Leave it to "W" ... to not join a treaty

[Guest BlackJesus]

[i][b][color="blue"]Can't upset the Miltary companies including Lockheed and their lobbyists that Make these fucking things....
Bush = What A Dick[/color][/b][/i]


[img]http://www.banminesusa.org/urg_act/995_jody.jpg[/img][img]http://www.banminesusa.org/images/capital_california.jpg[/img]


[url="http://www.banminesusa.org/"]http://www.banminesusa.org/[/url]


[u]Mine Ban Treaty[/u]

The Mine Ban Treaty obligates its participants to completely and permanently discontinue the use, production, stockpile, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines; to destroy stockpiles within four years; to clear mines within their own territories within ten years, and to provide continuing assistance to mine survivors.

The Mine Ban Treaty, which went into effect on March 1, 1999, has been signed by approximately three quarters of the world's nations; it came into force faster than any other multi-lateral global agreement. Participants include all of the western hemisphere except the United States and Cuba, and all NATO countries except the United States and two new member states. Most African nations and many Asian nations have joined the Mine Ban Treaty as well.


[u]U.S. Policy[/u]

Steps the US Can Take to Sign the Mine Ban Treaty

To date, the United States has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty despite being a leader in demining and victim assistance efforts. Former President Bill Clinton indicated that the United States will join the Mine Ban Treaty in 2006 as long as U.S. efforts to find “alternatives” to antipersonnel landmines are successful.

The Bush Administration conducted a formal review of US landmine policy starting in the summer of 2001. The new policy, which was announced at the State Department in late February of 2004, represents a major rollback of US progess on the issue.


In summary:

The US has now abandoned its plans to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, by 2006 (as was the Clinton plan), or ever.
The use of US self-destructing mines is now permitted indefinitely anywhere in the world.
The use of long-lived (or “dumb” or “persistent”) antipersonnel mines is now permissible until 2010.

[u]and...[/u]

- The United States has 11 million APLs stockpiled, the third largest mine arsenal in the world.
- The United States is one of only 14 countries that refuses to halt production of APLs.
[b][color="red"]- From 1969 to 1992, the United States exported 4.4 million antipersonnel mines, mostly to Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Somalia, and Vietnam. [/color][/b]
- U.S.-made or supplied APLs have been found in 32 countries, including Afghanistan.




[u]Under Desert Sands: The Iraqi landscape is littered with live munitions, waiting to explode.
July/August 2004 Issue of Mother Jones
by William Pentland[/u]

The boy lay crouched on his side in the bed of a pickup truck. A small crowd gathered around him. About 70 feet away, an American soldier climbed hesitantly out of a Humvee, gripping an M-16. "Is the kid in danger of dying?" he asked a middle-aged Iraqi man who had come toward him. The man looked confused. "He has lost a lot of blood," he replied. "His legs are injured very badly."

"Unless he looks like he's gonna die, we can't do anything," the soldier said. The man's confusion dissolved into disappointment. "I'm not a doctor," the Iraqi said, "but he's hurt very seriously." The young soldier climbed into the Humvee, having resolved his internal debate. "Stop hanging around," he ordered, "and take the kid to a hospital."

I first met Abbas Abdul Hussein, a 14-year-old boy who lives near Furat, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad, early one morning in March. I had traveled there with Tony Fish, a British explosives technician. Fish manages Baghdad operations for Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), a nongovernmental organization that clears mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), the term for munitions used in battle without detonating.

Abbas Abdul's village is a patchwork of sunbaked mud houses clustered around an asphalt road near the point where Baghdad vanishes into a vacant topography of brush and cracked desert. An Iraqi Civil Defense Corps crew had agreed to help Fish detonate a 1,000-pound bomb that had failed to explode when a plane from the U.S.-led coalition dropped it on a formation of tanks. We met them near the site. As Fish outlined his plan, a boy charged out of a house to meet us.

Abbas Abdul was short for his age and looked much younger than 14. A childlike optimism filled his furry eyebrows and gentle smile. He had left school six years ago to help his older brother tend sheep in the fields outside Furat. I warned him about the leftover bombs, but he assured me he knew where they were. Then he ran off, vanishing as quickly as he had appeared.

