McChrystal Survived Tillman Cover-Up And Detainee Abuse, But Not Rolling Stone’s Profile

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/mcchrystal-survived-tillm_n_622919.html
By Sam Stein, First Posted: 06-23-10 03:25 PM, Updated: 06-23-10 03:25 PM

Stanley McChrystal, the general and chief architect of the counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, was relieved of his command on Wednesday, following a series of disparaging quotes that he and his aides made about the president and civilian leadership.

It was a remarkable conclusion to a frantic two-day period of frenzied coverage, climaxing with a Rose Garden appearance in which the president explained his rationale. In the end, it will remain a confounding episode for both historians and politicos alike. It was not McChrystal’s connections to a scarring episode of detainee abuse and the cover-up of a revered soldier’s death or his disparagement of the vice president’s proposal for Afghanistan that did the general in. It was a series of interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, of all things.

“The conduct represented in the recently published article,” said President Obama, “does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general.”

Indeed, as Obama spoke in front of a throng of reporters at the Rose Garden, it seemed nearly surreal to imagine that a freelance reporter—fortuitously embedded with McChrystal during an alcohol-filled bus trip from Paris to Berlin (the flight had been canceled due to volcanic activity in Iceland)—had put the wheels in motion. McChrystal, after all, had made gaffes before, including publicly mocking Joe Biden’s preference for a limited troop presence in Afghanistan ("Chaos-stan" he chided). More than that, he had been either intimately connected or directly tied to two very controversial episodes in recent military history. And no one seemed to notice.

McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan when Army Ranger and former football star Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. He approved the paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star for dying in the line “of enemy fire”—and he was “accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions” contained therein, according to an investigation—despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that Tillman had died in an episode of fratricide. That episode barely registered with the public or, for that matter, Congress, when McChrystal went before the Senate Armed Services Committee waiting to take over control in Afghanistan. The one person who questioned whether more answers were needed was journalist Jon Krakauer who had just penned a book on Tillman’s death and thought the general’s explanations were “preposterous” and “unbelievable.”

The second episode was even less well-known. Years after the Tillman death, McChrystal was mentioned several times in a report by Human Rights Watch which documented the abuse and torture of detained prisoners at Camp Nama in Iraq. A soldier, quoted anonymously in the findings, recalled seeing McChrystal at the facility “a couple of times.” It was also reported that the general himself said there was no way that the Red Cross would ever be allowed through the door at Nama—where treatment of detainees was so bad, it earned the nickname Nasty Ass Military Area.

“It is not easy to say what his role was accurately because the entire program of detention and interrogation going on there remains highly classified,” said John Siston, an author of the Human Rights Watch report. “But HRW was able to learn enough to say that he was in the chain of command that oversaw the operations of that special task force and the interrogation unit that took care of the detainees that that special task force detained.”

Nama, like Tillman, never played a role in McChrystal’s quick ascendancy through the military ranks. Indeed, one of the most ignored nuggets in the Rolling Stone piece involved the general and his staff prepping for tough questioning on both of these topics, only to discover that Congress didn’t care.

In May 2009, as McChrystal prepared for his confirmation hearings, his staff prepared him for hard questions about Camp Nama and the Tillman cover-up. But the scandals barely made a ripple in Congress, and McChrystal was soon on his way back to Kabul to run the war in Afghanistan.
Congress it seemed was more invested in moving forward than looking back. And so it was that McChrystal became embroiled in a career-threatening controversy only after the Rolling Stone piece raised questions as to whether his shaky relationship with civilian leadership would compromise the Afghan mission.

It wasn’t an unworthy basis for the general’s dismissal though it may have fallen a bit short of the official definition of insubordination (but not by much). But it was telling for some that after dodging several other bullets, it was an article in a music magazine (and not even a cover article at that) that did the trick.

“Given that there are a lot of unanswered questions about McChrystal’s role in detainee abuse in Iraq,” Stacy Sullivan, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch said hours before his resignation, “it would be ironic if a few careless comments to Rolling Stone magazine were to bring about his undoing.”

Oil spill stress starts to weigh on gulf residents

latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-mental-health-20100621,0,6108606.story
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, 7:56 PM PDT, June 20, 2010
Reporting from Grand Isle, La.

As the slick looms larger, mental health workers fear a rising tide of despair.

Ordinarily this time of year, Adam Trahan would be out on the Gulf of Mexico on a shrimp boat, trawling from South Pass to the Chandeleur Islands. Instead, last week he was trawling between the bar at Cisco’s Hideaway on Oak Lane and Artie’s out on the highway, fishing for Bud Light.

