[Sixstrings]

MES AYNAK, Afghanistan — It was another day on the rocky hillside, as archaeologists and laborers dug out statues of Buddha and excavated a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery. A Chinese woman in slacks, carrying an umbrella against the Afghan sun, politely inquired about their progress.

She had more than a passing interest. The woman represents a Chinese company eager to develop the world's second-biggest unexploited copper mine, lying beneath the ruins.

The mine is the centerpiece of China's drive to invest in Afghanistan, a country trying to get its economy off the ground while still mired in war. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine – the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan by far – gets its foot in the door for future deals to exploit Afghanistan's largely untapped mineral wealth, including iron, gold and cobalt. The Afghan government stands to reap a potential $1.2 billion a year in revenues from the mine, as well as the creation of much-needed jobs.

(snip)

The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as "stupas," will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins.

(snip)

But under an informal understanding with the Kabul government, it has given archaeologists three years for a salvage excavation. Archaeologists working on the site since May say that won't be enough time for full preservation.

"That site is so massive that it's easily a 10-year campaign of archaeology," said Laura Tedesco, an archaeologist brought in by the U.S. Embassy to work on sites in Afghanistan. Three years may be enough time just to document what's there, she said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/chinese-copper-mine-afghanistan-mes-aynak-_n_783315.html

The angle on this article is the archeological destruction.. what I find just as interesting is that China is so far ahead of the US in getting access to the Afghan mineral wealth. For all we know we could be at war with China in ten or twenty years, so is this what our soldiers are dying for? To open a new market for CHINA???

Anyhow.. hopefully the archeologists have enough time to find and save a few artifacts before China blows it all up to get at the copper.

[Keith_McClary]

What happens when Jewish archeologists discover Palestinian (non-Jewish) remains in Palestine?

----> Dumpster

EDIT: google for archaeology+dam

[Plantagenet]

NPR reports that the new strategy for Afghanistan is:

1. some US troops pulled out in summer 2011

2. some areas turned over to Afghans in 2012

3. Major US combat role now extended to 2014.

4. Some US troops staying on indefinitely.

new Obama strategy for Afghanistan spelled out...some US troops to stay there indefinitely

[eastbay]

In other words, keep the wars going as long and with as much violence as the government can afford. Then dump the bloody messes on the next president.

But, HEY! Who cares. Since no one's complaining, why not keep the wars going.

[anador]

The chinese threw anything but a cursory appreciation for history and culture, notably theirs, in the garbage with Mao's revolution.

The three gorges damn destroyed the valley where china's most central folktales took place, hundreds of monasteries, villages, and archaeological sites were doomed to inundation and destruction.

They said simply, we don't care if you want to preserve or study them, do so, in the couple of months before they are flooded... that was years ago.

A tremendous and under-publicised loss committed against itself by one of the greatest cultural traditions in history.

[americandream]

sixstrings

Nixon opened up China for Western capital. China is essentially a front for the biggest scam in history. In exchange for the modernisation of China, Mao agreed to his successor throwing it wide open for development by Western money and businesses. Part of the process involves ensuring that Western businesses in China have unfettered access for the biggest expansion of the global consumerist sector. The periodic disagreements are over how the pie is shared out by the elites.

In exchange, America agreed to corrall the Western consumer for the Chinese manufactures and to guard Chinese access to resources, by both dominating benchmarking of commodities as well as the sources of those commodities. The Chinese military buildup in the meantime (along with the Indians) will in due course free up America in Asia whereupon these two nations will be given the green light to set upon the Islamic Empire, destroy it and open up its one billion for the markets.

At best, you as a mere common man ought to resign yourself to being a flag waving shopper. That's about as much as the elites will be prepared to concede. Expecting more from them is simply setting yourself up for more diosappointment.

[Sixstrings]

sixstrings

Nixon opened up China for Western capital. China is essentially a front for the biggest scam in history. In exchange for the modernisation of China, Mao agreed to his successor throwing it wide open for development by Western money and businesses. Part of the process involves ensuring that Western businesses in China have unfettered access for the biggest expansion of the global consumerist sector. The periodic disagreements are over how the pie is shared out by the elites.

Well anyhow I'm glad I don't have any family fighting over there in that lousy war. Young men dying for a bit of copper in Afghanistan.. how many thousands of years has that been going on?

[americandream]

sixstrings

Nixon opened up China for Western capital. China is essentially a front for the biggest scam in history. In exchange for the modernisation of China, Mao agreed to his successor throwing it wide open for development by Western money and businesses. Part of the process involves ensuring that Western businesses in China have unfettered access for the biggest expansion of the global consumerist sector. The periodic disagreements are over how the pie is shared out by the elites.

