The New York Times report of $1 trillion in mineral reserves beneath Afghanistan may not be the surprise it seems: Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy writes, “I'm (a) skeptical of that $1 trillion figure; (b) skeptical of the timing of this story, given the bad news cycle, and (c) skeptical that Afghanistan can really figure out a way to develop these resources in a useful way.” The findings that the story is based on information that has been available online since 2007 and the $1 trillion figure is a guess that isn’t mentioned in any of the military’s earlier reports.
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