More bangs
US President Donald Trump has lifted restrictions on the deployment of anti-personnel landmines by American forces.
Trump never met a form of violence (against other people of course) he didn’t like. So landmines linger on for decades after the war or insurgency or invasion is over, killing and maiming generations of children, farmers, and other people rash enough to walk in places where there are unexploded mines buried out of sight, so what? It won’t be Donald Trump they blow up so who cares?
The decision reverses a 2014 Obama administration ban on the use of such weapons, which applied everywhere in the world except for in the defence of South Korea.
Of course it does, because Obama is smarter and better than Trump, and Trump can’t be doing with that.
Thousands of people are injured and killed by landmines every year.
…
The US is not a signatory to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which restricts the development or use of anti-personnel land mines.
There are a lot of treaties and international agreements we’re not a signatory to. We’re a rogue nation, and we’re going downhill fast.
“The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama administration’s policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries,” a White House statement said, adding: “The president is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops.”
But he’s perfectly willing to accept the risk to the people who will be killed or injured by landmines long after the “conflict against our adversaries” is over.
Rachel Stohl, an arms control expert at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, called the decision “inexplicable”.
“I have no idea if it’s posturing or a reality that the US is claiming back the right to use landmines,” she told the BBC. “It’s inexplicable given all we know about these deadly weapons and the amount of money the United States has spent demining around the world,” she added.
Ms Stohl said the decision put lives at risk and was another example of the Trump administration “defining its own rules and ignoring global standards of behaviour”.
It is explicable though. The explanation is that Trump hates Obama and loves violence that’s not directed at him.
I think you have only part of the explanation when you talk about the love of bullying violence and hatred for all of Obama’s accomplishments. I strongly suspect that this is just the first move towards using landmines to “secure our borders,” which would certainly be cheaper and more effective than Trump’s moronic talking-point wall. Also monumentally immoral, which is a plus rather than a minus to these monsters.
Ohhhhh good god I never thought of that.
Yeah let’s be like the East German police in Berlin; that will be AWESOME.
I was never a fan of Princess Diana but she was right about landmines and the way she leveraged her status to draw attention to how hideous they are was admirable.
Not just standing around in a pretty dress advocacy but actually traveling to places bearing the burden of landmines from a war long past where these appalling weapons were still killing and maiming ordinary people.
Was walking around in a flak jacket more photo-op than putting her in any real danger? Sure. But few people would have watched or listened otherwise.
And also, Claire, Diana would never have worn a jacket informing the world she didn’t really care while visiting incarcerated children (caged, really, more like zoo animals than prisoners, since prisoners do have some rights to food and beds and such).
I was just remarking to my husband the other day that I hope Trump doesn’f find out we only observe the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea voluntarily. We agree voluntarily to the moratorium on deep ocean mining, because someday it might be more profitable to do the wrong thing than to be seen as doing the right thing. Or because someday there might be a Trump who would just wave his hand and say “mine!” (double meaning of last word intended).