Where is the Obama administration currently on the Ottawa Landmines Ban Convention? The question is on the public table with the opening in a few days of the Cartagena Review Conference, the second diplomatic conference to review the treaty.
The Ottawa Convention banning landmines was opened for signature in 1997 and entered into force in 1999. The treaty currently has some 150+ parties, but the US has not joined. I was one of the first NGO organizers of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and, if I remember correctly, drafted as a sort-of-joke-but-not-quite the very first draft of the landmines ban treaty. (It was a sort-of-joke because it was probably the shortest treaty text ever drafted, I suppose, more or less. It is easy to draft a short treaty if all it does is prohibit things, without exceptions or qualifications. Three sentences or so of pure categoricals.) The final, full, serious treaty text as worked up in the 1990s negotiating sessions can be found here.
I think the treaty was a good idea and I’m proud after all these years to have been associated with it. I’ll leave for another post, however, some of the bigger questions that the passage of time has raised for me, both about the treaty and its substantive content, and also about the effects that the process had in the 1990s in transforming the international NGO sector’s vision of itself as global actors and the development of “global civil society.” But that list of questions starts with the fact that it is not just the US that has not joined the treaty. Nor is it a list of international bad guys. Rather, the list of countries that have not joined is pretty much the set of countries that anticipate they might have to fight a war using conventional weapons, in which the outcome could be genuinely contested, and in which mines could make a significant difference to the outcome. They include China, Egypt, Israel, Finland, Pakistan, India, South Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, and more.
That, and international perimeter demarcation particularly in flat terrain, specifically for the United States and South Korea in the Korean peninsula. I discussed this question in an article a few years ago on the rhetoric of the US military on human rights law issues such as the landmines ban. (Co-Conspirator Eric also has an important, short discussion of the Ottawa Convention and international law in his fine book The Perils of Global Legalism (pp. 62-64). Eric’s skepticism is in this general line of thinking, to the effect that the apparent widespread acceptance of the treaty masks a list of non-participants coinciding with countries that might actually make war, and he asks whether this reflects the “tug” and “pull” of international law or merely an unsurprising co-incidence of different states sorting their interests in landmines differently.)
The Clinton administration wanted to join the treaty, but Korea was seen as making it a non-starter at the Pentagon. So the US adopted a fuzzy, sympathetic to the purposes of the treaty, etc., approach to the Convention along with important material support for humanitarian de-mining, and a promise to continue re-evaluating internally down the road. The Bush administration was much less sympathetic, but once the post 9-11 wars began, there wasn’t really going to be any discussion one way or the other – although the US has followed the convention generally, without having signed on, except for its possession of some 10 million mines and support for border use of mines in Korea.
Meanwhile, the NGO ban movement was gradually transforming into a broader campaign against explosive remnants of war and cluster munitions – see the ICBL or HRW websites over time for a sense of the gradual shift in international NGO campaigning. Cluster munitions raise very different issues, which I won’t go into here. In addition to the technical and military doctrine issues, however, they also raise a whole different set of consideration if you take as your starting point, as some of the NGOs do, that their use much or even all of the time, even on US-style rules of engagement and evaluation for proportionality, constitutes a violation of the laws of war.
Discussion of the issue of cluster munitions certainly gets much harder if, in other words, you want to open discussions with military forces about doctrine surrounding the use of a weapon you are already implicitly, or explicitly, calling illegal or even possibly criminal; it tends to dampen the desire for either negotiations or technical innovation. NGOs often have peculiar ideas about incentives, at least from the standpoint of negotiation in the ordinary sense – but not if one’s long-term view is that one can stigmatize the weapon and the user, so as to bend the curve of what constitutes acceptable discussion of the issue. It largely worked in the case of the landmines campaign, and the holy grail of international advocacy campaigning ever since has been to duplicate the form of that success, based around a “stigmatization” strategy. Wonder how well this will work with China?
At this moment, in the general euphoria surrounding post-Bush foreign policy, the Obama administration was pushed by the NGOs to review its landmines policy, with an eye to a timeline, even if a long one, for joining the Ottawa convention. Pressure to give out some kind of statement intensified as the second review conference on the Ottawa Convention, the “Cartagena Review Conference,” has got closer in date – it opens in a few days. So where does the Obama administration currently stand on its policy review?
After some “clarifications,” it appears that the US is conducting a “broad” review of antipersonnel landmine policy and the Ottawa Convention, while maintaining the previous Bush administration stance on an “interim” basis. This Reuter’s story, in the Washington Post, gives some of the ins and outs. Meanwhile, the Cartagena review conference on the Ottawa Convention shortly opens; GenevaLunch blog has details. From the WP story:
A review of U.S. landmines policy is ongoing and will take awhile to complete, a State Department spokesman said on Wednesday, clarifying an earlier comment that the Obama administration had concluded it needed the weapons.
“The administration is committed to a comprehensive review of its landmines policy. That review is still ongoing,” spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement.
Speaking ahead of a review conference next weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, on the 10-year-old international Mine Ban Treaty, Kelly said the U.S. policy review was “going to take some time” and while it continued the current policy of declining to join the accord would remain in force.
This “clarification” followed an earlier briefing in which the Obama administration indicated that its review had concluded, to the contrary, that the US needed the weapons. Following criticism by Senator Leahy, the new statement was issued:
Kelly had told a briefing on Tuesday the “administration undertook a policy review and we decided that our land mine policy remains in effect.”
“We determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention,” he said.
Those comments had drawn fire from Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who is a longtime advocate of the treaty, and expressions of concerns from anti-mine campaigners.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday said the administration had conducted an interim review in light of the upcoming summit in Cartagena, and decided the old policy should remain in force so long as the broader review continued.
My assumption, and everyone else’s, is that the “broader” policy review will be underway so long as North Korea is and, in the meantime, the “interim” position will be just fine with the Obama administration.
That said, one of the interesting questions for international legal academics is what, in any direction, one should make of the fact that known landmine casualties worldwide a dozen or so years ago were on the order of 20,000 a year (I haven’t gone back to pull up the estimates, but these are in the general order, and good enough for this point; usual data source is Landmine Monitor). Whereas last year, known casualties were listed as 5,197, according the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
I would say that the decline is likely attributable to the reduced use of landmines and the stigma surrounding their use, largely on account of the treaty. But one might question that, I suppose, and instead look to a general decline in warfare of the kind in which indiscriminate use of landmines is found (for various reasons, I don’t think that is causally right, but I won’t try to explain that here).
Much more importantly, however, even at 20,000 casualties a year, well, the US drunk driving fatality rate is somewhere around 40,000 a year. In a world of 6,800,000,000 people, 5,197 is not even a tremor. What would one say if one were to apply cost benefit analysis of, for example, the kind that John “Overblown” Mueller applies to terrorism risks (likelihood of being killed in a terrorism attack versus being killed by lightning strike, e.g.), to the money, time, efforts, etc., put into the landmines ban campaign? Should it instead have gone into malaria or AIDS reduction?
I think the Mueller comparisons on terrorism are an unsophisticated-at-best way of approaching risk analysis and cost benefit analysis – the alternatives under comparison have to be genuine policy alternatives, not merely hypotheticals. (I tried to explain this, and not very successfully, I’m afraid, in this paper on the assumptions underlying CBA in war on terror discussions. But in any case, people who are awe-struck by Mueller’s methods should take a look at his writing to the same effect in the Cold War; had his advice been followed then, we would almost certainly still be in it.) But if this method is tendentious in landmines analysis of whether the effort to ban mines was “worth it” for 5,000 or so casualties (casualities, note, not necessarily lives), and I agree it is, it is tendentious for the same reasons that it is in the case of terrorism-lightning comparisons.
