes better than the same exact food from a plain package, according to a new study.” While 50 percent is significant, this means that 50 percent of the children in the study either did not notice a taste difference or found the other package to taste better. Not to be outdone, USA Today quoted media favorite Margo Wootan of the liberal Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), who claimed that parents and children are “outgunned” by the food companies: “Parents are outgunned by the food industry, which has market research, cartoon characters and slick ads,” Wootan said. “We don’t have Shrek, SpongeBob and the Disney princesses to get our kids to eat the foods that we want them to eat.'” While children may be attracted to products with character labels, the media are attracted to CSPI’s Big Government approach to food, whether it’s cereal or school lunches . At the very least, CNN and USA Today are consistent with the media trend of failing to hold parents accountable, and even if they do mention parents, they’re usually portrayed as victims of the corporations.  

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Zoinks! CNN, USA Today Shocked Kids Prefer Cartoon-Endorsed Products

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Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism of President Bush

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

No general should criticize his or her commander, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal is no exception. But the mainstream media is primarily concerned with the political fallout of McChrystal’s apparent insubordination as revealed by a piece in Rolling Stone . They are not concerned with whether his critiques are accurate, in stark contrast to other military officers’ critiques of war policy under the Bush administration. During Bush’s tenure, active duty generals that spoke out against administration policy were portrayed as courageous whistleblowers. Retired generals were treated as ever-wise sages of military policy. None were scrutinized as McChrystal, pictured right, has been in the hours since Rolling Stone released its article. The most prominent active duty general to earn the media’s affection was Gen. Eric Shinseki, current Secretary of Veterans Affairs (to the media’s delight ). He insisted in 2003 that, contrary to Defense Department policy, the United States would need to send “hundreds of thousands” of troops to Iraq during the initial invasion. The media ate it up. “Top generals, including Eric Shinseki,” wrote the Boston Globe in 2004, “fault Pentagon leadership for not heeding their advice to deploy more ground forces before the invasion or to prepare adequately for the aftermath.” After Shinseki’s repudiation of official military policy prompted rebukes from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, the New York Times dubbed those rebukes “unusual” and went on to bemoan the fact that Shinseki “has not had more influence on the war planning and the allocation of forces,” in the words of another Army general. The Times also devoted a piece to active duty personnel’s criticisms of Rumsfeld and the Iraqi war effort generally. The article read, Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army commanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it… One colonel, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, was among the officers criticizing decisions to limit initial deployments of troops to the region. “He wanted to fight this war on the cheap,” the colonel said. “He got what he wanted.”… Underlying the strains between Mr. Rumsfeld and the Army, which began at the beginning of Mr. Rumsfeld’s tenure, are questions that challenge not only the Rumsfeld design for this war but also his broader approach to transforming the military. Instead of going on to examine the apparent problems with a military chain of command in which policymakers are criticized, the Times, the Globe, and many other media outlets used critiques from officers both named and anonymous to question the effectiveness and wisdom of American military policy. McChrystal’s statements could spur some discussion on whether President Obama is really up to the task in Afghanistan–the general is certainly is not the first to suggest it. Yet the media focus has been almost entirely trained on the general himself and on the supposed danger of a dysfunctional chain of command and a general who questions the president’s orders. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter today explained, in the words of his headline, ” Why Military Code Demands McChrystal’s Resignation .” “The most important issue at hand in the furor over Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s acerbic comments in Rolling Stone,” wrote Alter, “is the central one in a democracy: civilian control over the military.” Got it? The question is not whether McChrystal’s critiques of the administration could shine some light on an ineffective war effort or misguided military policies. No, unlike military criticism of Bush war policy, McChrystal’s comments spur discussion of the intricacies of a civilian-controlled military, not the specific policies employed by the civilian government and their consequences on the battlefield. Time’s Joe Klein applauded Mike Huckabee in 2007 for saying he “would have met with Shinseki privately and carefully weighed his advice.” But now Klein is far more concerned with the ” military tradition and practice ” violated by generals who speak out against their commanders than he is with the ongoing war effort. McChrystal was of course out of line. But media liberals who are only distraught at potential insubordination when the subordinate does not aid their political goals in speaking out are commentators whose opinions must be taken with a few grains of salt.

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Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism of President Bush

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U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

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 BlackBerrys. The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said. While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war. “There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.” The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion. “This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines. American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House. So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact. Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country. The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced. Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge. “No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits. At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said. Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.” With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.” [More to read in the link] added by: UrbanGypsy

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