Conspiracy theorists had a field day on Sunday. The New York Times reported that U.S. government officials have “discovered” that Afghanistan is a veritable smorgasbord of untapped mineral deposits. According to an internal Pentagon memo, Afghanistan has the potential to be the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” More than $1 trillion worth of rare earths, precious metals, copper, iron and cobalt are just waiting to be exploited.

Is this finally the smoking gun that far-left radicals have been looking for? Is America just there to exploit the resources? Is this confirmation that America invaded Iraq for its mineral wealth too?

According to the Times, when the Taliban took control of the country from the Soviets during the 1990s, a small group of Afghan geologists ferreted away bundles of charts and data documenting the country’s vast mineral resources. It was only after the Taliban’s ouster by the U.S. in 2001 that the geologists returned the information to the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul. Then in 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of the broad reconstruction effort stumbled across them.

The data was so intriguing that the U.S. government funded two airborne surveys in 2006 and 2007. What the surveys found is apparently astonishing. The Times reports:

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

U.S. officials say the resources could be used to fund the development of a successful economy for Afghans.

However, as the Christian Science Monitor brings out, the “news of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth deepens suspicion of U.S. aims.” Rumors abound that America wants to permanently occupy the country in order to take Afghan land and resources. Why else has America not been able to vanquish the Taliban and other insurgents, if it isn’t because it just wants an excuse to keep troops in the country, the Christian Science Monitor paraphrased Afghan sentiment.

Yet, far from being a smoking gun, all the hoopla surrounding Afghanistan’s mineral riches proves the exact opposite.

Almost 10 years after ousting the Taliban and liberating millions of people from a theocratic dictatorship—and spending tens of billions of dollars to do it—America has not developed a single mine in Afghanistan. It has not taken a single ounce of gold, copper, lithium or other mineral from the ground. In fact, it has been doing the opposite—spending billions of dollars to promote security and build infrastructure.

Actually, the one country the New York Times identifies as currently trying to develop a copper mine in Afghanistan is a Chinese state-owned company. China isn’t exactly one of Washington’s allies.

The same goes for America’s presence in Iraq. For those who think America went to Iraq to steal the oil (and there are many people who believe this), the facts indicate otherwise. As Time magazine reported last year, American oil companies are very minor players in Iraq. The big, lucrative oil contracts have been won by Russia, China and France—three of America’s biggest opponents to the war in Iraq. And even these companies are forced to pay high royalties to the Iraqi government.

If America really did go to Iraq to get the oil, then America has to be one of the most incompetent imperialist powers in history—because despite spending trillions to oust Saddam and reconstruct Iraq, and despite the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. troops on the ground, America’s enemies were the ones that got the oil. And now America’s troops are going home.

Iraq currently produces 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. Even if America “stole” all this oil, at $70 per barrel, it would only be worth $64 billion per year. In 2008, the Washington Post estimated that the war in Iraq would cost America $3 trillion (and that was two years ago).

America currently imports around 570,000 barrels of oil per day from Iraq—and it pays for every single barrel.

So is America really in Iraq and Afghanistan just for the oil and other minerals? If America is, it is failing terribly.