(I have some other things to say re the Cartagena review conference, but I’ll hold them for another post.)
Caroline says:
Why bother pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty- just let a few more foreign countries ratify it, then the Supreme Court is likely to simply impose it on us.
November 28, 2009, 12:01 pmHouston Lawyer says:
We should jump to join the treaty because then we wouldn’t have to worry about IEDs anymore.
November 28, 2009, 12:07 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
No doubt the Obama Administration will come up with some wimp-a** policy on landmines and cluster munitions, even if it doesn’t sign the treaty. These are effective area denial weapons and are needed to protect US troops and to kill the enemy. They are no different from any other weapon of war–civilians (and determining who is a civilian is getting harder these days) get killed all the time with other weapons. To single out landmines and cluster munitions is to remove not one but two effective arrows from the quiver.
November 28, 2009, 12:12 pmSoronel Haetir says:
Bombs are fun,
November 28, 2009, 12:13 pmbombs are great.
Bombs help you
lose that excess weight.
Oren says:
Did you post your rationale on this? I’m curious on what grounds one can oppose a particular weapons system universally instead of “as applied”.
November 28, 2009, 12:27 pmASlyJD says:
Oren,
I won’t speak for Prof. Anderson, but surely the fact that mines are unusual in that they are neither targeted nor controlled by a human could be sufficient grounds for a principled opposition to their use in all situations.
For a similar reason, one could object to the use of those door activated shotgun booby traps we go on and on about in tort law. For the same reason, I would like to keep that motion activated machine gun from the movie “Congo” illegal.
Equipment meant to kill people should remain under the control of people. Land mines, by definition, can neither distinguish civilians from soldiers nor enemies from allies.
November 28, 2009, 12:45 pmCaroline says:
“All situations” to include the fortified Korean frontier? Can you tell us what risk mines in that region pose?
November 28, 2009, 12:51 pmOren says:
I think that barbed wire combined with sufficient signage more or less negates that concern. No one accidentally crosses a barbed-wire fence anyway, let alone one with a large red warning sign.
November 28, 2009, 1:02 pmASlyJD says:
First, my point was that a principled objection to the use of one particular weapon system was not as silly as some were making it appear.
Second, regarding Korea. One of these days the North Korean government will collapse. Even without a reunification, the DMZ will no longer be necessary and the land will (hopefully) be reclaimed for something other than the most heavily militarized real estate on the planet. Short of reinforcing a steam roller and running over every single inch to detonate every single mine, some mines are going to be left. Which means some poor saps will be blown up for wanting nothing more than a farm.
Also, there are currently three little Potemkin villages in the DMZ. I’m sure the inhabitants love the fact that stepping in the wrong spot is a capital offense.
I understand that the system of defenses, including millions of land mines, keeps Kim Jong Il on his side of the line and God only knows what would happen without it. It would not be such a horrible thing though if the Pentagon came up with a system of equal deterrence that didn’t involve explosives that can’t distinguish between targets and friendlies.
November 28, 2009, 1:12 pmSteve2 says:
I don’t really see what’s tendentious about it in the case of landmines, or the case of US highway fatalities (the ~40,000 a year is the overall car-crash fatality count, by the way, not the alcohol-related count, which is around 25% of the total – see the NHTSA’s 2008 Highway Safety Facts for example). Stranger’s lives are irrelevant except in the aggregate, and as you said, in a world of 6,800,000,000 people 5,197, or 20,000, or 40,000, or even a few hundred thousand people isn’t enough for the aggregation to be significant. Yes, it’s ridiculous to compare landmine injuries to lightning-injuries, but any cost benefit analysis where the benefit is based on preserving the lives of fewer than .00008% of the entire human population – especially when it isn’t properly adjusting the value of lives for reducing factors like age and criminal conviction – is working with a benefit so paltry it doesn’t take much cost to outweigh it.
November 28, 2009, 1:17 pmASlyJD says:
Steve,
I would be interested in a cost benefit analysis of the US placing the mines in the first place. What is the deterrence effect due to US land mines alone, especially on the Korean peninsula?
It may be that benefit is so paltry it doesn’t take much cost to outweigh it, either.
November 28, 2009, 1:29 pmwlpeak says:
The goal should be to limit civilian deaths not second guess the military. The cost of armchair pontification like this is some poor grunt dying from a second rate tactic forced on him by a hamstrung military.
The US military already does more to avoid civilian death than any other I know of while both endangering itself and costing us a lot more money. Since landmines can be made degradable, tracked scrupulously, and later retrieved, the argument against them based on the need to limit civilian deaths is becoming moot.
It comes down to a question of diligence on the part of the weapons users. I submit that a military that is slack on this kind of issue will have no reluctance to circumvent whatever rule bureaucrats come up with.
November 28, 2009, 1:37 pmSoronel Haetir says:
Who is to say that when the current NK regime goes away that the replacement will actually be friendly? I understand the sentiment that it could hardly be worse but that leaves an awful lot of room between evil and neutral.
As for complaining that mines are uncontrolled, there are plenty of other uncontrolled munitions, dumb bombs being a great example. The US may be in a position to use a large number of guided bombs but I don’t know whether that is true for other countries or not. As prof. Anderson said, the countries that haven’t signed on to the land mine ban are countries that actually face a legitimate prospect of future war. There is little or no cost to signing a treaty saying you won’t do something you had no intention of doing anyway.
November 28, 2009, 1:40 pmBob from Ohio says:
The height of silliness to think there are “good” killing weapons and “bad” killing weapons and that we can ban the “bad” ones which will result in unicorns bringing candy, I guess.
The same kind of gross naivety that “banned” war in the Kellogg Briand Treaty, right before the most destructive war ever.
Bad guys will violate every “law of war”.
And, since the Constitution requires a 2/3 vote to ratify, even if the O administration would decide to sign, no way it gets ratified by this Senate. So, on top of things, we waste time and energy on more meaningless symbolism. Of course, meaningless symbolism is this president’s trademark.
November 28, 2009, 1:50 pmASlyJD says:
Certainly, the argument that the US shouldn’t use them is weakening. Of course, we shouldn’t sell them to anyone not up to these standards, if we want to limit civilian deaths. Also, we should make sure any we have left in the ground are of the “degradable and tracked” type.
Agreed.
Agreed, Soronel.
Playing armchair prognosticator, I think the eventual replacement NK regime will have no choice but to be friendly to the South. Fifty years of embargoes and kleptocracy have destroyed the infrastructure, Il has wiped out pretty much anyone charismatic enough to lead the nation, and the place can’t even feed itself. When it collapses, somebody will have to take over just to make sure the food aid gets where it needs to go. Unless that somebody is China, the “occupier” is going to have to disarm the border just to get the required number of trucks through.
November 28, 2009, 2:01 pmwlpeak says:
Sadly Bob, these things aren’t just meaningless symbolism. The President can order a ban on the use of mines by our military at any time. Of course were he to take the same amount of time to consider this issue as he has some other politically sensitive military issues, we might be waiting for a while.
November 28, 2009, 2:02 pmEinhverfr says:
Aslyjd:
One of the big concerns I have heard from some on the right regarding Korea is the fact that South Korea is economically dependant on China, and that any replacement for North Korea would be as well. The issue here is that a reunified Korea might end up drawing us into a larger China/Japan standoff. I think the South would do well to acquire the ballistic missile capabilities of the North (probably via reunification) because these could be modified and turned into satellite launch vehicles providing more independence from the US and China, and I think opposing reunification will burn us in the end anyway.
However, would you oppose the inclusion in any land mine use ban of a clause which would continue to allow land mines to be used in stable, well-marked boundaries between hostile states? Certainly we have some record of how successful removing these mines have been (looking back at the Berlin Wall, for example).
