What are we fighting for?

[MadHound]

"Afghanistan discovered an oilfield containing an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of crude in the north of the country, a Mines Ministry official said.

If proven, the resource would be more than 10 times the size of the country’s oil reserves, assessed at more than 150 million barrels by the U.S. Geological Survey. By comparison, Saudi Arabia had proven reserves of 264.6 billion barrels at the end of 2009, according to BP Plc data"

<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-15/afghanistan-discovers-1-8-billion-barrel-oilfield-in-north-ministry-says.html>

Funny thing is, though the specifics about this weren't known when we went into this war, it was well known that Afghanistan contained large quantities of untapped resources. That's why people have been trying to conquer the area for thousands of years.

Between this discovery, and the one trillion dollar mineral discover a month ago, it looks like we're going to be in Afghanistan for a long, long while. After all, can't leave all those goodies in the hands of their rightful owners.