Trump makes landmines legal again

[notimp]

'merica, f*ck yeah.

Trump lifts restrictions on US landmine use - BBC News
src: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51332541

 

[Kraken_X]

From the article you posted...

"More than 120,000 people were killed or injured by landmines between 1999-2017, according to the same group. Nearly half the victims are children, with 84% being boys. Civilians make up 87% of casualties."

 

[Cylent1]

From the article you posted...

"More than 120,000 people were killed or injured by landmines between 1999-2017, according to the same group. Nearly half the victims are children, with 84% being boys. Civilians make up 87% of casualties."

Who cares.... If we send our kids to war you better make damn sure they have what they need because do you honestly think the other side is gonna care about rules? Didn't think so.

 

[Viri]

'merica, f*ck yeah.

Trump lifts restrictions on US landmine use - BBC News
src: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51332541

The US has never stopped using them. We mine the fuck out of Korea. We also never signed a treaty to ban them. Nor did Russia, China, and India.

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

 

[notimp]

> Nor did Russia, China, and India.

Important context. Thanks.

The treaty to abolish the use was signed only by the last administration. Trump now has reversed it.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

So what? Now I need to hire a mine detector dog or else I can't walk around freely outside? Or do I have to crawl around like solid snake so I don't get blown up?

 

[Cylent1]

So what? Now I need to hire a mine detector dog or else I can't walk around freely outside? Or do I have to crawl around like solid snake so I don't get blown up?

If you don't reside in the USA, then yes and sorry bout your luck!

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

If you don't reside in the USA, then yes and sorry bout your luck!

Oh, okay. Then nothing to worry about. I'm in Usa.

 

[ignare]

Blast those wussies!

 

[notimp]

Blast those wussies!

src: https://books.google.com/books?id=PWtDWBJILXsC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36

Nearly half of the victims are children.

 

[Viri]

> Nor did Russia, China, and India.

Important context. Thanks.

The treaty to abolish the use was signed only by the last administration. Trump now has reversed it.

I cannot find any source of Obama signing the treaty. Even if he did sign it, what's the point of signing the treaty, if you're not going to follow it? The US continued to land mine the fuck out of Korea, even under Obama.

 

[spotanjo3]

Crazy.

 

[notimp]

I cannot find any source of Obama signing the treaty. Even if he did sign it, what's the point of signing the treaty, if you're not going to follow it? The US continued to land mine the fuck out of Korea, even under Obama.

Here is a list of states that have not banned them so far:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Ottawa_Treaty#Non-signatory_states

Obama wanted to ban their use entirely, then was strongly urged not to do that in S.Korea, because of structural security - so he allowed for that exception to be carved out. That then resulted in funny decrees that included that stock on land mines that was not allocated for South Korea had to be destroyed during his presidency. Now its back. (BBC article has enough detail, just read through it.)

South Korea might be a special case indeed, as the government there is literally guaranteed and implemented through US intervention, there is a land border, distances arent huge. *cringe*

 

[Deleted User]

Plant them around the border.

 

[Viri]

The title of this thread is fake news. Trump didn't make them legal again, as they were never illegal in the first place. US never signed the treaty.

 

[notimp]

Read the article instead of spouting "fake news", then.

 

[slaphappygamer]

He just likes to bury things. He is even burying himself.

 

[Taleweaver]

If I'm honest: the scariest part of the article is that it took you guys until Obama to restrict them in the first place (restrict? Why not make it illegal in the freaking first place??? )

Sure...you can count on the Trump administration to administer some dumb-ass sound bites on this matter.

Mark Esper: "Landmines are an important tool that our forces need to have available to them in order to ensure mission succ..."
Me: okay, I'm going to cut you off there, Mark, because you're either too dumb to understand what land mines are about or blatantly propagate terrorism. For your country's sake, I hope the former, but I'll better elaborate before some American gun nuts throw a tantrum because I dare to call their country propagate terrorism. Luckily, the percentages are already in the article (land mines kill far more civilians than militarians, and more children than adults), so I don't have to scour for sources. But it still leaves out a crucial aspect of mines that most other types of weapons do not have: land mines aren't so much designed to kill the enemy as to break their morale. It isn't a weapon for combat but for guerrilla warfare. Not aimed at winning an encounter or even standing ground but to break the ranks of the enemy in the most inhumane way possible.