Furthermore, if you say that you would oppose such an inclusion, then do you really think that any viable replacement would be able to properly detect whether an individual in the area is a civilian or a soldier?
November 28, 2009, 2:32 pmjcm says:
The Farc , colombian terrorist movement , use the against peasants. They are called “Quiebra patas” , legs( pata is a slang for legs , meaning animal legs) breakers . Who will enforce the treaty against them?
November 28, 2009, 2:34 pmSueSimp says:
A few people seem to be suggesting that any universal ban on a weapon type is untenable, and that if a treaty wanted to regulate a weapon it should instead provide for an “as applied” list of prohibitions.
Would you really apply that to all weapon types, though? Even if you think land mines are justifiable, both morally and politically, what about, say, weaponized small pox? Sure, it’s conceivable that the U.S. or China or Egypt would one day face a situation where using small pox as a weapon would be a military advantage. But I think it would be in any nation’s long term self-interest to simply try to prevent anyone from ever using it; a plague used as a weapon causes too much collateral damage, and once you’ve released it, you have limited or no ability to control who the target is. In that respect, at least, land mines seem pretty similar.
November 28, 2009, 2:43 pmASlyJD says:
Einhverfr,
I’m not categorically opposed to land mines, and American use only in “stable, well-marked boundaries between hostile states” doesn’t seem too objectionable. Of course, the mines can still remain after the states are still hostile. My father got to walk through a minefield on the Honduran/Nicaraguan border that was condemned to the same memory hole as Col. Ollie North.
Again, I wonder whether the benefits of mines outweigh the costs.
November 28, 2009, 2:52 pmKharn says:
In a situation like Korea (or Cuba, but Clinton required we remove our mines IIRC) where massed human wave attacks are likely, you need a complete minefield before the attack begins. Using your tube artillery to spread mines during the opening hours of the attack when you could be conducting more effective counter-battery fire is a game loser. At that point, commanders may resort to more effective means of area denial so their artillery can quickly resume traditional artillery attacks. Those means? Persistant chemical weapons.
November 28, 2009, 3:01 pmredc1c4 says:
it is stupid and wrong for the US to consider prohibiting our use of mines and cluster munitions, therefore i fully expect Ear Leader and his fellow idiots in the administration to act forthwith to do so.
having been an 11B10 long ago, i am comfortable in saying that the last thing my fellow Soldiers currently serving need are still more restrictions forced on them by sillyvillians with no clue of the real difficulties and threats the Soldiers actually face in accomplishing their mission of keeping said sillyvillains safe.
November 28, 2009, 3:18 pmRichard Aubrey says:
US mines, except in Korea, are all designed to shut themselves down after a specified time, which could be hours or weeks.
November 28, 2009, 3:19 pmIOW, it isn’t US mines which are the problem.
The Geneva Convention–which is considered pretty serious among lawyers, when convenient–requires minefields to be marked and charted and the charts available to the Red Cross. The Infantry School was as severe about that as about anything else they taught us. If we were ninety years old, they said, they would reactivate us to talk about a minefield we’d had anything to do with.
You will note the Russians scattered mines which did not degrade, to the number of five million, in Afghanistan, with little or no NGO or other lefty complaint. No marking. No charting.
So the US has to stop what it’s doing, which does not kill civilians, because of the vile crimes of other nations, which do not get any bad press because…they’re lefties.
Contrary examples are welcome.
RHSwan says:
ASlyJD,
My understanding is the ones the US has along the demilitarized zone in Korea are exactly that type. It would not surprise me that we have warehouses of the other type for use when needed, however. I don’t know if the US sells either type.
November 28, 2009, 3:26 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
Yes, because we are not fighting a hostile state. We are fighting transnational terrorist organizations, which just happen to be located in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the moment. Land mines should be used to defend villages and US bases against Taliban attack, and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be mined also.
The problem is that most US land mines are programmed to self-destruct within hours or at most a couple of weeks. For a more permanent defense the US military should continue to employ permanently armed land mines. And mine fields should only be known to the US military: why give up the element of surprise to the enemy?
November 28, 2009, 3:35 pmArthurKirkland says:
Wimp-a** policies arem bad . . . except when they replace eight years of dumb-a** policies that cause American soldiers to kill and be killed, and maim and be maimed, for no sensible reason. In that circumstance, sensible people recognize them as a great improvement.
And after the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq, I would have expected people would be less likely to talk about “bad guys” as if the world were easily divisible among good and bad. Many Iraqis who have suffered because of American stupidity (attacked the wrong country) and ineptitude (bungled the aftermath) possess ample reason to classify Americans as “bad guys.”
Landmines, like torture, appear to be shabby shortcuts, the refuge of people who are not up to the task of doing a job properly. There may be a persuasive argument for authorizing use (design, manufacture, sale) of landmines, and I am open to education on that point, but the burden seems to belong with those who advocate use of landmines, motion-sensitive guns, and the like.
November 28, 2009, 3:49 pmASlyJD says:
Shouldn’t the point of a minefield be deterrence? How can the enemy know to not cross the line/attack the village if they don’t know there’s a minefield in the way?
November 28, 2009, 3:56 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Minefiels are used to supplement or to substitute for terrain features. You can get across them–that’s what engineers do–but it takes time and makes you vulnerable. Just as with a river, badly broken terrain, a swamp.
November 28, 2009, 4:00 pmMight as well mark it. The purpose isn’t to produce casualties, it’s to slow down and canalize the enemy movements. They don’t have a choice.
Now, if you put a bunch of smart mines down on top of or in front of an enemy column, you will get a bunch of casualties at first. Then they stop, figure out what to do, don’t get where they’re going when they expected to, and so forth.
Soldier of Fortune says:
Let them find out when a few of their comrades get blown up. If they know the extent of the minefield, they will just go around it. The point is to kill.
November 28, 2009, 4:04 pmArthurKirkland says:
That’s what terrorists say, too.
November 28, 2009, 4:15 pmOren says:
The ordinance disposal boys beg to differ. A few hundred men with the requisite training and metal detectors will be able to clear out the DMZ in a few months, tops.
Because Afghanistan is crawling with friendlies. Losing the civilian population means losing the war.
November 28, 2009, 4:18 pmOren says:
Then you should be opposed to this treaty, which does not allow for their use in such conditions.
November 28, 2009, 4:24 pmwlpeak says:
And your point is what?
That in war both sides kill? Isn’t that tautological?
Or is the point of your comment to draw some other connection between ‘us’ and ‘them’?
I thought the distinction between terrorists and say guerrillas is that they target civilians instead of soldiers. Both are irregulars that may also be illegal combatants. But I think they clearly are not soldiers. So what other connection do you see?
November 28, 2009, 5:03 pmEinhverfr says:
Arthur Kirkland:
I think a dialog has to start with two questions:
1) How are line mines used? What are they supposed to do?
and
2) What problems do they cause?
My understanding on both of these are:
Land mines are used to make it difficult for enemy armies to cross specific boundaries. They are thus used to keep an enemy exposed and under fire (and thus vulnerable) while trying to cross the minefield. In a situation like the Berlin Wall or the Korean DMZ, the point here is to make a massive land-based assault problematic. In tactical deployments, they might be used to try to force an enemy to choose between exposed approaches.
In this regard, there are few, if any, real alternatives and those are at least as bad. Chemical weapons, for example, might be an alternative as might spring guns and other booby traps. However nobody really seems to be suggesting that we replace land mines with other automated-kill devices….. However, very expensive automated-kill devices might be advantageous because they would be unlikely to be abandoned.
