So what? We also have standing legislation for the release of Presidential papers after a period of time has lapsed. Apparently not worth very much since this Administration has issued an EO that allows for the papers to be kept hidden indefinitely. The President [any President] can change National Policy like the one you cite on a whim...and the US position is that we reserve the right to do so.
... [Veteran of Korea and Vietnam, Retired Army Lt. Gen. Hal] Moore said the problem with land mines first became evident to him during his service in Korea. There, he said, it was not unusual for U.S. commanders to scatter mines around their positions for defensive purposes. If troops had to leave those positions quickly, he said, "Those mines were just waiting out there to blow someone's leg off." ......"I think with the high-tech development we have now, we do not need to have so-called dumb mines out there in defensive positions," Moore said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home. "We can have other technology detecting incoming enemy troops."
....15,000 to 20,000 people, most of them civilians, are killed, maimed or blinded each year in the 80 countries in which the explosive devices are a major problem. One of those countries is Afghanistan, where officials estimate there may be as many as 7 million mines, many left over from the 10-year Soviet occupation.
Nathaniel Raymond, spokesman for Physicians for Human Rights, which supports the anti-mine campaign, said the Clinton Administration issued directive that the U.S. would sign the treaty if certain military conditions were met by 2006. Now, Raymond said, "All indications are that [Bush administration officials] are planning to abandon the treaty."
banminesusa.org
Every 22 minutes a person is killed or maimed by a land mine.
UNICEF estimates that 30-40% of all mine victims are children under the age of 15.
The United States has a stockpile of approximately 11 million anti-personnel mines -- the fourth largest anti-personnel landmine arsenal in the world.
banmines.org
Nurses Push for Land Mine Ban
On Multiple Fronts
In the past year, the nursing community, both here in Massachusetts and throughout the nation through our affiliation with the American Nurses Association, has been active in an international effort to support and implement a worldwide ban on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of landmines.
MNA involvement in this issue become more focused after the District 1 Board of Directors and Legislative Committee submitted and passed a resolution at the MNA's Annual Business meeting last year.
The resolution read: "Land mines maim of kill at least 5,000 people each week, over 25,000 per year. Most the victims are children and other civilians - often years after the war has ended. Between 85-100[0] million land mines lie scatted in at least 62 countries. These vast numbers of mines leave large areas of land incessible, keep farmers from working their fields, prevent refugees and displaced people from returning to their homes, hamper humanitarian aid efforts. ......
massnurses.org
Anti-personnel landmines are regulated under international humanitarian law both by existing custom and by treaty. Under customary law, for example, it is prohibited to use weapons 'of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering'. It is also prohibited to use weapons that are inherently indiscriminate.
cicr.org
Landmines
An anti-personnel mine is an explosive device designed to maim or kill the person who triggers it. Mines are indiscriminate in terms of target and time. They go on killing and maiming-soldiers and civilians, men and women, adults and children alike-decades after the fighting has ended.
cicr.org
UNICEF, points out: In both Angola and Cambodia, there are two mines for every child under 16 years of age. In Cambodia, the number of mine-amputees is estimated to be 40,000, and one in every 250 Cambodians has lost one or more limbs - the highest ratio in the world. One of every 5 new amputees is under 16 years of age. In Viet Nam, for example, the Quan Tri provincial hospital's records show that 124 of 339 victims of mine and ordnance casualties admitted between 1990 and 1994 were children.
Children are particularly at risk because of their innate inquisitiveness and love of play. Mines come in a bewildering array of shapes and colours, all enticing to a child. The sheer number of landmines scattered indiscriminately sometimes leads children to regard them as harmless everyday objects. Decades after they are laid, they are capable of killing and maiming. An APM deployed today could still be active in the middle of the next century. Since the end of the Second World War, children have been dying from accidental contact with landmines and other explosives left by opposing forces.
dpa.org.sg
Cambodian government destroys last of land mine stockpiles
Thousands of people have witnessed the ceremonial burning of the last of Cambodia's stockpile of anti-personnel land mines.
They were detonated in a field as part of the war ravaged country's efforts at demilitarisation.
The ceremony, witnessed by thousands of residents, officials and diplomats, aimed to show the international community that Cambodia is honouring its obligations under the 1997 Ottawa Convention, a global treaty to ban land mines.
ananova.com
Sign the damn treaty,
jttmab |
