There is another diary here by Jen Hayden on the Eric Prince plans for Afghanistan. But it gets better — or worse, actually — in that it is likely that Blackwater will be acting at the behest of US commercial interests, not the US military.
There have been a number of articles published about the presence of very large rare earth mineral deposits in Afghanistan — one of them Lithium. The mineral than makes IPhone batteries et al. Some estimates run as high as $1 Trillion in resources.
The New York Times had a recent article here on Trump’s interest in this. And another name pops up — Michael Silver, owner or American Elements. American Elements specializes in rare earth mining. How does this relate — well, the Boston Globe reported here on July 18, 2017 that:
The head of an advanced-materials manufacturer said he met with President Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, on Monday to persuade him that the United States should nationalize the country’s only mine of rare earth minerals, which are used in military applications.
“The staff understood the urgency of the matter,” Michael Silver, chief executive officer of closely held American Elements Corp., said in a phone interview after his White House meeting, which he said was also attended by presidential deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
Fyi, American Elements has been posting media releases on the Afghanistan resources for more than 4 years now.
So, let’s see, a “we should just take their oil” opportunity in Afghanistan (except it is a really big mine that makes a beautiful target for someone like the Taliban) that would allow a private company to make oodles of money and would be guarded by myrmidons at US taxpayer expense and further inflame Islamic radicals. I can’t imagine why Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka could be interested. And of course Vlad baby couldn’t see any benefit in getting the US back into the Afghani quagmire with even more opportunities for atrocities. Just wow.
This has been brewing for a while. And the US investors are not making a lot of money in this space. There was a article by the Atlantic Council here. It points out that the global rare eartrhs market has tanked.
So let’s see — a chance to buy into a failing market he knows nothing about but that will help line his pockets? Who could think the Orange Dumpster fire would bite on that?
Tuesday, Aug 8, 2017 · 6:39:57 PM +00:00 · tjlord
Updating to include link to MORANBETTERDEMOCRATS story www.dailykos.com/… The reference I wanted to grab was:
Erik Prince tells me he met with a Russian "fund manager" over "one beer" in Seychelles
Also, in one of the citations in the article is reference to:
Flynn and Kushner were joined by Bannon for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who made an undisclosed visit to New York later in December, according to the U.S., European and Arab officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
So now we have Bannon and Prince — two of the driving forces for the Lithium grab — having met with the Russians, who might want a source other than China for Lithium batteries. Oh, this just gets better.