U.S. Cooperates with China for Afghanistan Resource Grab

Michael Edwards
Activist Post

The latest public relations stunt to shore up support for the ongoing war in Afghanistan is the “new” discovery of minerals and riches in the supposedly vast wasteland previously thought to define Afghanistan.  This PR stunt aims to convince Americans that the newest quagmire is somehow justified by the potential economic benefits. The aim of the PR ‘Scam’ is always to couch the exercise in what Americans can understand best as the altruistic belief that America only aims to bring democracy and economic freedom to the countries she invades, then perhaps take a commission for her work back to the homeland.  Because, after all, this latest treasure trove discovery will “boost the Afghan economy.”  

The truth is a full 180 degrees from this public relations campaign.  America will never allow Afghanistan to benefit from her riches, having already co-opted the opium trade, in the same way that money from oil has not trickled down to the invaded Iraqis.  One can be sure that when, “The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development,” a full-scale flotilla of pirate ships is on the way.

When we review the blueprint to The Grand Chessboard that we have been given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, we see that a key component to the endgame is controlling access to resources.  The resources at stake are truly vast: 

“In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical.  About 75 percent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about 60 percent of the world’s GNP and about three fourths of the world’s known energy resources (page 30).” 

This grand chess match between powerful nations vying for the rights to exploit much-needed resources requires from America, according to Brzezinski, the “exercise of decisive influence but, unlike the empires of the past, not of direct control.  This condition places a premium on geostrategic skill, on the careful, selective, and very deliberate deployment of America’s resources  on the huge Eurasian chessboard (page 34).”

Enter China:  Brzezinski in his Foreign Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations) 1997 paper titled, “A Geostrategy for Eurasia,”  states that, “the United States will not have a Eurasian strategy unless a Sino-American political consensus in nurtured.”  The importance of this Sino-American cooperation is that each nation properly understands its role.  Brzezinski defines the relationship perfectly as we view Afghanistan today: 

In a 2009 New York Times article by Michael Wines, properly subtitled, “Uneasy Engagement: A Global Hunt for Resources,” Wines frames a relationship between China and America as “an odd global pairing.”  This is a red herring, and one that is increasingly being playing out in a good cop/bad cop routine, noted in the article by a former mujahedeen, now contractor in Afghanistan:

“The Chinese are much wiser. When we went to talk to the local people, they wore civilian clothing, and they were very friendly,” he said recently during a long chat in his Kabul apartment. “The Americans — not as good. When they come there, they have their uniforms, their rifles and such, and they are not as friendly.” 

Let us not forget that as world government emerges, the concept of sovereign nations battling for position is part of the game, while the international investment bank cartel controls the true strategy of nations.  China is emerging as the manufacturing arm of the global resource grab.  Although Wines states in his article that, “American troops do not, in a narrow sense, protect the Chinese,” American troops do train local forces to guard the Chinese mining operation, leading to the conclusion that: “American troops have helped make Afghanistan safe for Chinese investment.”  It is a perfect cooperative effort:  America abides by their imperative to exert “indirect control” and China physically controls “long-term access to critical commodities.”