Iraq and its population of 25 million have borne the brunt of two of the most technologically advanced wars in history, not to mention its war with Iran. More than 10 million mines litter the nation; unexploded bombs are everywhereórooftops, date palm trees, schoolyards, irrigation ditches. The Iraqi military also left munition storage sites in Baghdad and other cities. Speaking of these caches, Lt. Colonel Tim Everhard, who led coalition clearance efforts after Operation Iraqi Freedom, remarked last year that "you can't swing a dead cat in Baghdad without hitting" leftover munitions.

[u]The United States alone dropped a staggering number of bombs on Iraq. In Desert Storm, U.S. aircraft dropped at least 84,000 tons of explosives. [/u]In Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to a Pentagon official, U.S. aircraft dropped only one-seventh of the number of bombs that were used in Desert Storm. That smaller amount, however, can be misleading, as vast numbers of cluster munitions were launched from the ground. "The Pentagon is crowing about the Air Force sparing innocent civilians by using only precision weapons in Baghdad," Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch said last year. "That's a meaningless achievement if the Army then comes along and indiscriminately batters civilian neighborhoods with cluster munitions."

[u]A cluster bomb is a large weapon that opens in midair, scattering hundreds of soda-can-size submunitions called bomblets. They can be delivered by aircraft or launched from ground-based artillery, rocket, and missile systems. Fish says that about 10 percent of bomblets fail to explode. According to Human Rights Watch, coalition aircraft dropped some 1,200 cluster bombs during Operation Iraqi Freedom, while coalition forces used more than 10,000 ground-based cluster munitions. The group estimates that at least 92,000 unexploded bomblets remain from Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as thousands more from Desert Storm.[/u]

I shadowed Fish's footsteps as he led me through a dry irrigation ditch. The desert brush and chalk-colored craters camouflaged 10-inch-long yellow canisters of BLU-97 bomblets. A battalion of Republican Guard tanks had bunkered down in 10-foot-deep pits around Furat before the war. Coalition aircraft gouged them out of their holes with 1,000-pound bombs and firestormed the landscape with cluster bombs. "They burned the barn to roast the pig," said Fish.

Fish has the hallmarks of a career military man. A weathered severity traces the line of his jaw, khaki cargo pants tuck narrowly into his well-worn combat boots, and a soft-spoken deliberateness bespeaks composure in the face of uncertainty. A few weeks after "major combat operations" were declared over, he pieced together a small outfit of explosives specialists, a meager arsenal of operating equipment, and a shoestring budget. At different times over the last year, coalition forces and the United Nations have done UXO removal in Iraq. The amount of military resources devoted to clearance, however, ebbs and flows with the security demands on coalition forces. While the State Department last year established a clearance program, most of the clearance work in Baghdad is being done by Fish's NPA crew and a few other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Rather than responding to a central command, NPA workers rely on their own observations and tips from locals to determine where to work. "It's free expression," Fish says. As of May, NPA had removed about 230,000 pieces of UXO, more than any NGO in Baghdad.

Fish had been working in the Furat area the day before we met Abbas Abdul. Near day's end, he learned about a half-ton bomb nearby. The next morning Fish and the Civil Defense crew found and buried it in a 12-foot-deep hole to reduce the explosion's impact on nearby homes. Halfway through laying the detonation wire and evacuating the villagers, we heard an explosion. Fish received a call on his radio soon after. The word was that a boy had apparently stepped on a bomblet less than a quarter mile away. Fish gathered whatever medical supplies he had and sent part of his crew to help.

Minutes later, I met Abbas Abdul for the second time that day. He had triggered a bomblet while climbing out of an irrigation ditch. Fortunately, the slope of the ditch had absorbed the impact of the explosion. It appeared that he had just stepped over the lip of the slope when the bomblet exploded. Villagers were saying that he had not actually stepped on the bomblet, and indeed, in desert climates, quick changes in temperature can cause bomblets to detonate. In their training programs, clearance technicians are taught to avoid even casting a shadow over a piece of UXO as that might set it off.

Whatever happened, most of Abbas Abdul's left thigh had disappeared. His right thigh didn't look much better. The crew bandaged what remained and connected an IV to his arm. Fifteen minutes passed before the truck left for a hospital. If Abbas Abdul survivedóand I don't know if he didóhe likely lost one, if not both, of his legs. A somber mood hung over the crew for the rest of the day. Fish worked until he had exhausted almost every moment of sunlight. By day's end, his team had cleared several hundred pieces of UXO, placing whatever munitions that didn't need to be destroyed on-site into a truck, which would take them to a storage facility on the outskirts of Baghdad.

