$1 trillion in minerals discovered in Afghanistan

[Centurion1]

Exactly what I said.

[Fragony]

Which isn't very much if you don't mind. Explain to me how this will get less chaotic when a trillion dollar worth of minerals have just been discovered, because I don't see how.

[Slyspy]

I believe the point Frag is making is that Afghanistan exists as a nation state solely because we say it does.

[Fragony]

I thought that was pretty obvious, but yeah.

[Centurion1]

If you read what i you would know I think your statement that nation states is a purely western concept is false

[Fragony]

Read some more remainder deleted

[Beskar]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10359548.stm

The 20billion wars.

[Centurion1]

Fragony well in between my bible readings and gun shows I managed to pick up a book or two on interaction between the east and west. And nowhere have I read that the concept of nation is a singularily western one. In fact there are plenty of ancient nation states that were not located in the western hemisphere. You could argue in fact that nation originated in the east and moved west. So I suggest to you to be able to back up your claims with talking about the entire eastern hemisphere with more than a tiny backwater.

[Hosakawa Tito]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10359548.stm

The 20billion wars.

Lovely. Can't wait for Afghan's trillion $$$ in mineral wealth to start rolling in to help defray the cost in blood & treasure just like all that Iraqi oil... yeah, that's the ticket

[Hax]

By no means am I a conspiracy theorist, but I recalled earlier today that back in 1998, Iran was planning to invade Afghanistan as a retaliation for the murder of ten diplomats when the Taliban invaded the Iranian embassy in Mazar ê-Sharif, according to this wiki article, at least.

Following this incident, Iran almost went to war with the Taliban regions of Afghanistan but intervention by the United Nations Security Council and the United States prevented an imminent Iranian invasion.

Coincidence? I think not


Seriously though, while it might have been a pretty cool action by the UN to avoid a lot of bloodshed, that doesn't really seem likely.

[Vladimir]

More bad news: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...rss=rss_nation

Oh, wait:

People's revolt

The first wave of Taliban commanders moved into Gizab in 2007. The residents were initially acquiescent, and unemployed young men in the area were eager to sign up as fighters for hire. The police's presence was nonexistent.

Sounds like these people won't need Taliban if they have jobs.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

It seems it may have been a bit of bogus reporting by the NYT:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/201...anza-is-bogus/

Once an anomaly is identified, it takes extensive and very expensive field work to determine the best locations for drilling holes in the ground, which you have to do to calculate a volume of mineralized rock, from which you can estimate the metal contained. It usually takes at least a year, and often several, to identify targets for drilling. And drilling off a deposit of any significant size takes several more years, usually after many false starts and setbacks, because you can’t see through rock to know where the goods are.

But even after you drill off a deposit, and know how big it is, how deep it is, and roughly what’s in it, you still don’t know what it’s worth. For that, you have to conduct extensive testing on the mineralized material, not just to quantify the metals or other desirable minerals within but also to see if there are contaminants, or other elements present that can complicate, or even make impossible the economic recovery of the valuable mineral.

In short, until you know how much it would cost to mine and process any sort of mineralized material into a saleable product, like gold bars, copper concentrate, etc., you cannot say what it’s worth. Even a huge deposit of gold may be completely worthless if the grade is low and there’s lots of carbon that would mess up the gold recovery.

-edit-

As tellos noted last page:

$1 trillion, or perhaps not.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It seems it may have been a bit of bogus reporting by the NYT:...

A good point on the "potential" character. Most mines do not close because the ore is exhausted, but because the ore is no longer cost effective to extract.

[CountArach]

And nowhere have I read that the concept of nation is a singularily western one. In fact there are plenty of ancient nation states that were not located in the western hemisphere.

Nationalism is a Western concept that first came about concurrent with the rise in modernity and subsequent attempts to codify the normative views (ie - exclusion of foreigners and 'subversives') [Note: I accept that other readings of the rise of nationalism are possible, but all of them are reliant upon the rise of the modern age]. Ancient societies may have had some shared identity but they were not rooted in nationalism, and any attempts to show that they were are inherently tainted by our own modern preconceptions. I could accept that some very crude form of proto-nationalism may have existed across some Ancient societies, but ultimately loyalty was to an institution rather than an identity and I think that is a very important distinction to draw. Ergo, without nationalism one can't have a nationstate; one would just have a state.

[Beskar]

What about Romans?

Many of the great Empires had identities. However, it depends if you want to break down the notion of nations as purely modern as in Italy, etc, or the old countries/kingdoms classifying as nations.

[CountArach]

What about Romans?

As I said, a purely institutional loyalty - though they also fall into my own category of proto-Nationalism. They were loyal to the state, not their identity. A civil war in which you could say "We are doing this because we are Romans and we want to instill strong Roman values" was unimagineable - a civil war in which you could say "The Senate is corrupt and are betraying me" [a vaguely Caesarian argument] was however, entirely possible. The essential Roman-ness of the Senate would never be doubted, and thus the discourse of Nationalism could not be applied. Then again, I think I've probably forced the point off the track somewhat...

EDIT: Oh and as for your second sentence - I would say that anything prior to the modern definition of the state where the shared identity is prime is all that we can term a 'nation'. The others would simply be 'states'. For example, a Kingdom is built on a system of loyalty to an individual who may well be foreign, as opposed to being able to share your identity with that man.

[Centurion1]

But a Roman identifdied strongly with his Romaness (not a word i know). He seperated himself from gauls or Dacians and identified himself as a Roman. He identified with his people and state. When they declared war on say the Helvetti they fought for the expansion of Roman power. And what about the Spartans? I would say they identified very strongly with their Polis, which while small is still a nation.

While this debate about modern nationalism existing in ancient time sis fascinating it is not actually what I said and you misconstrued my statement CA.

What I was saying was, The concept of Nations or States did in fact exist in the Eastern Hemisphere. There were states in the Orient and you do not need modern western nationalism to have a state. You just need a unified central government that rules. The people have to identify with said nation. The definition of a state is, "a group of people organized under a single government." Sure to some point they have to share a common identity and they do. Lets look at ancient persia for example. Sure they would say they are a bactrian first but then they would also say they are in fact a citizen of persia. There is your shared identity.

[Tellos Athenaios]

A Roman? To be a Roman (as in: inhabitant of Rome) did not mean to be a Roman Citizen; likewise the group of Roman Citizens was not confined to members of Roman families or their direct descendants. Basically it can be argued that a Roman Citizen was a notch above other statuses, an issue of prestige so people identified with it; but that did not necessarily mean that they considered themselves the same people (gens) -- consider the many mercenary soldiers from Germania who explicitly identified themselves as German on the one hand, and Roman Citizen on the other: German was a moniker which conferred prestige in the Roman military. Consider also their career pattern: rather than chosing to settle wherever they were stationed, many mercenaries preferred to earn their pension while on duty and then retire to their country of birth to settle as farmer.

EDIT: The point is that the concept of nation, nationalism is somewhat dependent on recognition from all its members as a common identity, a common bond. To continue the analogy: a Chinese mandarin would have to identify with a Chinese farmer, as much as the Chinese farmer identifies with the mandarin -- based on the notion of being member of the Chinese nation. It is more than acknowledgement of being a member of the same people, or subject of the same state. In fact, nationalism can transcend boundaries imposed by the notion of “[a] people” too.