The problems caused by land mines are simply that they aren’t always cleaned up afterwards. Thus one ends up with problems where someone dies or is maimed because a belligerent power didn’t clean up properly.
I suppose there are a few alternatives. These include:
1) A treaty which requires countries’ courts to provide standard jurisdiction and damages to civilians (or families of) injured or killed through land mines if they aren’t removed within a certain time (say, six months?) after hostilities are ended. If we were to leave land mines in, say Afghanistan and five years later someone gets blown up, the relatives should be able to sue the US government for monetary damages in US court.
2) A treaty which requires countries’ courts to provide standard jurisdiction and damages to foreign governments for land mine cleanup expenses if these are not removed within, say, six months of the end of hostilities.
Actually, I would actually prefer these solutions.
November 28, 2009, 5:07 pmwlpeak says:
I would think that determining the origin of a landmine that killed a family member in the third world would be difficult, costly, and overwhelmingly aimed at whichever rich western signatory last stopped by.
November 28, 2009, 5:15 pmBob from Ohio says:
You must be new here. AK sees no moral distinction between “them” and “us”, at least the “us” of the last 8 years.
November 28, 2009, 5:45 pmSteven Zoraster says:
At least three US outposts in Afghanistan have come close to being overrun over the last year. Small US garrisons, concentration of enemy forces, good enemy planning, and surprise all played a part. US mines can be programmed to self destruct, and – I assume – be turned on or off by encoded signals from the garrison commander. Narrow, non-mined entrance routes to outposts can be clearly marked for civilian access. US patrols can go out and return over mined terrain that has been temporarily made safe for passage using encoded signals, providing the enemy no clues to use in an attack plan, and even leaving them guessing whether the base is defended by mines or not.
Is the US policy of not using mines in Afghanistan causing needless US and allied casualties without endangering the local – hopefully peaceful – population?
November 28, 2009, 6:35 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Stephen. For close-in defense, you can use command-detonated munitions such as the Claymore, or whatever’s come along behind it.
November 28, 2009, 6:41 pmThen, when you leave, you pick them up.
Used to could set them up and then disarm them and pack them away in my sleep.
Thing is, if you want conventional mines to do you any good, they have to be at some distance. Closer in, as I say, you can use Claymores.
Minefields also have to be covered by fire so the bad guys can’t mosey in and start lifting them. The amount of terrain to be covered is substantial and a small outpost will have trouble.
From what I could tell, some of these outposts have been overlooked, Dien Bien Phu style, by higher terrain not controlled by our guys. That’s a disadvantage from the get-go.
Relic says:
Richard Aubrey:
Just a nitpick, but picking up a landmine seems 1) difficult, given that the landmines are hidden, and would thus require knowledge of the location where they’re buried and 2) dangerous, since these are, after all, high explosives. So why would there be a danger of the mines being “picked up”?
November 28, 2009, 7:03 pmArthurKirkland says:
I do not see the point of “[t]he point is to kill.”
If killing is the point, why not use chemical weapons, radiological weapons, and/or nuclear weapons?
If killing is the point, how can we blame Iraqis or Afghans for using bombs to kill members of an occupying force five to seven years after an invasion?
If killing is the point, why worry about civilians, or about creating more terrorists and enemies by killing and maiming innocents?
Regarding “us” and “them,” the United States has ceded substantial high ground by attacking the wrong country, inflicting untold misery by botching two occupations, engaging in limitless detention and torture, kidnapping innocents for shipment to sadists, siding with the likes of the Saudis and Uzbeks, relying on mercenaries to try to do soldiers’ work, and the like. These are blots on our national record from which it will take time to recover — and it will in particular take time to sort out the grievous mistakes that have been made in Iraq and Afghanistan — but despite these stumbles the United States has been and, I believe, will be a substantial force for good in our world.
November 28, 2009, 7:34 pmMatthew Carberry says:
An uncovered (by fire) obstacle is not an obstacle.
Mines are laid and documented, by developed nations anyway, in patterns so they can be safely removed and reused when no longer needed (which is why this treaty shouldn’t apply to us, we aren’t part of the problem).
On the opposing side, sappers are used, when a minefield is suspected (or observed being emplaced), to find the pattern so that the field can be safely penetrated by infiltrators. Happened all the time in Vietnam and Eastern sappers are excellent at it.
The pattern can be varied a bit, and “random” mines put in to throw off removal efforts, but if no one is watching the field a good sapper in a single or series of nights (depending on size), with minimal tools (read: stick), can not only eliminate the field’s defensive value (against infiltration) but also remove and turn the mines against their former owners.
This is infantry/combat engineer school 101 stuff and hasn’t changed for decades, go read a manual for more details.
As to why shouldn’t we tell the enemy about the mine field so they won’t attack a protected village; shouldn’t the burden be on them to, oh, I don’t know, not go attacking villages at all?
November 28, 2009, 7:35 pmEinhverfr says:
ArthurKirkland:
Who here is blaming the Iraqi and Afghans here? If you don’t want to get shot at, don’t go to war…..
The issue has to do with whether existing tactical and strategic use of land mines are objectionable. That is an entirely different question.
November 28, 2009, 8:01 pmwlpeak says:
I’m sorry, are you addressing my point or Soldier of Fortune’s?
November 28, 2009, 8:01 pmKharn says:
Steven:
“US mines can be programmed to self destruct, and — I assume — be turned on or off by encoded signals from the garrison commander.”
Correct, there are even systems out there that sit back from the approach path, passively monitoring for traffic, then launching anti-vehicle munitions at anything it determines to be worthy of attack while reporting that an attack was made. Local troops can remotely turn the system on or off as required, and it includes anti-personnel munitions to prevent tampering.
Infiltrators approved to enter the base (trash haulers, portapotty cleaners, etc in the employ of the enemy) do not have to be told about the system, just that they can only enter from 0900-1000 daily, and there is no noticeable change to the road for them to report. But, turn the system on and that road is as effectively closed as if it were blanketed in anti-tank mines.
The downside? The systems are insanely expensive.
November 28, 2009, 8:25 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
I do not see the point of “[t]he point is to kill.”
If killing is the point, why not use chemical weapons, radiological weapons, and/or nuclear weapons?
Why not? I have no problem with these weapons.
If killing is the point, how can we blame Iraqis or Afghans for using bombs to kill members of an occupying force five to seven years after an invasion?
I don’t blame our enemies for fighting-but they are fighting with their gloves off, while our forces are restrained by politically-inspired rules of engagement.
If killing is the point, why worry about civilians, or about creating more terrorists and enemies by killing and maiming innocents?
Why indeed? Many of those “civilians” and “innocents” support our enemies, either directly or indirectly. As far as I am concerned, it is too difficult to tell the difference.
November 28, 2009, 8:28 pmSkyler says:
People generally object to land mines because irresponsible parties use them and leave them behind. Their solution is to stop the careful users of land mines from using them. No law will stop the irresponsible ones, so they will continue using them.
It’s pretty much the same story with hand guns, “assault weapons,” and box cutters. Good people are disarmed and put at a disadvantage to the bad people.
November 28, 2009, 9:06 pmSkyler says:
Bob from Ohio, it doesn’t take 2/3 of the senate to ratify all international agreements. There are three ways that I am aware of.
The first is when the president signs a treaty and the senate ratifies with a 2/3 vote.
The second is to just enact a law with a majority in the house and a majority in the senate and then the president signs it. Same effect.
The third way is when the president has unilateral authority to comply with a treaty without any congressional action. In this case, the president could simply make a decision as the commander in chief to not use the weapons and to dispose of all existing deployments and inventories. Unless otherwise prohibited by law, this would require no action by the congress.
No matter which route is taken, the longer such a policy remains in place the more likely the courts will deem it to have taken on the status of international law that must be complied with.
