An Afghan land mine victim.
The Obama admnistration approved land mines, shocking allies around the world last week. This is a very important human rights issue that our new president has gotten totally wrong. The use of land mines is a George W. Bush policy that Obama is inexplicably continuing. The Obama administration has refused to sign the ban on land mines. Oh wait, they did explain:
“State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly said that the Bush administration policy of abstaining from the treaty “remains in effect.”
Kelly explained, “We determined that we wouldn’t be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention.” The latter part of this statement refers to the border of North Korea and South Korea, which is littered with mines as a deterrent to a North Korean invasion.”
It’s part of the National Defense Strategy for the United States to blow people to pieces with land mines? It’s part of the U.S. being someone’s ally to use land mines? WTF?
“The administration backpedaled slightly on Wednesday, declaring that it is carrying out a review of the policy, but will not sign the treaty while this review is still pending.”
Oh great, they are reviewing the policy. That’s just a way to make people less upset in the short term about something they will continue in the long term. The use of land mines is inhumane and disgusting, and their continued use comes straight out of the Obama/Clinton State Department. The State Department is headed by Hillary Clinton, who voted for cluster bombs and land mines while Senator. These Democrats are condoning the use of weapons of torture and maiming to defend our national security, which is both illogical and indefensible. We don’t need these weapons for our national defense. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a very poor record on the use of weapons that kill primarily civilians.
“Not only is she willing to support military assistance to repressive regimes, she has little concern about controlling weapons that primarily target innocent civilians. Senator Clinton has refused to support the international treaty to ban land mines, which are responsible for killing and maiming thousands of civilians worldwide, a disproportionate percentage of whom have been children.”
That was about her record as of 2007. Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
Just What Afghanistan Needs, more Land Mines to Maim its People
A writer at “If Liz Were Queen” wrote: Did I unwittingly vote for a monster? I won’t make that mistake in 2012, that’s for sure. It would not surprise me that other people feel the same way. President Obama might not realize this, but he is diminishing his chances to be re-elected every time something so glaringly inhumane as this is approved of by his administration. Is he tired of the job already? Maybe he knows he will be in 3 years. More statistics from her site:
According to UN Afghanistan is one of the top three most-mined countries on the planet. About 200,000 civilians have died and 400,000 have been disabled in mine incidents in Afghanistan. Approximately 6,000 more will lose their lives or limbs every year in the war battered country due to mine incidents, says a report issued by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan-mine clearance programme (UNOCHA). Afghanistan is infested with 10 Million anti-personnel mines ready to explode the moment anyone stepped on them.
In Afghanistan alone, about 20 innocent civilians including children and women, daily fall victim to mines, half of whom loss their lives due to lack of medical facilities. Due to the presence of mines, access has been denied to more than 488 square kilometer of land, including agricultural fields, irrigation canals roads and residential areas.
Over 30% mine victims in Afghanistan are children. You would think that Obama who loves his own children so much would have more regard for the children of others. SHAME ON HIM! The legacy of that long war also included 750,000 amputees
The UN figure for the number of Landmines in Afghanistan at 10 million. There are more than 600,000 landmines to be cleared while the warring factions are still laying more.
Gosh. That is terrible news. It seems that the United Nations make these fancy promises and administration after administration just goes ahead and does what they want. Must e nice to be a permanent member of the security council and think that the rules apply to everybody else. China and England aren’t much better, are they?
Perverse times we live in. A man gets a Peace Prize in the midst of
children – farmers – villagers being blown to bits? Who in God’s name
needs to STUDY the horrors of land mines?