Well anyhow I'm glad I don't have any family fighting over there in that lousy war. Young men dying for a bit of copper in Afghanistan.. how many thousands of years has that been going on?

There is nothing more tragic than a young working man, barely out of school, dying for these self serving scumbags. Unfortunately, they also control our minds and at best, all we can hope for is a speedy demise of the ponzi scheme as resources get scarcer.

[Oneaboveall]

sixstrings

Nixon opened up China for Western capital. China is essentially a front for the biggest scam in history. In exchange for the modernisation of China, Mao agreed to his successor throwing it wide open for development by Western money and businesses. Part of the process involves ensuring that Western businesses in China have unfettered access for the biggest expansion of the global consumerist sector. The periodic disagreements are over how the pie is shared out by the elites.

Well anyhow I'm glad I don't have any family fighting over there in that lousy war. Young men dying for a bit of copper in Afghanistan.. how many thousands of years has that been going on?

There is nothing more tragic than a young working man, barely out of school, dying for these self serving scumbags. Unfortunately, they also control our minds and at best, all we can hope for is a speedy demise of the ponzi scheme as resources get scarcer.

When I was in grad school last year, I became close with a 23-yr-old who fought in Iraq. I had meet vets before, but I was never really close to any of them. It was an eye-opener to say the least.

[Roy]

But, HEY! Who cares. Since no one's complaining, why not keep the wars going.

Indeed. It's very profitable for certain entities that contribute heavily to both parties during election season.

What sociopath in his or her right mind would vote to end their own gravy train?

[Serial_Worrier]

George Orwell's never ending wars are here.

[Serial_Worrier]

When I was in grad school last year, I became close with a 23-yr-old who fought in Iraq. I had meet vets before, but I was never really close to any of them. It was an eye-opener to say the least.

Did you try to convince him to quit the military immediately?

[Oneaboveall]

When I was in grad school last year, I became close with a 23-yr-old who fought in Iraq. I had meet vets before, but I was never really close to any of them. It was an eye-opener to say the least.

Did you try to convince him to quit the military immediately?

He had already left before I met him, but the experience had an affect on him. He told me himself that he "did a lot of stuff in Iraq that he wasn't proud of."

[Keith_McClary]

U.S., NATO troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014 handover

Even with serious questions about President Hamid Karzai's commitment to the military strategy in Afghanistan, NATO members plan to announce an enduring presence there beyond 2014, the new target date for handing off security control to the Afghans.
...
"We are managing the 'clear' part, but who is going to 'hold and build' going forward?" one senior European official asked. "That capacity to govern is not there, and it will need to be if the Afghans want to take the lead."

US to deploy tanks for first time in Afghanistan

...
A US defence official told the Washington Post newspaper that deploying tanks so late in the war could be seen as a sign of desperation.
...

Frontline Afghans Unaware of 9/11, Report Says

An overwhelming number of Afghan men living in the region that is a major front in the U.S.-led war on the Taliban don't know anything about the terrorist attacks that brought international soldiers to Afghanistan, according to a report from an international policy think tank released Friday.
...
"The lack of awareness of why we are there contributes to the high levels of negativity toward the NATO military operations and made the job of the Taliban easier," Norine MacDonald, the think tank's president, told Reuters.

They'll also need to explain what 9/11 has to do with Afghanistan.

How do we know that, exactly?

[Plantagenet]

George Orwell's never ending wars are here.

And instead of Big Brother we've got Big Bro.

[americandream]

George Orwell's never ending wars are here.

And instead of Big Brother we've got Big Bro.

Whats the difference?

[eastbay]

The Soviet Union's tanks are still there. Rusting away along roads.

The US tanks will remain there too. Rusting away along roads.

[Keith_McClary]

NATO choreography can’t mask pressing problems

With defence budgets under pressure from the financial crisis, public opposition to the involvement growing, casualties at record levels and little evidence of progress, NATO governments have been looking ever more keenly for the exit.

Their dilemma has been to find a way to extract themselves from what threatens to become an increasingly bloody quagmire while seeking to claim some kind of success from what analysts say could still become an embarrassing strategic defeat.

[Plantagenet]

Obama persuaded the rest of NATO to go along with his plan for four more years of war in Afghanistan.

Now the only hope to end the war would be for an anti-war candidate to run against Obama in the 2012 democratic primaries and defeat him, just as anti-war candidates Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy pushed LBJ out of the race in 1968 to stop the VietNam war.

[Ibon]

Pulling out of Afghanistan without success represents an existential crisis for America. It is the only remaining area in our declining empire were we can still confidently feel on top of the food chain.