After Gold and More in Afghanistan

They are hyenas and they are looking for a carcass. That’s one way to describe these powerful forces moving like predators [in Afghanistan]. U.S. and NATO drones continue bombing villages in the Afghan mountains, in search of members of the Taliban and followers of the (deceased?) Osama bin Laden. While the public is distracted by the fire, the powerful forces in Afghanistan work comfortably out of the spotlight and feel protected by the decisions supported by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: The war is not over and they will not consider withdrawing troops, even though the majority of U.S. citizens believe that after the death of the biggest terrorist, troops should return home.

One of the “forces” on the hunt in Afghanistan: J.P. Morgan. The banking team recently took another step forward in an attempt to silently and effectively control all the mineral wealth of poor Afghanistan. A few days ago, surrounded by villagers hoping to get a job, Ian Hannam cut the inaugural ribbon at a gold mine in Qara Zaghan.

Hannam, the president of J.P. Capital Markets, is a former soldier whose team includes at least two men who spent time as Special Forces in Afghanistan. They are after the multi-million dollars in riches that the U.S. Pentagon estimates are in Afghanistan. The central Asian country contains tons of minerals said to be worth millions of millions (a trillion is what they call often call it), a reserve of natural resources that qualifies it as one of the “last frontiers of the planet,” as a CNN Money/Fortune report recently described it.

The war, that would normally be seen as an impediment to investing in any country, in this case is the open door that guarantees that they [large companies] can gouge iron, copper, zinc, mercury, fluoride, cobalt, potassium, asbestos, magnesium, and rare metals (everything from lithium to the traditional gold and silver) that are buried in snowy, almost inaccessible mountains and wide spaces of desert.

Anyone with eyes can see; anyone with ears can hear; but the United States refuses to learn from others and repeats the same mistakes as the Persian warriors, the Greeks, the Mongols, the British and the Russians. Now business men of the empire think that by investing in this zone they have a chance to win the largest gains of their life.

In the middle of 2010, the New York Times announced that vast Afghan mineral wealth had been discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and North American geologists, and that these assets—but whose?—were essential for Afghan’s modern industry and could transform the country into one of the most important mining centers of the world. An internal Pentagon memo called the country “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” a key ingredient in batteries used in laptops and BlackBerries.

As soon as Afghan President Hamid Karzai was informed of this, he set off to round up his businesses. The bank consortium J.P. Morgan will not put a cent into the gold project, as Karzai’s business man, Ian Hannam has secured $40 million from other investors in the United States, Asia and Europe through Central Asian Resources, Karzai’s investment mechanism, coupled with Sadat Naderi’s company, Afghan Gold.

Hannam’s mercenaries, transvestite bankers, are already in position and in possession of Afghanistan.

They are protected by the Pentagon, and it doesn’t seem to bother them that more than the already 1,560 dead U.S. soldiers could have died in the longest war in U.S. history. In short, this is a business of risk, but nevertheless business. Others will think about the deaths—they will be North Americans, members of NATO countries and Afghans —but they have to be clear about whom, of those that entered Afghanistan to fight for democracy and the welfare of the people, will collect the profits. And they will see: Wars are not just for oil.