Taichiliberal
Shaken, not stirred!
Thank God for Greg Palast! Check this out:
On June 13, 2010, the New York Times splashed a big "scoop" across page one: A US Army survey discovered that Afghanistan has a load of untapped minerals worth a cool trillion dollars. Even the normally somnolent US press barfed over this “revelation”. The Daily Beast/Newsweek wrote, “Does the New York Times have rocks in its head?”
Journalists laughed at the obvious, that the Times was being used by the US military to suddenly disclose a treasure trove of cash in Afghanistan which would turn the war from a money pit into a money maker.
However, the story that Afghanistan had lots of exceptionally valuable dirt (lithium, coal, gold and “rare earths”) was already known by everybody and their mother. Some “scoop”. The Times had strategically revealed the not-too-secret secret that Afghanistan was the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” to help sell America on investing more blood and money in the Great Game.
Yet it felt to me like something was still not revealed. Something was missing. Something hot. Something nasty.
I started my search in the obvious place: CIA files. The CIA studies referred to geology reports – which do not exist.
Luckily, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) keeps an archive of “non-existent” national security reports. That is, IIT scans government paper documents, so they remain on the school’s shelves even after the government has quietly erased all of its own electronic versions.
Bingo! There, preserved in its electronic crypt, was the US Department of the Army’s “Country Study/Area Handbook” for Afghanistan created and updated between the years 1986 and 1998.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/nuclear-war-in-afghanistan?utm_source=vicetwitter
On June 13, 2010, the New York Times splashed a big "scoop" across page one: A US Army survey discovered that Afghanistan has a load of untapped minerals worth a cool trillion dollars. Even the normally somnolent US press barfed over this “revelation”. The Daily Beast/Newsweek wrote, “Does the New York Times have rocks in its head?”
Journalists laughed at the obvious, that the Times was being used by the US military to suddenly disclose a treasure trove of cash in Afghanistan which would turn the war from a money pit into a money maker.
However, the story that Afghanistan had lots of exceptionally valuable dirt (lithium, coal, gold and “rare earths”) was already known by everybody and their mother. Some “scoop”. The Times had strategically revealed the not-too-secret secret that Afghanistan was the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” to help sell America on investing more blood and money in the Great Game.
Yet it felt to me like something was still not revealed. Something was missing. Something hot. Something nasty.
I started my search in the obvious place: CIA files. The CIA studies referred to geology reports – which do not exist.
Luckily, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) keeps an archive of “non-existent” national security reports. That is, IIT scans government paper documents, so they remain on the school’s shelves even after the government has quietly erased all of its own electronic versions.
Bingo! There, preserved in its electronic crypt, was the US Department of the Army’s “Country Study/Area Handbook” for Afghanistan created and updated between the years 1986 and 1998.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/nuclear-war-in-afghanistan?utm_source=vicetwitter