None of this is new, it’s about as old as legal arguments go in this country.
November 28, 2009, 9:19 pmArthurKirkland says:
If one is going to employ everything from nuclear weapons to chemical weapons and land mines to cluster munitions, avoiding mistaken attacks seems to be a moral imperative. Far too many of the United States’ military attacks of the past 50 years have been mistakes.
The only reason we are mired in Iraq, for example, is that we acted on misguided, politically inspired rules of engagement. We invaded the wrong country (textbook example of “fighting with gloves off”), with a vastly superior force. In those circumstances, restraint by the United States military seems appropriate, if only because of the self-interest of avoiding counterproductive conduct: The needless killing of civilians in Iraq has needlessly generated more enemies. Far too many Iraqis have ample reason to consider Americans their enemies.
We have inflicted unnecessary misery in Afghanistan, too, with too many years of ineptitude. A strong moral case existed for taking action in Afghanistan eight years ago; the limitation period has elapsed, however.
On a broader plane, if a country uses land mines or cluster munitions, exposing civilians to death and dismemberment, it loses much of the moral high ground, and loses much of its claim to outrage when its citizens are treated with equal disdain.
“The point is to kill” seems nearly worthless to me as an argument, unless kill-and-be-killed is the aim. I doubt most Americans are prepared to live in a kill-and-be-killed world.
November 28, 2009, 9:24 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
If one is going to employ everything from nuclear weapons to chemical weapons and land mines to cluster munitions, avoiding mistaken attacks seems to be a moral imperative. Far too many of the United States’ military attacks of the past 50 years have been mistakes.
Being America means never having to say you are sorry.
November 28, 2009, 9:26 pmSkyler says:
That sort of facile moral equivalence is a sickness.
Yes, terrorists kill people. We also kill people. Pies are circular and so are nickels. So? The difference is in the purpose, not the act.
November 28, 2009, 9:28 pmRichard Aubrey says:
In Europe, in WW II, there were minefields galore, mostly German, since minefields are for defense.
November 28, 2009, 9:40 pmAfter the war, they were lifted, since the Germans, apparently, obeyed the GC and provided the charts as required.
I have heard that the detritus of war which still kills, mostly farmers or heavy construction people, is unexploded bombs and shells. Never know where those are going to turn up.
Field expedient booby traps tend to either degrade or are triggered pretty much before the fighting is over. An antipersonnel mine’s pressure setting will not trigger if a dog runs over it. A grenade with a trip wire will.
Let me reiterate, the unmarked broadcast of mines is a horrid moral and legal crime which the Soviets committed in Afghanistan with nary a reproach from the western left. Then or now.
David E. Ortman says:
One use of landmines is a defense against tanks. O.K., treaty drafters, now we need an international ban against tanks.
November 28, 2009, 9:42 pmOren says:
We might want to tell the villagers though, you know, since they are the people why are trying not to maim.
November 28, 2009, 9:45 pmGEORGE LARSON says:
When East Germany was dissolved the minefields the East Germans had placed on the “Inter German Boundary” were removed without a lot of fuss or casualties. Minefields stil exist in the Libyan desert from WWII, Algeria from the war with the French, and the Falklands. I read that in Korea flooding on the DMZ can wash mines away and they can end up in areas where civilians can encounter them.
I do not know current mine doctrine in the US Army, but in the 70s hidden point minefields were doctrine. They stil had to be recorded.
Using long term mine fields in Afganistan may not be a good idea. They can be retrieved and relocated by the Taliban to use against us.
November 28, 2009, 10:00 pmSkyler says:
Arthur also squeals:
Because we’re the good guys. The taliban cut the hands and feet off of women and children and subjugate those that they don’t mutilate. They’re the bad guys.
November 28, 2009, 10:17 pmSkyler says:
ArthurKirkland whimpers:
Mistakes? Well, that’s an opinion, not a fact. And a pretty abysmal one, at that.
November 28, 2009, 10:22 pmArthurKirkland says:
“We’re the good guys” is an opinion, also.
With respect to Iraq, in far too many ways, it is a delusional one. An unjustifiable invasion followed by a botched occupation is not “good guys” material.
We may have lost the “good guys” label in Afghanistan, too, given how badly the United States has conducted itself in Afghanistan for too many years. Our failures have caused a great volume of grief.
So far, for the most part, others have paid the most severe price for our mistakes and misconduct. I hope we change course before the American people are unable to avoid the lines of fire.
November 28, 2009, 11:09 pmSkyler says:
Unjustifiable? When a dictator is oppressing people to the extent that S. Hussein was, there is no other justification needed.
Whether it was wise is a different question, but it was morally justifiable by any measure.
We are the good guys in Afghanistan as well. We need do nothing other than punish that nation and its people for its attack on us. Any good we accomplish there is merely because we’re generous.
November 28, 2009, 11:45 pmArthurKirkland says:
We were opposed to Saddam after we supported him?
Bad argument, but I guess in the wake of the WMD folly, some will latch onto any canard.
November 28, 2009, 11:58 pmMartyA says:
President Obama will announce our country’s policy just as soon as Obama’s pimps tell him what it is!
November 29, 2009, 12:23 amEinhverfr says:
Arthur Kirkland:
I see where you are coming from. I think that if land mines were simply used to try to directly kill the enemy you would have a point.
Fortunately, “killing the enemy by blowing them up” is not the point of land mines.
November 29, 2009, 12:27 amSkyler says:
Supported him? Well, that’s putting it a bit much, we weren’t supporting him so much as we were opposing Iran. But we do have the ability to change our minds on whether we should use him to fight our enemy or oppose him as well. The world isn’t static. It’s “nuanced,” you know. The point is that we can choose if and when we wish to destroy a despot. The primary responsibility always rests with the people being oppressed, but we can also choose to assist them. There is no obligation to do so, but nor is there a prohibition.
November 29, 2009, 12:52 am11-B/2O.B4 says:
I think I’ve got Kirkland’s point down.
America = bad. Therefore, we should disarm as completely as possible. We’re all wretched excuses for human beings and should be ashamed of ourselves. Now lets all go to our rooms until the liberals tell us we can come out again after they’ve fixed everything.
Of course, nothing he’s said has any bearing on land mines in particular, since he equates them with chemical weapons and such. Sorry, but in this case, banning land mines IS the handgun debate writ large. There is no guarantee that disarming ourselves will do anything to curb landmine use by anyone else. The countries that sign on are largely the ones counting on us to fight their wars for them if shit goes down. Land mines are a tool, and when used properly, are effective and relatively safe (compared to other military munitions). Now, of course not everyone uses them correctly, but one might as well argue for the banning of fertilizer because of Oklahoma City. It’s just imbecilic.
November 29, 2009, 1:08 amOren says:
And flagging his tankers and selling him helicopters. Minor details, I’m sure.
The key there is not to botch it horrendously. I have no doubt in the (on the balance) positive role of US power but that doesn’t we’ve never FUBARed an operation.
Simply because we are the good guys, does not mean that every action we have ever taken furthered the cause of good. The good guys always make mistakes (both of commission and omission) and it’s pure folly to imagine that we are any exception.
November 29, 2009, 1:57 amJames N. Gibson says:
It seems to me it would help if someone who at least knows how landmines are to be used was talking here. But then again this thread was started by someone patting himself on the back for his glorious life work and then chaffing at his pet president not doing what he wants him to do.
And what he wants him to do is not only join the land mine ban, but enlarge it to include submunition systems. And what does that do, oh bring back the other large area attack weapon of the 1950s and 60s- the atomic bomb. For it was the development of the cluster bomb systems and other conventional submunition systems that made it less necessary for the US to continue fielding tactical nuclear shells and short range missile systems. Oh, but that is right, we have an agreement against those weapon already too so suddenly we can’t go back. I guess that means we then can only go forward, but to where and into what?
