{"id":5723,"date":"2010-06-14T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2010-06-14T16:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5723"},"modified":"2010-06-14T12:37:19","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T16:37:19","slug":"afghanistan-the-saudi-arabia-of-lithium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5723\/afghanistan-the-saudi-arabia-of-lithium\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan the &#8220;Saudi Arabia of Lithium&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to U.S. geologists, Afghans soon may be able to build an economy of something other than <a href=\"http:\/\/usgovinfo.about.com\/cs\/waronterror\/a\/afghanpoppy.htm \" target=\"_blank\">narco-terrorism<\/a>.\u00a0 The world leader of supplying opium is also sitting on perhaps <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/2010\/06\/14\/discovers-t-minerals-afghanistan\/\" target=\"_blank\">a huge deposit of lithium<\/a>, a key mineral used in creating batteries for computers, watches, and other electronic devices.\u00a0 The effects of such a find could dramatically improve the standard of living in the country by encouraging foreign capital investment as firms seek to mine and process the mineral for export.<\/p>\n<p>But before we get carried away by this newfound, morally neutral revenue stream, let\u2019s pause for a moment to consider the coming liberal backlash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSee, we <em>did<\/em> invade because we wanted to exploit the natives and their resources; it just took almost a decade to find out how!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMining for minerals is an environmentally and culturally unsatisfactory way to build an economy.\u00a0 Afghanistan should be left in a state of nature so that future generations of Bedouins can continue their ancient way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSubstituting lithium for opium as Afghanistan\u2019s primary export in no way minimizes America\u2019s need to legalize drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And of course, &#8220;These people will never be able to share their resources.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, if General David Petraeus could just find a way to clear out the Taliban and negotiate some fair treaties between Afghanistan and foreign firms he\u2019ll be well positioned for a 2012 presidential run.<\/p>\n<p>H\/T: Fox News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to U.S. geologists, Afghans soon may be able to build an economy of something other than narco-terrorism.\u00a0 The world leader of supplying opium is also sitting on perhaps a huge deposit of lithium, a key mineral used in creating batteries for computers, watches, and other electronic devices.\u00a0 The effects of such a find could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[138,1415,1413,1414,1411,536,1412,494],"class_list":["post-5723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-afghanistan","tag-bedouin","tag-david-petraeus","tag-lithium","tag-opium","tag-terrorism","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5728,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions\/5728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}