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Land Mines:
The United States has taken an immoral position on the
deployment of land mines. The president took this position with
an apologia about protecting US troops in Europe. What a bunch
of crap. Those US troops should not even be where they are. We
are not at war and we are not policemen.
The United States should have the absolute position of never ever using land mines for any reason. It should have nothing to do with some international treaty or agreement. It should be a unilateral, absolute position. Any other position puts us in the same human set occupied by Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussain, and others of that ilk. Murderers of women and children! Evil!
Most of the damage done by land mines is done to civilians, not soldiers. For that reason, we should never deploy land mines. We should not support the deployment of land mines. We should not allow the manufacturing or sale of land mines in the United States. We should condemn anyone who does these things, even if it's our own president.
Many people have accused the president of being a crook and a philanderer. I don't know if he is or not. I'm fairly sure that he is a philanderer. I don't know if he is or has been a crook. I do not care what he does privately. I do care about him doing his public job. What I ask of my president is that, as president, he does what he knows is right regardless of the consequences to himself, his family, or his political affiliates. Get off the dime you bum. Put America back in the family of decent nations. Rather than deploying land mines, we should be cleaning them up.
One thing we can and should do is to clean up the land mines which have been already deployed, by us or anyone else. The current methods of doing this are rather stupid. Most military solutions to human problems are stupid. This one is particularly so, because it risks the lives of the rescuers. People lay on their stomach, poke around in the ground with bayonets, and, too often, blow their noses, literally.
There is a better way, using a simple tool. We could do it easily. We could build a landmine sweeper using an Abrams tank. It only needs a mechanism mounted to the front of the tank and attached to the drive wheels. I am defining an Abrams power take off (PTO) mechanism. The mechanism spins flails of chains which slap the ground in front of the tank, exploding the mines as it goes. Send one tank with a 10 man crew to each country with a landmine problem. Remove the weaponry from the tank. No guns. Just the tank and the crew.
It would not work in all situations, but it would be effective in most of the situations I have seen on TV. The fact is, the biggest danger is in those areas where people till the land for food production. This solution would work well in areas like that. In theory, our great tanks are all terrain vehicles. Wouldn't it be great to use a tank for something peaceful.
We should clean up the mines, but we must also sign the land mine ban treaty. The President's erroneous position in this regard is tragic and unconscionable. The signing of this treaty should have bipartisan support and it should not be delayed for any reason. If we cannot protect our troops in foreign lands without maiming and murdering civilian women and children, we should get our troops out. We have no vested interests in these lands which are important enough to justify the murder of civilians.
We know that most of the damage done by land mines is to noncombatant
civilians. The United States has no business taking any kind of
moral position with any other country on any other issue whatsoever
so long as we continue with this policy of risking innocent civilian
children in the name of democracy. It dishonest and everyone knows
it.
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