Landmines are used to blunt and slow the assault of enemy troops or to channel the assault and thus minimize the enemies attack strength while maximizing the defensive strength of your forces. The only time these rules don’t apply are to terrorists who use such weapons as the IEDs to attack both military and civilians within an area. And its interesting that these IEDs which are buried like landmines, tripped indiscriminately, and thus meet all the definitions of a landmine are not considered such by the treaty. Otherwise this review would result in some form of censur to Iran who is a signatory but is the supplier of the parts for the IEDs.
November 29, 2009, 4:53 amRichard Aubrey says:
Gibson.
November 29, 2009, 6:25 amYou’ll note, as I’ve noted, that these strictures, not to mention reproaches, are never directed at enemies of the US, who happen to be the most egregious violators.
Makes you wonder if the ostensible goal is the real goal.
IIRC, some years ago when the treaty was first suggested, there was talk about allowing for anti-tank mines. Then there was talk about anti-tampering devices (which blow up the anti-tank mine if somebody tries to remove it, but does not blow up if somebody simply steps on it)
Complicated. My church (PCUSA) had people pitching this who didn’t know the difference between a hand grenade and a Claymore, nor that the latter could be set up and taken down.
In El Salvador in the Eighties, many civilians were being killed and maimed by FMLN mines and booby traps. One activist said, when this was raised, “Why are they in the hills? Why are they fighting?” So, for the Professionally Incredibly Wonderful, it all depends.
Always.
Skyler says:
Oren wrote,
No one has ever claimed otherwise. Iraq was certainly botched. We needed several times more troops and better generals, to be sure. Bush, Rumsfeld, Casey and crew somehow ignored all of human history and came to the conclusion that an entire nation could be secured with a bargain cost. Idiots. War is not a business, you don’t expend the least amount required to maximize profits. You should spend as much as you can to end it faster and more completely.
This logic applies to land mines as well. Land mines are a perfectly valid weapon. They are not like spring guns in that we’re using them in a war, not a neighborhood garden.
November 29, 2009, 9:53 amSteve2 says:
You’re correct. Proper cost/benefit analysis may well support the US quitting the use of landmines. But I think it would be for the reason you suggest – the landmines turn out to not actually be effective in meeting an important military need – and not for the reason Mister (Professor?) Anderson seemed to be indicating – five or six thousand random people’s lives matter a great deal.
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November 29, 2009, 10:12 amSkyler says:
Steve,
Name the names of the innocents killed by US mines. Those thousand come from other irrsponsible nations that wouldn’t obey a ban anyway.
November 29, 2009, 11:39 amRichard Aubrey says:
Skyler,
November 29, 2009, 11:44 amSteve knows that. He and others are using the victims of others’ land mines to get us–not the others–to stop using mines.
Makes ya wonder.
The PM of Finland, some years ago, said wrt this subject, that many in the west considered Finland their mine field. Therefore, the Finns would continue to use them, having nothing between THEM and the Russians.
Oren says:
Considering that the terrorists and insurgents are already in gross violation of the foundational principles of the laws of war, this seems like an academic point at best.
November 29, 2009, 12:40 pmArthurKirkland says:
If that’s not a problem, a nation wasting a trillion dollars and wrecking another country over a loss of half that magnitude would be extremely silly, would it not?
As I observed earlier, there may be a persuasive argument for authorizing use (design, manufacture, sale) of landmines, and I am open to education on that point, but the burden seems to belong with those who advocate use of landmines, motion-sensitive guns, and the like. If someone leads an argument with ‘the U.S. is never wrong and need not apologize for anything it does’ or ‘the point is to kill,’ the likelihood that what follows will contribute to a worthwhile debate seems remote.
November 29, 2009, 12:47 pmArthurKirkland says:
If this refers to insurgents in Iraq using IEDs against American soldiers (and mercenaries), what law of war applies to someone who is defending his homeland (perhaps after watching invaders kill his family) against soldiers who invaded on falsehood, botched an attempted occupation, and have stuck around for years, wrecking that homeland?
November 29, 2009, 12:50 pmSkyler says:
wow. It’s not academic at all. That’s the entire point.
since only criminals use guns improperly we might as well prohibit everyone from owning one.
November 29, 2009, 1:32 pmSkyler says:
Kirkland. They’re not breaking any laws of war in using IED’s against Americans.
But that doesn’t mean that we should let them try to kill us. Flash! war means killing people. If you’re not killing people then it would be hard to call it war.
November 29, 2009, 1:39 pmBob from Ohio says:
I don’t know what is more offensive:
1. If an American works for a private security outfit brought in at US request, they are a “mercenary” and can be killed without mercy.
2. Blaming US soldiers for all the killing when most Iraqis were killed by their fellow Muslims on a scale of 10 to 1, at least.
3. Excusing the murders of US soldiers on the fantasy that the killers were Iraqi “patriots”.
I think Skyler and 11-B/2O.B4 have AK pegged pretty well.
November 29, 2009, 1:41 pmArthurKirkland says:
I did not say that armed contractors can be killed without mercy. Between a private-killer-for-hire and a local resident whose country is being occupied (ineffectively) more than five years after it was invaded without justification, however, I find it difficult to cast the balance in black-and-white terms favoring the highly paid gunslinger. This is one of the reasons the United States should entrust soldiering to soldiers — properly commanded, properly motivated, properly trained, properly regulated soldiers.
I blame U.S. soldiers for very little with respect to the clustermuck in Iraq. Nearly all have served — died, bled, sacrified — with high distinction. Instead, I blame the people who issued the soldiers’ orders.
The best way to address the entirety of this problem would have been to avoid it, but when a country entrusts its levers of power to overmatched ideologues, avoidable problems are not always avoided.
American soldiers should not be dying consequent to IEDs. They shouldn’t have been fighting in Iraq in the first place, and that they are still there years after the mistake was revealed, and years after “Mission Accomplished” was declared, is pathetic. Any legitimate mission in Afghanistan should have been completed long ago, too. Private killers, funded by American taxpayers, shouldn’t be in either country.
Given the United States’ recent record on several issues, Americans should be subdued with respect to crowing about the “good guys,” at least until we stop inflicting needless misery on people who didn’t deserve it.
November 29, 2009, 2:32 pmeyesay says:
People here don’t seem to understand that landmines are a low-cost warfare “equalizer,” in which the United States is the equalizee. We should join the treaty not so we can’t use them but to solidify a world in which nobody uses them.
Kenneth Anderson, I’m surprised you would write, “In a world of 6,800,000,000 people, 5,197 is not even a tremor.” It is of one of them is someone you love, or someone who was making an important contribution to her people. It is if others use these deaths to incite others to attack you. Anyway, landmine deaths are almost beside the point. Landmines prevent people from utilizing productive farmland, thereby impoverishing and starving entire populations. That’s not a tremor, that’s a very big deal.
Caroline wrote, “‘All situations’ to include the fortified Korean frontier? Can you tell us what risk mines in that region pose?” Eventually, North Korea will go the way of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain countries. Do you really believe there are maps that show the location of every single landmine on the Korean frontier, enabling trouble-free de-mining when the time comes?
Steve2 wrote, “Stranger’s lives are irrelevant except in the aggregate.” I suspect that Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, Alexander Fleming, and Jonas Salk were strangers to you and your forebears, but their lives were highly relevant.
wlpeak wrote, “The US military already does more to avoid civilian death than any other I know of….” How about, for instance, the Canadian military, which didn’t get involved in the lunatic war in Iraq in the first place, and unlike the United States, does not have a School of the Americas that has trained Latin American militaries to terrorize their own civilian populations, including the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests in San Salvador.