“I look out there and I see my life ruined,” Trahan, 53, said in his long Cajun drawl from the ocean-side deck at Artie’s. “There ain’t no shrimpin’, there ain’t no crabbin’, there ain’t no oysterin’. Well, the only thing I know is shrimpin’. That’s all I know. Now you tell me: Where do I go from here? It’s heartbreakin’, baby.”

A few blocks away, Dean Blanchard, owner of a seafood company that ships 15 million pounds a year of gulf shrimp and fish, gets up in the morning, walks to his empty warehouse, trudges back again, sits down in front of the TV and stares at CNN’s oil spill coverage. Then he heads back to the warehouse.

“I’m just walking around in a circle, more or less,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I never been this confused in my life.”

While listless, oil-soaked pelicans may be the most memorable images of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the fishermen and business owners marooned along the Gulf Coast already are proving just as big a challenge for the mental health workers dispatched from Louisiana to Florida to help vaccinate against the fast-growing epidemic of despair.

The symptoms are well-documented: The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 touched off a wave of suicides, domestic violence, bankruptcies and alcoholism in Alaska that created an entire literature on the unique and confounding psychology of technological disaster.

J. Steven Picou of the University of South Alabama, the author of much of the groundbreaking research on oil spill stress in Cordova, Alaska, now finds himself living 400 yards from the oily sands of Orange Beach, Ala. He has spent the last several weeks traveling to community forums and fishermen’s organizations up and down the Gulf Coast, warning his neighbors of the dangers of isolation and anger.

“The first suicide occurred in Cordova four years after the spill. I try to explain to people, this is a marathon, and you have to try to stick together. And you have to try to take care of yourself,” Picou said. “Don’t become obsessed with sitting in front of the television watching this wellhead just gush thousands and thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every minute.”

Even politicians have admitted to feeling overwhelmed.

“I myself believe I am suffering PTSD,” Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said June 3 as he stood before dozens of locals at a forum here. “I didn’t realize how built up this all was within me.” A few days earlier he had broken down in tears while speaking to the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington.

Stop at any marina or cafe along the coast of Louisiana, and the stories are numbing in their similarity and improbable in their misfortune: homes washed away in Hurricane Katrina, rebuilt, flooded again during Hurricane Gustav. And now this.

“After Katrina and Rita, it was pretty bad. We were closed like three months to get everything repaired and reopened. And then Gustav and Ike. And after that, we were ready to reopen again, and unfortunately the store caught fire,” said Don Griffin, who owns Griffin’s Marina and Ice, a fishing supply shop in Leeville.

“And then the oil spill came along,” he said. “At this point, we’re just waiting for the day that comes when we might have the end in sight.”

Louisiana officials in December had shut down the last of Louisiana Spirit, the massive mental health response network associated with Hurricane Katrina. Now, they’re rushing to reopen it with part of $300 million in social service funds the state has requested, but not yet received, from BP.

“With an uncertain future, anger, stress and fear can be overwhelming. Don’t wait too long to talk about it,” says a radio spot about a 24-hour counseling hotline put up by the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

“Typically in a natural disaster, there’s a very clear onset of the event and closure of the event. The hurricane passes through, and it may have left horrible destruction, but you can basically say, this is what our destruction amounts to. But with this oil spill disaster, there are no boundaries around it,” said Anthony Speier, who is overseeing the Louisiana Spirit program for the state Office of Mental Health.

“The hurricane was an act of God. It’s a little bit easier to take. You can only be angry with God for so long,” said Elmore Rigamer, a psychiatrist who is state medical director of Catholic Charities, which is working closely with Louisiana to send counselors into seaside communities.

“But this — the more we understand that this could have been prevented, and this was just a failure of corporate ethics in terms of profit, really, overriding responsibility, this makes it really difficult to take,” Rigamer said.

He has found it “heartbreaking” figuring out how to advise backwoods fishermen who have never known any place but the bayou and the sea.

“These Cajun fishermen, who’ve always been with their fathers, their grandfathers, on these boats, they’re coming in wanting to know how they can get a GED,” Rigamer said. “I just can’t imagine them in an office.”

Blanchard, 51, said he and the fishermen who supply him spend a lot of time sitting around in his office trying to figure out what to do.

“We start talking, and pretty soon, before you know it, we’re all there crying,” he said. “I never seen so many grown men cry in my life. Tough men, you know? Tough, tough men. Tough as they come. Just break down and cry.”

Becky Tabony has become a fixture in Grand Isle, pedaling her bicycle in a sleeveless shirt and capris up and down the oak-shaded lanes, calling on people who were red-flagged by social workers when they came in looking for help paying utility bills or applying for grocery store vouchers.

