At 23:03 5-8-01 -0400, John Giorgis wrote:
> >>(Here's a hint, the United States has a detailed map of where
> >>every landmine is there.)
> >
> >Oh, I see! And of course the US has given a copy of that map to every
> >individual in that area, so they can walk around those mines safely, right?
> >And while they were at it, they also provided similar maps to people living
> >near mine fields in other locations in the world?
>
>This is so ridiculous, I don't know where to start.
I seriously doubt that the US really knows where every landmine is.
At http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/gen1/General-02.htm, it says:
"An officer who served in an Engineer Combat Battalion in Korea in 1951-52
reported his observations about how North Koreans obtained huge amounts of
antipersonnel mines: "The enemy found it easy to pick up [U.S] mines in
unguarded fields and lay them behind our own lines.... A second method of
losing mines was abandonment. Too many mines were moved forward. A change
in the tide of battle resulted in the loss of large quantities of mines.
Under pressure of hasty withdrawal, mine-laying sometimes degenerated to
pitching armed mines from the back of a moving truck.... After the Eighth
Army had shipped 120,000 mines to units, only 20,000 were recorded or on
hand. The remaining 100,000 were either abandoned or unrecorded!"
Am I to believe that the North Koreans first ran off with up to 100,000 US
landmines, then placed them behind American lines, and then send a letter
to the US government, giving the positions of all those landmines? If such
a ridiculous thing were true, why would the North Koreans have bothered to
use those mines against the US in the first place?
Imagine for a moment that you are a military commander. Would you first
deploy your forces throughout a warzone, and then inform the enemy of the
exact locations of your troops, tanks, communications installations, etcetera?
Jeroen
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