Bob wrote, “The height of silliness to think there are ‘good’ killing weapons and ‘bad’ killing weapons and that we can ban the ‘bad’ ones….” This flies in the face of existing treaties that many nations, including the United States, have signed on to and abide by that do in fact say that we won’t use, for example, phosgene or mustard gas. Bob’s comment is beside the point, as a major effect of landmines is not killing but impoverishing and starving a civilian population deprived of the opportunity to farm.
Soldier of Fortune wrote, “The point is to kill.” And this is your proposal to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people? Wouldn’t a more effective strategy be to provide schools, hospitals, electricity, safe drinking water and sanitation? Schools, by the way, that teach math and science and history, rather than wall-to-wall Islamic fundamentalism?
November 29, 2009, 2:58 pmeyesay says:
Soldier of Fortune wrote, “Many of those ‘civilians’ and ‘innocents’ support our enemies, either directly or indirectly. As far as I am concerned, it is too difficult to tell the difference.” Then what the sexual intercourse are we doing there in the first place?
Skyler wrote, “People generally object to land mines because irresponsible parties use them and leave them behind. Their solution is to stop the careful users of land mines from using them. No law will stop the irresponsible ones, so they will continue using them.” But international treaties have stopped the use of phosgene and mustard gas.
Skyler wrote, “the president could simply make a decision as the commander in chief to not use the weapons and to dispose of all existing deployments and inventories. Unless otherwise prohibited by law, this would require no action by the congress [sic]. No matter which route is taken, the longer such a policy remains in place the more likely the courts will deem it to have taken on the status of international law that must be complied with.” I don’t see why. The Mexico City Policy was reversed by President Clinton, reinstated by President George W. Bush, and reversed again by President Obama, all without any interference by the courts.
Skyler wrote, “terrorists kill people. We also kill people…. The difference is in the purpose, not the act.” The wailing mother of a dead little boy knows her boy is dead. She does not know that the “terrorists” are bad and that the United States is good. More likely, if a U.S. weapon killed her boy, what she knows is that the United States is the terrorists, the United States is bad, and that those attacking the United States’ soldiers are ipso facto her friends. Folks, this is not the way to win the people’s hearts and minds.
Skyler wrote, “we’re the good guys. The taliban cut the hands and, feet off of women and children and subjugate those that they don’t mutilate. They’re the bad guys.” Right. But, for instance, in Iraq, we tortured and murdered Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag, and the United States orchestrated the torture of Binyam Mohamed, which included the repeated slashing of his genitals with a razor blade. But this is OK, because we’re the good guys.
November 29, 2009, 3:32 pmSkyler says:
um. Yes. I do. It’s a pretty important thing to keep track of if you ever want to cross the mine field yourself.
Nope. The USSR always planned to use these and we know as a fact that the Iraqis actually did use them. The ban didn’t work.
I never advocated torture or training death squads. Those are clearly wrong to any sensible person. I never said we were without sin.
Just because we are quite strong does not mean we can’t lose a war. Prohibiting very effective tools like landmines simply because incompetent and irresponsible nations use them puts us in possible jeopardy. It’s all so simple to use a zero tolerance policy but there has never been a war where no noncombatants were killed. We should always strive for justice but when we must weigh our survival against injustices, then it’s not always correct to favor our annihilation.
Besides which a ban would be ignored by everyone except us anyway.
November 29, 2009, 4:03 pmMike McDougal says:
They made appearances in my criminal and property law educations as well.
November 29, 2009, 4:15 pmOren says:
Off the top of my head:
(1) Failure to wear a uniform with a fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance.
(2) Failure to carry arms openly.
(3) Failure to operate within a hierarchy with command authority.
(4) Failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets.
oreover, the falsehood and botching are irrelevant. The laws of war apply irrespective of the conditions under which the conflict started. The Iraqis are not entitled to use Bush’s (many) shortcomings as an excuse to violate their obligations.
November 29, 2009, 4:22 pmOren says:
Of course they are — they are out of uniform, not carrying their arms openly and without a chain of command. Those are three essential elements for a lawful combatant.
November 29, 2009, 4:26 pmSkyler says:
Oren our own military doesn’t wear distinctive insignia visible from a distance. I’ve been looking pretty carefully at my uniform and protctive gear and I can’t find any.
Not being in a heirarchy or having a uniform is different from laying out bombs. Even if they weren’t dressed properly they would be guilty of that crime and of using bombs when they’re not allowed to. If they were properly dressed (andmany are, you might be surprised) there is absolutely nothing illegal about bombing us. Not illegal but I’d still shoot them on sight if I catch them at it.
November 29, 2009, 4:45 pmlucklucky says:
One of most stupid treaties, since it is so simple to make a mine with an hand grenade.
This is just another attack by NGO against lawful combatants. Political Correct Socialism wants to forbid war by certain States.
70% of US causalities in Vietnam were made by mines and traps. Of course NGO’s don’t want to forbid that, they want to forbid Western interdiction and combat capabilities.
They would never go after mines and traps made by guerrillas.
This kind of thing btw would never happened if Western way of war wasn’t made from distance. No one after WW2 thought to ban mines and cluster munitions because well every war where combatants are into close fight there is a terrain full of unexploded amno.
November 29, 2009, 4:54 pmrpt says:
Had the prior administration had thought before acting, we would not be in Aghanistan now.
November 29, 2009, 5:36 pmOren says:
Unless you are special forces, your ACU/DCU was approved as compliant with the 4GC upon entering service. “Distinctive insignia visible from a distance” does not mean that you must never engage in concealment or camouflage, it means that you must be attired in a manner sufficiently different from the civilian population so as to be distinguishable with the naked eye.
If they are properly dressed, carrying arms openly, serving in a chain of command and not bombing civilians, then they are compliant with the laws of war. You are correct though, I would be surprised if a substantial fraction met those 4 conditions.
November 29, 2009, 6:49 pmSkyler says:
Make that intentionally or recklessly bombing civilians. We bomb civilians all the time, it’s not a crime. If the civilians are in a military target, or nearby, then they are liable to get bombed. Most IED’s in my area of operations in Iraq were either manually triggered or were in places that only our military would be allowed to go.
You’ve got a pretty generous interpretation of “distinctive insignia.” I don’t disapprove, but there were plenty of insurgents in Iraq that were dressed with a very similarly generous interpretation of distinctive insignia. They were certainly in a heirarchy. I’m not seeing the war crime, except for the times where they were targeting civilians, such as strapping explosives on the Downs child and sending him into a crowded area of the city. It’s not a war crime (though still punishable by death if we catch them at it) to bomb us.
November 29, 2009, 7:12 pmMatthew Carberry says:
Evidence we don’t?
The only village that is going to get some approaches mined by the US is one that has a US presence in it, when they leave the mines do too. Obviously the villagers should be told where to avoid (although the cleared fields of fire and concertina would seem to make that self-evident), my comment was directed at the poster who seemed to be suggesting it would “more fairer” or something to post notices in the local paper saying “Attention potential infiltrators/attackers: this particular area near this particular village is now mined” in the interests of deterring an attack.
November 29, 2009, 8:08 pmOren says:
No complaints there. The ROE are meant to minimize, not eliminate, collateral damage.
Well, I’ll defer to your better command of the facts, but I will admit that I’m still dubious. Just to be concrete, the 1977 Protocol defines perfidy as:
Section (c) is a fairly broad wording, and would (IMO), cover an insurgent planting, monitoring or detonating an IED while wearing civilian clothing. I might be wrong on this point of law though …
I don’t think there’s much of a distinction — you tell the villagers and somehow the information will leak out.
