U.S. lacks leadership and courage on banning landmines

[TheNoNamedOne]

It was Princess Dianna who lent her name and celebrity to the cause of banning anti-personel (AP) landmines when a Swiss group came to her for help in getting the message and campaign going in the 90s. Since then 153 countries have become party to the ban, and 42 have refused to do so.

Landmines are one of the most hideous weapons of modern warfare, not only for there lethalness but for their survivability long after a war has ended and their indiscriminate nature. Even today in Cambodia children walking in a field or wooded area are maimed and disfigured for life when tripping one of these left overs from their civil war.

In order to effectively have a chance at ending these kinds of injuries it is important that the major powers show leadership and join this treaty. As of yet the U.S., a country whose conventional weapons by far are any match for any foe has not signed the treaty, citing that the reason is because it doesn't make an exception for Korea. What!? after the Koreas are united, or after a war on the penninsula, Korean children are immune to tripping a landmine?

Deplorable that the U.S. cannot show leadership and break away from the pack of countries when they view themselves as the country valuing life more. Here are just some of the countries the U.S. is keeping bad company with by staying outside this treaty: Burma, China, Cuba, India, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc....

I find it interesting that we see eye to eye with the member states of the Axis of Evil on indiscriminate cruel weapons, particularly when they are not needed by us.

Do you support the U.S.'s stance that it should be granted an exception to North Korea? If so why? If every country had their own rights to penning in exceptions on all international treaties, they would all be paper tigers and virtually worthless.

http://www.landmines.org/images/cambodia_young_survivor_copy.jpg
Cambodian child landmine victim

[TheNoNamedOne]

When was the last time you thought about land mines left behind? I imagine that those injured by them think about them everyday. I also imagine that those who are forced to forage in nearby jungles and forests for wood or food think about them everyday, too.

Landmines: War's Lingering Menace (http://www.pbs.org/vietnampassage/perspectives/perspectives.landmines.html)

The Vietnam war ended over 25 years ago, but for many Vietnamese, the realities of the war still linger. In the years since the fall of Saigon, over 40,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance (explosives) left behind from that conflict.

Every 22 minutes, someone around the world is killed or maimed by a landmine. One-third of the world's countries are littered with landmines and the U.S. State Department estimates that 60 to 75 million landmines remain unexploded in the ground worldwide.

[radool]

Gonna play devils advocate here and just ask why? Why should the U.S. taxpayers have to clean up after other countries messes? Yes, the U.S. was resposible for aerial mining of many areas in Vietnam, so I agree with us helping them out, but many other nations (mostly 3rd world countries I suppose) we had nothing to do with it and they do nothing to help themselves. Why should I go and clean up their mess when they will probably put out more landmines at the drop of a hat?

[TheNoNamedOne]

I am not sure who you are playing devil's advocate against, radool. I haven't posted anything about the U.S. and taxpayers having to foot the bill to pay for the world's clean-up of land mines.

However, I do believe that the U.S. should become a member of and ratify the treaty to ban land mines, and not only that, we should show leadership in working with the world together to clean up those areas where they are.

I would suggest that any country whose arm manufacturers have their mines in those countries planted, have some degree of responsibility in assisting clean-up efforts, for it is the politicians of those countries and the regulating boards they sit on that allowed them to be exported for profit for that country, and, obviously that country got its share of blood money through taxes paid to the government from that company's sales.

[TheNoNamedOne]

The U.S., not only leaving behind the mines they planted themselves in past conflicts, but are and have been manufacturers and exporters of mines as part of their arms industry. I reiterate, if the U.S. is going to profit from these hideous weapons in the form of jobs and taxes received from their sales, then the U.S. does bear a certain degree of responsibility in leadership and clean-up costs:

... the United States exported (http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/arms0805/4.htm) over 5.6 million antipersonnel mines to thirty-eight countries between 1969 and 1992.44 Deminers in at least twenty-nine mine-affected countries have reported the presence of nine different types of U.S.-manufactured antipersonnel mines and four types of antivehicle mines,...

Currently there is a ban on exporting landmines, but perhaps not for long, and it seems that the U.S. may be positioning itself to allow the exporting of them to resume in October, with the proviso that only non-self-destructing landmines would remain banned for export.

There is concern that the U.S. proposal to negotiate a ban on the transfer of non-self-destructing landmines could signal that the U.S. is now prepared to engage again in the trade of self-destructing antipersonnel mines. The law banning the transfer of all antipersonnel mines will expire in October 2008, unless it is extended, and it is not clear if the Bush administration has retained or overturned the formal Clinton administration policy permanently banning transfers of all antipersonnel mines. The Bush administration may believe that since it has determined that self-destructing mines pose no danger to civilians, there is no need to restrict trade.

[Asshat]

Good OP TP. I can't recall the numbers of explosions, but they are huge.

They do pose a danger to humans 40 years later, and as long as they are produced and used will always pose a danger to humans. Unfortunately, more inocents have been maimed than the soldiers they were intended for.