Hey, Jack, I don't know if you've ever seen Zero Hedge, but it's a great blog. They covered this story to night, too.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-discovers-nearly-1-trillion-mineral-deposits-afghanistan

They are skeptical of this find being a recent development. Interesting. Check them out frequently. The information they post daily is really Pulitzer work.

Metals in Afghanistan, bin Laden hiding in Iran...let the games begin!
Maybe the protests will start up again. No blood for lithium!

Maybe a chance to break out of the eighth century. Or just become another Saudi Arabia. Who knows, maybe all that lithium will have a soothing effect on the toxic religious fervor of Wahhabism.

Well, isn't that just perfect for a bi-polar nation like the U.S.? Though it's not that effective for depression -- or is that recession? Or twelve-steppin' economic recovery?

We're doomed! -- Linus Van Pelt

"Lithium may be the new darling of the Western green lobby but its extraction comes at a high environmental cost."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1166387/In-search-Lithium-The-battle-3rd-element.html

To paraphrase a wise folk singer...

It's one two three what are we fighting for
Don't ask Congress they don't give a damn
Next stop is Afghanistan

I saw this too last night, showed it to the spouse and I declared, "well now I get it...we will never leave". The spouse responded, "yeah and the oil in Iraq worked out so well for the US too".
Linus is right, "we are doomed!"

I don't know, weren't we supposed to make a ton of money off of the oil in Iraq also? However, lithium is what goes into a lot of batteries, so I can see the greenies endorsing this as a NIMBY solution.

*facepalm*

You think Afghanistan is bleak now...just wait until they finish mining without any significant controls whatsoever. We can then add 'toxic' to the descriptors.

And...This move has that old 'Black Hills' smell to it. Does anyone else get that?

And...Just how close to the probable pipeline routes are those mineral deposits?

And what was the original reason for being in Afghanistan? And how's that going?

Maybe they will have our Mineral Management Service take oversight of this project. The same group that handled BP.

"The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists."

What does the presence of these people have to do with any sort of military mission to Afghanistan?

It's like the cable guy coming to your house and while working on your TV, he lets a bunch of strangers in who start poking around looking for your wall safe.

The Huffington Post front page right now kinda says it all...

Interesting news indeed.... lithium is the Li in Li-Ion batteries, the element currently in short supply needed to manufacture batteries for Western markets eager to switch from petrofuel vehicles to EV vehicles, vehicles which are currently too expensive for most consumers because of the high cost of the batteries... interesting news indeed.

My thought on reading the article is that this is good for the desperatly poor population. Seems others think it's bad that there is money to be made off of mining.