Raison d'État

"...Afghan officials have interpreted their mining regulations in such a way that if a company is awarded a concession to explore and then discovers valuable minerals, the government can tender the concession back and rebid it, undermining any incentive for a foreign firm to actually find large deposits, he said. 

'They can take it back after you discover something,' Mr. Yeager said. 'That needs to be corrected.'
 
Several mining executives and other experts said that the multibillion-dollar investment required to build a large copper mine, for example, meant that the industry would focus on other deposits in less risky countries before they turned to Afghanistan. 

'The industry is going to take a look at Afghanistan, but they will weigh their risks carefully,' said Steve Vaughn, a Canadian lawyer and mining expert. 'There is every indication that these deposits are very large. But as political risks increase, they will lay off spending'...” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/world/asia/18mines.html

(emphasis mine)

Sometimes, they out with the plain truth. Government, we must understand, serves the interests of those with the juice. They make the state which protects their wealth, or barring that, capture one which will do the same.

If one state wants to protect wealth and resources for its patrons, and faces up against a larger racket, we can all probably guess what happens.

It gets co-opted, coordinated, corrupted or cooperatively ass fucked with bombs and "counter-terrorism." Oil off the coast of Somalia, oil in Darfur, gold, silver, copper and coca in Colombia, oil in Venezuela, rubber plantations and dirt cheap laborers in Indonesia and East Timor, et cetera ad nauseam ad infinitum = "War On Terror."

So, when the Afghan racket decides it has had enough of the really nasty shit the American racket can rain down from the skies, it will come to its collective senses, rediscover its own raison d'etat, and kick all in for some serious pacification, for its share of the stake.

Unless, of course, it can play the Russian, Persian, Indian and Chinese rackets into the mix...

H/T SwoonPo