November 29, 2009, 8:26 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Oren.
November 29, 2009, 9:49 pmSo tell the villagers:
You can only approach safely by the front gate along the marked path.
Good for the villagers, good for the defenders who can provide for substantial firepower along the marked path.
Minefields canalize the enemy, or slow him down.
It doesn’t really matter if he knows where they are.
Keep in mind, though, we haven’t seen any condemnation of broadcast and unmarked mines by the Sovs in Afghanistan. Not now, not then–and I was following that issue then.
It all depends.
Always.
Skyler says:
The thing is, Oren, that §(c) is not enforced or generally recognized nor should it be. Should we penalize an army simply because it isn’t wealthy enough to have uniforms? It would seem to be too deferential to the wealthy armies.
If they are openly carrying arms, with bandoliers, magazines, sometimes armor, and other military accoutrements, are part of an organization that has a heirarchy and are clearly intent on fighting, then it would seem hard to characterize them as “feigning civilian, non-combatant status.”
November 29, 2009, 10:07 pmArthurKirkland says:
Is it appropriate to require people — civilians — who are acting against armed invaders (that the invasion was unjustified and appears to be never-ending is not dispositive, but seems hard to ignore) to wear uniforms (with distinctive insignia) when defending their homes, villages or country?
If a U.S. city were invaded by an armed force, and a militia envisioned by the Constitution were to assemble and bear arms, would an invading force be entitled to abuse and kill the militia members as “enemy combatants?” Would someone defending his home be denied Geneva Convention safeguards?
If the laws of war don’t recognize the position of someone defending his homeland against unjustified and endless invasion, why not?
November 29, 2009, 10:22 pmSFC B says:
All it would take to comply w/ sec C for this hypothetical poor, but willing to fight by the GC, military would be, say, the required wearing of, say, a blue sash. The “uniform” doesn’t need to be a full set of ACUs. It just has to be something all members of the Hypothetical People’s Army of Conventionstan wear.
November 29, 2009, 10:42 pmSkyler says:
Well, where are our blue sashes?
It’s a silly and trite rule, with a penalty far in excess of its importance.
November 29, 2009, 11:14 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Recall that one purpose of the uniform is to distinguish the soldier from the civilian, to the benefit of the civilian.
November 30, 2009, 3:32 amIf the uniform is not worn, every individual not wearing uniform is suspect, and, with or without malice, is in greater danger.
Not wearing the uniform–i.e. hiding behind civilians–is a gross crime against the local civilians.
You will note that it works, to the extent that it works, to hide behind civilians, only when the opposition is the army of a democracy.
To put it another way, those like Arthur Kirkland who oppose the requirement, want to handicap only those armies of democracies. They know that, say, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Palestinians (whatever their organization may be called) would never hesitate to kill civilians if convenient.
Further, they also know that they themselves and their fellows on the left would never say a word about it.
ArthurKirkland says:
But, Richard, what if those resisting soldiers are not hiding behind civilians but instead are the civilians, defending their homeland and property and families from armed invaders (all of whom attempt to occupy a country indefinitely some of whom are are trigger-happy)?
Do you object to the United States Constitution’s position on the subject of citizen militias (except, perhaps, when it is used to oppose regulation of guns)?
Had the uniform rules been in place 200-some years ago, how many of those who fought in America’s revolution been ‘unlawful combatants’ worthy of opprobrium for their conduct with respect to battle against the Brits (who, if I recall correctly, fastidiously favored conspicuous red uniforms).
November 30, 2009, 1:28 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Arthur.
November 30, 2009, 2:24 pmIf you fight, you are either a soldier or a non-compliant combatant. If you wish to fight legally, you can join the local militia, wearing some kind of insignia, having a chain of command, bearing arms openly.
During our War of Independence, the colonies made every effort to uniform their troops.
Had a colonist been taken in arms out of uniform and clearly fighting, he would likely have been shot out of hand, even though the GC was a century and more in the future.
I believe they were.
Keep in mind that armies visit atrocities on the civilian population in part due to what they consider is the action of the civilians against them.
That’s good for the left, since an American army takes pains even when none of their enemies are compliant, so more Americans get killed, thus discrediting the effort. And more civilians get killed, thus discrediting the effort.
But if you can convince even the Americans and Brits that the entire population is against them by faking it–it’s in the manuals I studied back in the day–you may be able to finesse the correct atrocity.
Palmer and Colton, in their “History of The Modern World” mention a matter during the Balkan wars of independence against the Ottomans. “even facilitating Turkish atrocities against their own people to emphasize their sufferings in the eyes of Europe” (paraphrase).
You know it. I know it. I know you know it.
Stop wasting our time.
Joe says:
I think that millitaries who fight insurgencies in tough terrain/spheres of conflict generally retain land mines to target ‘support networks’(populations). These sought of munitions are perfect for fighting populations who live in the area of combat and as a result are much more prepared to give their lives…this of course makes their use a war crime….
December 2, 2009, 12:33 ama brief thing I wrote about their use:
http://himalmag.com/blogs/blog/2009/11/26/obama-and-not-changing-policy-on-landmines/
Dave says:
U.S. Statement at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
December 1, 2009
——————————————————————————–
Following is the text of a statement delivered by the U.S. delegation in Cartagena at the Second Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction:
Begin text:
The United States is pleased to attend the Ottawa Convention’s Review Conference for the first time. We congratulate Colombia for hosting this important conference.
In 1997 the international campaign to ban landmines gathered 855,000 signatures on a petition that eventually spurred the creation of the Ottawa convention. This global social movement showed citizens taking responsibility for their fellow citizens and alerting all of us to the dangers posed by landmines.
Our acceptance of President Uribe’s invitation affirms that the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of parties to the Ottawa Convention. The Administration is strongly committed to continued U.S. global leadership in eliminating the humanitarian risks posed by landmines.
No country does more to support humanitarian mine action in strong support of the Convention’s goals, including in landmine clearance, mine risk education, and victim assistance. The United States has provided more than $1.5 billion toward humanitarian mine action and removing explosive remnants of war in 47 countries.
Equally significant, the United States has ended use of all non-detectable mines, both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines.
The United States will also end all use of persistent mines, both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle, by the end of next year, in 2010.
The United States continues to abide by its obligations as a member of the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
The Administration’s decision to attend this Review Conference is the result of an on-going comprehensive review of U.S. landmine policy initiated at the direction of President Obama.
This is the first comprehensive review since 2003. As such, it will take some time to complete, given that we must ensure that all factors are considered, including possible alternatives to meet our national defense needs and security commitments to our friends and allies to ensure protection of U.S. troops and the civilians they protect around the world.
The Administration applauds the significant accomplishments to date by the Convention in addressing the harmful effects of indiscriminate landmines and is committed to a continued U.S. leadership role in humanitarian mine action.
December 3, 2009, 9:34 am
Joe says:
Thanks for that Dave, I have spoken to several US embassies about this. They also go on about the US providing the most clearance money etc. and not about the number of ordinances dropped or used in the last century. Which has to be a record, they certainly set a record in South East Asia, and probably set records for the number of days spent at war. If this is also seen in relation to military expenditure it is probably also not so impressive. The use of land mines is the tip of the ice berg for the largest and most sophisticated military, the possession and use of cluster munitions and white phosphorous are equally horrific, but then lest we forget that Obama received more in defense contractor contributions than his ‘peaceable’ predecessor…
December 3, 2009, 9:28 pmAugustus caesar says:
fully automated road steamroller for iraq quick drying tarmak fully automated Tar makeing machine where are the romans when you need them
February 10, 2010, 11:58 am