The biggest source of stress in her clients so far, she said, is the uncertainty: How much oil is going to be out there? When will it stop? How bad will the fish get hurt? And what happens if a hurricane hits? High winds and seas could bring the oil all the way to New Orleans, residents fear.

“They know the winds and tides. They know what could happen,” said Tabony, the daughter of a Louisiana fisherman, who worked on an oil rig for 12 years before she got her doctorate in psychology.

“They’re not stupid,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “That’s really the hard part. They’re not stupid. If they were dumb, this would be easy. We could tell them anything. You can feed educated people a lot more crap than you can somebody who has common sense and a knowledge of the land, the sea, the very basics.”

Tabony has counseled a boat captain working with wildlife rescuers who can’t stand to see another dying animal; with convenience store owners who stand all day at the counter waiting for tourists; with people who say they’re so mad they feel like they want to hurt somebody.

“They don’t say, ‘I want to kill my neighbor.’ It’s like, they want to take charge of this. And the troubling thing for me is, there’s breaking points for people…. You look at some of these people and you wonder, when is that person going to snap?” she said

Telling who’s at the end of their rope and who’s merely furious can be hard in a town in which cheerful revenge fantasies have become a favorite form of recreation.

Signs bearing the name “Tony Baloney” in a crossed-out circle, an apparent reference to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, can be seen along Grand Isle’s main thoroughfare. “For Sale or Rent — Thanks a Lot, BP,” reads a sign on a house near the marina.

“I got no clue what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, and they want to give me a $2,500 check? A kick in the ass, and get the hell out of here? And they [messed] up my waters?” said Trahan, his voice rising in volume as he thought about it. “I’m holdin’ it in as much as I can, but the more I think about it, this is just screwed up! Somebody’s gotta pay!”

Blanchard sat last week watching Hayward’s testimony on the sofa of his lavishly appointed, three-story beach house and couldn’t stop wishing he could meet the man face to face.

“The first thing I’d like to do is punch that CEO in the mouth. That’d make me feel a little bit better, I guess,” he said. “I think I’d give a million dollars for one punch.”

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Tina Susman in Grand Isle contributed to this report.

Supreme Court ruling makes ‘it a crime to work for peace and human rights’: CCR

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0621/supreme-court-upholds-material-support-law/
By Raw Story, Monday, June 21st, 2010—2:15 pm

The US Supreme Court endorsed Monday a broad reading of the law criminalizing “material support” to terrorism, a statute that critics argue targets legitimate free speech.

In a six to three vote, the highest US court sided with the government and found that an NGO could face prosecution for providing non-terror-related support, including rights training, to US-designated terror groups.

The case involved the Humanitarian Law Project, a human rights group, which the court ruled could face prosecution under the material support statute for providing human rights or conflict resolution training to groups including the Kurdish PKK or the Tamil Tigers.

“The material-support statute is constitutional as applied to the particular activities plaintiffs have told us they wish to pursue,” the court ruling said.

In a press release sent to RAW STORY, the Center for Constitutional Rights argues that the ruling “criminalizes” free speech, and that even former President Jimmy Carter could face potential prosecution.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to criminalize speech in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the first case to challenge the Patriot Act before the highest court in the land, and the first post-9/11 case to pit free speech guarantees against national security claims. Attorneys say that under the Court’s ruling, many groups and individuals providing peaceful advocacy could be prosecuted, including President Carter for training all parties in fair election practices in Lebanon. President Carter submitted an amicus brief in the case.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, affirming in part, reversing in part, and remanding the case back to the lower court for review; Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor. The Court held that the statute’s prohibitions on “expert advice,” “training,” “service,” and “personnel” were not vague, and did not violate speech or associational rights as applied to plaintiffs’ intended activities. Plaintiffs sought to provide assistance and education on human rights advocacy and peacemaking to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, a designated terrorist organization. Multiple lower court rulings had found the statute unconstitutionally vague.
Created in 1996, the “material support” language was strengthened under the Patriot Act, which Congress passed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and reauthorized with some changes in 2004.

It has usually been used to prosecute individuals who have helped organize or finance terrorist attacks.

The law has become a popular tool for prosecutors, who have prosecuted some 150 people under the statute in the United States, obtaining convictions in around 60 cases, and sentences ranging up to life in prison.

The Associated Press adds,

In his dissent, Breyer recognized the importance of denying money and other resources to terror groups. “I do not dispute the importance of this interest,” he said. “But I do dispute whether the interest can justify the statute’s criminal prohibition.”

