The Mineral Miracle? Or A Massive Information Operation?

[kpete]

The Obama administration and the military know that a page-one, throat-clearing New York Times story will get instant worldwide attention. The story is accurate, but the news is not that new; let's think a bit harder about the context.

...............

The way in which the story was presented -- with on-the-record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM, no less -- and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war. Indeed, as every reader of Jared Diamond's popular works of geographic determinism knows well, a country rich in mineral resources will tend toward stability over time, assuming it has a strong, central, and stable government.

Risen's story notes that the minerals discovery comes at a propitious time. He focuses on lithium, a critical component of electronics. One official tells him that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium" -- a comparison to oil. (I can see it now: "We must wean ourselves off our dependence on foreign lithium!")

The general perception about the war here and overseas is that the counterinsurgency strategy has failed to prop up Hamid Karzai's government in critical areas, and is destined to ultimately fail. This is not how the war was supposed to be going, according to the theorists and policy planners in the Pentagon's policy shop.

What better way to remind people about the country's potential bright future -- and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans -- than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region's potential wealth?

more:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/10/06/the-mineral-miracle-or-a-massive-information-operation/58104

[dipsydoodle]

1. The Chinese did a deal on the copper a couple of years back.

and the current broad and deliberate information operation treats the American people as idiots - its easy to find just by googling if nothing else.

[L0oniX]

2. kick ...for the american idiots

[FBI_Un_Sub]

3. Li is at the ppm level in seawater

and it can be recovered using porous carbon in a "fluidized bed" electrolytic cell. Nothing magic.

[harun]

4. Obvious propaganda that will however accomplish its goal. Not much the

sheeple like more than good old fashioned greed.

It will be the same dynamic as Iraq then. Where the public fear is that "Oh my, if we aren't there all that oil money will go to the terrorists!", and in Afghanistan the public fear will now be "Oh my, if we aren't there all that mineral money will to to the terrorists!".

Pentagon is going with what works.

[flyarm]

5. A Massive Information Operation!!!..Now our soldiers get to die for

emeralds, Rubies and Saphhires!! ..and minerals to make components for ...hold your seat.. IPODS..wowowwwweeee...

[KurtNYC]

6. K & R to get this up near the linked propaganda in Breaking News

(which has 93 recs)

[Boojatta]

7. Are reading the word of the Prophet Jared Diamond (pbuh) and knowing that those words are true...

the same thing?

Indeed, as every reader of Jared Diamond's popular works of geographic determinism knows well, a country rich in mineral resources will tend toward stability over time, assuming it has a strong, central, and stable government.

[bobthedrummer]

8. Kick and a 1996 USAF Air Power Journal article (because "our" military has been rabidly politicized)

Melancholy Reunion: A Report From the Future on the Collapse of Civil-Military Relations in the United States
by Col. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. USAF
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj96/win96/dunlap.html

BP is the major supplier of petroleum products to "our" DoD-headed by Iran-Contra allstar Robert Gates, where is Donald Henry Rumsfeld btw???

[chill_wind]

9. K & R.

Interesting read on it.

[bobthedrummer]

10. Gen. Petreaus passes out-kick

[bobthedrummer]

11. kick + Reframing Perception Space (P-space)

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc/reframing-p-space.htm