I'll probably better illustrate it with an example, but I must warn y'all: it's a gruesome one. It involves dealing with a gun nut vs one armed with land mines.

Spoiler

Take a look outside. To your street. One side to the other side. then imagine for a second that one random pedestrian goes nuts and sees everyone as his enemy.

Example A is the common armed person. He starts shooting. I won't lie: it's very dangerous (deadly, even) and most likely leaves some pretty nasty trauma. But the thing is: once the police apprehends him, at least the area is still more or less saf.

Because take example B. Same guy buries some land mines in the area. Provided he isn't caught in the act, he literally scorches the entire neighborhood for God knows how long. Because just how much mines has he hidden, exactly? Even apprehended, he can still make victims years afterward. There is no way to feel safe, as you pretty much have to comb out every square inch of the neighborhood...and you don't want to do that as just doing that might get you killed.

Land mines are also a terrorist weapon for a reason that has nothing to do with moral or ethics: the near impossibility to 100% clear a minefield. I mean...Belgium was a front line of the battles in both world wars (so over 80 (!) years ago). Well...just a few months ago, I heard that they had to evacuate about half a block because someone accidentally dug up a skeleton AND SOMETHING METALLIC in his garden. The chance that this was a dropped (and unexploded) bomb was just too high to be safe. Similar to mines: say your regiment sees strategic importance in laying out a mine field for...erm...some hypothetical reason that somehow doesn't make you a terrorist (feel free to come up with a reason...I honestly can't think of anyone besides terrorists doing it). It might serve its diabolical purpose in scaring the enemy, and the enemy is bad, so yeey. Okay...who will clean up that field?

You don't know? Yeah: me neither. The "our side" that is supposedly the good side that nonetheless uses land mines will at some point move out to another location. The enemy may or may not have casualties or injuries(1) and will be forced into another tactic, elsewhere. So in a matter of days, weeks at the most, both parties are somewhere else...WHILE THOSE MINES ARE STILL THERE AND DANGEROUS. No matter any kind of cease fire, surrender and peace talks, that mine field remains a trap for anyone stepping into it. And because that long run always runs much longer than the few days (weeks) that it serves a purpose, it's no coincidence that it's civilians who are the main casualties there.




(1): oh, right...I forgot: scaring your enemy is one aspect...but injuries can be much worse. I imagine it's not pretty to have to treat your fellow soldiers when he got shot, but either he's dead or he might recover after treatment. Land mines don't go for less than crippling, so forget about first aid: it's trying to comfort your fellow soldier when his feet and leg is brutally ripped from his body in less than a second after all was well. Not only wll he not recover, he'll be the burden upon his fellow enemies for as long as he's alive...

 

[notimp]

google ngram on the use of the words terrorist/terrorism

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=terrorist,+terrorism&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1;,terrorist;,c0;.t1;,terrorism;,c0

When you are making an argument that lays into the ethics of war (or what today never would be called a war anymore because of legal/logistics), by using the emotial charge of the word terrorist, all that registers to me as is 'word was used as the new 'enemy' descriptor by the US after commie (and nazi) wouldnt do anymore'. To rectify their actions (going to war with iraq, ...).

Just saying. Not picking a fight.

edit: You can use the word terror (cultural concept of 'things you fear') as a control. You can search the german dataset, where the effect (hockeystick curve) is even more astonishing. (As germany wasnt so much confronted with terror attacks at the time, when the curve skyrocketed.)

 

[notimp]

Trump withdraws USA from 'Open Skies' treaty (arms control treaty having been signed by 33 nations.):

src: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/politics/trump-open-skies-treaty-arms-control.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/politics/us-open-skies-arms-control-treaty/index.html

Blaming russia. For some reason.

'This is insane'

"This is insane," tweeted Gen. Michael Hayden, the retired four-star general who served as former National Security Agency director, a former principal deputy director of national intelligence and was President George W. Bush's director of the CIA.

edit: The NYT speculates, that this might preempt the US also exiting the New Start treaty, that limits the number of atom bombs that both the US and russia are allowed to hold.

Mr. Trump’s decision may be viewed as more evidence that he is preparing to exit the one major arms treaty remaining with Russia: New START, which limits the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear missiles each. It expires in February, weeks after the next presidential inauguration, and Mr. Trump has insisted that China must join what is now a U.S.-Russia limit on nuclear arsenals.