Breyer said the aid groups’ mission is entirely peaceful and consists only of political speech, including how to petition the U.N.

“Not even the ‘serious and deadly problem’ of international terrorism can require automatic forfeiture of First Amendment rights,” he said.
The CCR statement adds:

Said CCR Cooperating Attorney David Cole, “We are deeply disappointed. The Supreme Court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists. In the name of fighting terrorism, the Court has said that the First Amendment permits Congress to make human rights advocacy and peacemaking a crime. That is wrong.”

Originally brought in 1998, the case challenges the constitutionality of laws that make it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the administration has designated as “terrorist.” CCR’s clients sought to engage in speech advocating only nonviolent, lawful ends, but the government took the position that any such speech, including even filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, would be a crime if done in support of a designated “terrorist group.”

Said CCR Senior Attorney Shayana Kadidal, “The Court’s decision confirms the extraordinary scope of the material support statute’s criminalization of speech. But it also notes that the scope of the prohibitions may not be clear in every application, and that remains the case for the many difficult questions raised at argument but dodged by today’s opinion, including whether publishing an op-ed or submitting an amicus brief in court arguing that a group does not belong on the list is a criminal act. The onus is now on Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that humanitarian groups may engage in human rights advocacy, training in non-violent conflict resolution, and humanitarian assistance in crisis zones without fearing criminal prosecution.”

The Court rejected the government’s argument that the statute, when applied to plaintiffs’ proposed speech, regulated not speech but conduct, and therefore needed to meet only a low standard – “intermediate scrutiny” – to survive. Instead, the Court found that the statute did criminalize speech on the basis of its content, but then found that the government’s interest in delegitimizing groups on the designated “terrorist organization” list was sufficiently great to overcome the heightened level of scrutiny. This is one of a very few times that the Supreme Court has upheld a criminal prohibition of speech under strict scrutiny, and the first time it has permitted the government to make it a crime to advocate lawful, nonviolent activity.
The Constitution Project also blasted the court’s decision in a press release sent to RAW STORY:

Today, the Supreme Court, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, upheld the extremely broad application of federal laws that prohibit material support for designated terrorist groups. The lawsuit challenged the application of the “material support” laws to organizations and individuals who seek to provide peacebuilding and human rights training to groups designated as terrorist organizations. Writing for a total of six justices, Chief Justice Roberts today rejected this challenge, finding that the application of the material support statutes to punish these groups’ pure speech that seeks to further lawful, non-violent ends does not run afoul of the Constitution. Although the Court agreed that the statute’s regulation of speech must be subject to a demanding level of scrutiny, the Court found that these sweeping restrictions were justified by the Government’s interests in combating terrorism.

“The Constitution Project is thoroughly dismayed by today’s Supreme Court’s decision, which will allow for the prosecution of individuals for constitutionally protected, peaceful, speech and association activities,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, Constitution Project Senior Counsel. “As much as our government must have the tools needed to punish those who work to enable acts of terrorism, it is essential that these laws respect constitutional freedoms. We regret that the Court refused to rein in the overbroad sweep of the material support statutes to ensure that terrorist activities are prohibited but that free speech and association are still safeguarded by the First Amendment. Training groups to pursue peaceful resolution of their disputes should be encouraged, not made criminal.”

Last November, the Constitution Project, together with The Rutherford Institute, filed an amicus brief in the case, urging the Supreme Court to strike down the provisions of the material support laws that conflict with First Amendment protections for free speech and freedom of association. Also in November, the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee released Reforming the Material Support Laws: Constitutional Concerns Presented by Prohibitions on Material Support to “Terrorist Organizations,” which proposed eight reforms to remedy serious First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns created by existing material support laws.

To view the Constitution Project’s amicus brief in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, go to: http://www.constitutionproject.org/manage/file/357.pdf.
A statement sent to RAW STORY by the ACLU adds,

The following can be attributed to former President Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center:

“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that inhibits the work of human rights and conflict resolution groups. The ‘material support law’ – which is aimed at putting an end to terrorism – actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence. The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom.”

The following can be attributed to Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:

“Today’s decision is disappointing and inconsistent with our First Amendment position. The government should not be in the business of criminalizing speech meant to promote peace and human rights.”

Lincoln’s Backers And The White House Flushed $12 Million Down Toilet: Progressive Group

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/lincolns-backers-and-the_n_615733.html
Sam Stein, Updated: 06-17-10 11:13 AM

A new poll showing Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) in deep general election trouble has compelled a progressive group that opposed her nomination in the Democratic primary to restart their feud with the White House over her candidacy.

