----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2001 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: Landmines RE: US Foreign Policy Re: *DO* we share a
civilization?
> At 23:03 5-8-01 -0400, John Giorgis wrote:
>
> >You may not be aware of this Jeroen, but a desperate North Korean assault
> >on South Korea is considered by America's top strategists to be one of
our
> >most serious military risks. As Dan M. pointed out, the North Koreans
have
> >an enormous army. It is not inconceivable that the DPRK could become so
> >desperate for food and supplies that the would launch an invasion, rather
> >than risking the complete implosion of their State. In such a scenario,
> >landmines may be the only hope of preventing Seoul from being completely
> >razed by the invaders.
>
> Below are links to a few websites that debunk the claim that landmines are
> necessary in Korea.
>
I read the websites you cited, and what they proved is that the concept that
they are needed is not universally agreed upon. How does the existence of
contrary opinions constitute a debunking? It would only be true if one
holds the standards that the US position is false until proven true.
First of all, the sites contradict each other. One says that getting rid of
land mines is particularly hard in Korea. The other states that it would
only take half an hour to clear the field. I'd like to see some of the
details involved.
Another site calls a war game model of the US Army flawed, without going
into details as to why.
One interesting point regarding air power. It is assumed that the US
airpower can stop any talk assault. IIRC, the war in the Balkans was the
first war ever won with air power alone. Since the problem in Korea is not
winning a long term war but stopping an assault within 30 miles, it does not
seem unreasonable that a combination of anti-personnel and tank mines at the
border would be a major help.
I found Clinton's speech on the treaty at
http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/1997/di1247.html
and he stated there were two sticking points:
Now, we were not able to gain sufficient support for these two requests. The
final treaty failed to include a transition period during which we could
safely phase out our anti-personnel land mines, including in Korea. And the
treaty would have banned the anti-tank mines our troops rely on from the
outskirts of Seoul to the desert border of Iraq and Kuwait -- and this, in
spite of the fact that other nations' anti-tank systems are explicitly
permitted under the treaty."
Later in that presentation, an aide elaborated on the latter point:
"It's important to realize that when the states got to Oslo they were not
starting with a blank slate. They had been working on this treaty for almost
a year, certainly the last six months, in earnest. And our European allies
had already gotten into the treaty text an exemption -- there has been a lot
of talk about U.S. exemptions -- there was an exemption in the treaty when
we got to Oslo, an exemption for explosive devices that are designed to kill
or injure people who try to disturb or remove an anti-tank mine.
Those of you who are military warfighting experts here know that an
anti-tank mine by itself is extremely vulnerable because someone can run up,
pick it up and run away with it. It takes thousands of pounds of pressure to
detonate it or a large magnetic force.
So all countries in the world have devices that are designed to kill or
injure soldiers who are trying to remove or blow up the mine. And the way
our European allies do it is to attach booby traps next to, in or under
their anti-tank mines. Then if the person disturbs it, they die -- they die
in a very big way because the anti-tank mine goes off. And that gives them
pause. But since you can get right on top of it, you could use a long pole,
disturb it, blow it up -- now you have a hole that a tank can come through
and you've defeated the purpose of the minefield barrier.
Our anti-tank mines are different. There's a reason that they're
different -- that's because we are better at it. There's a reason that we
have the pre-eminent force in the world with the best technology.
We figured out through our own military history that you don't want the
infantryman to get right on top of the mine, so we put these same little
kinds of explosive devices that are designed to kill or injure someone who's
going to get the mine -- the anti-tank mine -- near the anti-tank mine with
some trip wires so they can't get close enough to disturb it. And if they
try to get close, they get blown up.
Now, the treaty exemption that we found on the table when we got to Oslo did
not extend quite that far to capture the engineering design of our systems.
And we proposed two words, two simple words added to that exemption.
The words were "or near," so that a device placed near the anti-tank mine to
protect it was exempted in the same way that the devices for our allies are
being exempted, would fix that problem. And unfortunately, as the president
said, the conference wouldn't agree. And he could not, as he emphasized,
allow our principal anti-tank munitions to be stripped from our inventory.
So at the end of the day, it came down to two sticking points. We asked for
a reasonable period of time to transition to a world in which we had no
anti-personnel land mines and banned all of them, and we could not get
support for that. And we asked simply to have the same treatment for our
anti-tank mines that our friends and allies had already protected in the
treaty with respect to their systems."
>
>
> And finally, a few numbers about civilian casualties worldwide:
> http://geography.state.gov/htmls/landmines.html:
> "According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
> landmines injure or kill approximately 26,000 civilians every year; 8,000
> to 10,000 of landmine victims are children. In Angola, where civil war has
> raged for 30 years, some estimate that 10 million mines remain. In the
> former Yugoslavia, an estimated four million mines are still buried,
> injuring or killing approximately ten children a week, according to Save
> the Children. In Cambodia, 50 people are killed or injured by landmines
> every month."
>
>
But, what connection does this have with adding the words "or near" to the
exception for protection of anti-tank mines?
Now, I've read other sites that give a strong impression that this is a
subject that reasonable people do not all agree upon. People familiar with
the US defense have different understandings of the necessity of the mines
in Korea. But, your posts, including the arguments for crimes against
humanity charges against the US government, would be valid only if the
arguments for the mines are clearly false.
One other point. In the same article, it was pointed out that the US spends
as much money as the rest of the world put together clearing mine fields.
And, no, most mine fields are US fields. While 1000 deaths in the last 50
years were quoted in Korea, none of the sites blasting the US position on
mine fields in Korea cite a number killed in those fields in the last 10 or
20 years. My guess its because those fields are near zero.
BTW, how much does the Dutch government spend per year supporting the
clearing of minefields? The latest figures on the US that I had was close
to 100 million.
Finally, can you see how having provisions that protects anti-tamper devices
for tank mines as designed by European countries but refusing a small
changing in wording that allows the US designs to have a similar exemption
would strike the people of the US as being inflexible? Why do only
Europeans get exemptions?
Dan M.