On Thursday, a new Rasmussen poll shows Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) beating Lincoln by a margin of 61 percent to 32 percent. Rasmussen is notably viewed with skepticism by progressive organizations. But the group Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which poured heavy manpower and resources into electing Lt. Gov Bill Halter in the Democratic primary, jumped on the findings as evidence that Lincoln is as good as dead, electorally.

Noting that the last time a poll was conducted for a prospective general election in Arkansas, Halter trailed Boozman by 9 points (Lincoln trailed by 20), the group’s co-founder Adam Green offered a sharp swipe at the administration.

The White House, Bill Clinton, and the big corporations they partnered with just flushed $12 million down the toilet. They worked to defeat the more electable Democrat in the primary—not to mention the Democrat who would have had Obama’s back on key votes. Rahm Emanuel will go down in history as having some of the worst political instincts of all time—advising Obama to back Specter over Sestak, taunting progressives for backing the more electable candidate in Arkansas, killing the public option that had overwhelming public support, and working to water down Wall Street reform. Brilliance.

Accusing Emanuel of having “the worse political instincts of all time” is hyperbole. For all the flaws of the White House chief of staff, it remains White House policy to back incumbent Democrats in reelection campaigns. The administration, moreover, really didn’t do that much to help Lincoln get reelected, leaving the heavy lifting to Clinton.

That said, the accusation that Lincoln’s donors and allies flushed $12 million down the toilet is both playful and biting. The White House anonymously slammed unions for doing the same thing with the $10 million they put behind Halter’s campaign. Polling numbers only reassure those unions that they, not the White House, got Arkansas right. Comments like Green’s, meanwhile, make it clearer that the progressive community is not prepared to lift a finger to help Lincoln in the general.

Afghans: US finds mineral riches in Afghanistan

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/13/2820514/report-us-finds-mineral-riches.html#ixzz0qqAp7pJO
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
Last Modified: Monday, Jun. 14, 2010 - 7:17 am

KABUL, Afghanistan—U.S. geologists have discovered vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan, possibly amounting to $1 trillion, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said Monday.

Waheed Omar told reporters the findings were made by the U.S. Geological Survey under contract to the Afghan government.

“The result of the survey ... has shown that Afghanistan has mineral resources worth $1 trillion,” Omar said. “This is not an overall survey of all minerals in Afghanistan. Whatever has been found in this survey is worth $1 trillion.”

Omar refused to provide details, referring reporters to the Ministry of Mines. An official at the ministry refused to discuss the survey, saying details would be released at a news conference later this week.

A 2007 report by the USGS said most of the data on Afghanistan’s mineral resources was produced between the early 1950s and 1985 but much was hidden and protected by Afghan scientists “during the intermittent conflict over the next two decades.”

The New York Times reported the $1 trillion figure in Monday’s edition and quoted senior American officials as saying untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan are far beyond any previously known reserves and were enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.

Americans discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium, according to the report. The Times quoted a Pentagon memo as saying Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and cell phones.

“There is stunning potential here,” the newspaper quoted Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command as saying. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

Geologists have known for decades that Afghanistan contained substantial mineral resources, including copper, gold and cobalt. But the resources have never been fully exploited because of decades of armed conflict and poor infrastructure. The Times said huge lithium deposits were found in Ghazni province - much of which is effectively under Taliban control.

During a visit last month to Washington, Karzai said his nation’s untapped mineral deposits could be even higher - perhaps as much as $3 trillion.

The mineral resources are a “massive opportunity,” Karzai said at a May 13 event with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The report in the Times said the USGS began aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using data that had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Promising results led to a more sophisticated study the next year.

Then last year, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq arrived in Afghanistan and closely analyzed the geologists’ findings. U.S. mining experts were brought in to validate the survey’s conclusions, and top U.S. and Afghan officials were briefed.

“I think it’s very, very big news for the people of Afghanistan and that we hope will bring the Afghan people together for a cause that will benefit everyone,” Karzai’s spokesman, Omar, said. “This is an economic interest that will benefit all Afghans and will benefit Afghanistan in the long run.”

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, but finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, as well as rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, the report said. Many of those areas are too dangerous because of Taliban activity.

Charles Kernot, a mining analyst with Evolution Securities Ltd. in London, said it typically takes three to five years to get a lithium mining operation up and running. Factors include how close the deposit is to power sources and other infrastructure and the size of the deposit.

And large lithium deposits may not mean an automatic windfall - given competition and the uncertainty of the market.

“Bolivia wants to expand its lithium mining operations dramatically over the next few years so there is a risk of oversupply if demand from electric cars does not meet expectations,” Kernot said.