[Guest bengaljet]

BJ let me try to explain this to you. W got the meaning of "mine" mixed with "mind." W thought they were talking about Rove and outing an undercover agent in a time of war. W thinks they're trying to take his mind(Rove) away.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft/images/bush_laughing_as_he_signs_class_action_bill_2005_02_18.jpg[/img] [b][i]"As long as they are buried some where else, we'll sell them"[/i][/b]
[img]http://www.landminesurvivors.org/images/landmine_map.jpg[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[i]The Pentagon has recently declared land mines a "necessity" of their arsenal despite increasing international calls for the banning of manufacture and stockpiling of these insidious devices. [/i]


[img]http://moveoncalifornia.org/bush_dumb.jpg[/img][b]Leave it to "W" to make these statements one after another:[/b]

[i]"The United States is committed to eliminating the humanitarian risks posed by landmines.

The indiscriminate use of persistent landmines is a serious humanitarian problem around the world. Persistent landmines are those munitions that remain lethal indefinitely, affecting civilians long after military action is over.

At the same time, the military capabilities provided by landmines remain necessary for the United States military to protect our forces and save lives."[/i]



[color="purple"][i][b]Planting a Land mine is no different than a Palestinian planting a Bus Bomb.... you don't care who it kills.... and from the looks of it, the US is selling millions of these things to warring factions .... Now where is that definition of Terrorism again [/b][/i][/color]

[Guest steggyD]

Of course land mines are necessary. I could not even fathom the thought of being president of this country full of so many different opinions. On one hand, citizens are angered that their sons/husbands are dying in a war. The citizens get angry that they don't have the right tools to protect their asses. Then we have all the self-serving young people these days who won't give a little time to the military, so our numbers are not huge, making us rely on weapons and machinery for protection. Then we have the humanitarians who say that all these weapons and machinery are bad. They're bad, I tell you.

What the fuck is someone to do? So many people to please, so few options to choose from.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]Of course land mines are necessary. I could not even fathom the thought of being president of this country full of so many different opinions. On one hand, citizens are angered that their sons/husbands are dying in a war. The citizens get angry that they don't have the right tools to protect their asses. Then we have all the self-serving young people these days who won't give a little time to the military, so our numbers are not huge, making us rely on weapons and machinery for protection. Then we have the humanitarians who say that all these weapons and machinery are bad. They're bad, I tell you.

What the fuck is someone to do? So many people to please, so few options to choose from.[/quote]


[i][b]Um Steggy.... Most of the mines that the US produces are sold to 3rd world countries where warring factions litter the jungles with them and they blow up kids for the next 50 years.... where is the complexity here... Don't try to hide behind the Supporting the troops Bullshit[/b][/i]

[Boomer07]

[quote name='steggyD' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:19 PM']Of course land mines are necessary. I could not even fathom the thought of being president of this country full of so many different opinions. On one hand, citizens are angered that their sons/husbands are dying in a war. The citizens get angry that they don't have the right tools to protect their asses. Then we have all the self-serving young people these days who won't give a little time to the military, so our numbers are not huge, making us rely on weapons and machinery for protection. Then we have the humanitarians who say that all these weapons and machinery are bad. They're bad, I tell you.

What the fuck is someone to do? So many people to please, so few options to choose from.
[right][post="114155"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Then in 10, 20, 30 or 50 years, when the conflict is long over and some kid goes wandering through a field and gets his ass blown up.

How pleased is he?

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://img316.imageshack.us/img316/9371/landmine6bd.jpg[/img]
[i]
"That'll teach him to Walk through Afghanistan"[/i]



[img]http://www.abolkhaseb.net/images/3loj/images/bush-dumb_jpg.jpg[/img] [i]"Freedoms on the March, and he can still Hobble" (Texas chuckle)[/i]

[Guest steggyD]

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bhutan
Burma
[b]China [/b]
Cuba
Egypt
Finland
Georgia
India
[b]Iran [/b]
Iraq
Israel
Kazakhstan
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao PDR
Lebanon
Libya
Micronesia
Mongolia
Morocco
Nepal
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Somalia
Sri Lanka
[b]Syria [/b]
Tonga
Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

List of countries that have not signed the treaty, including some potential future countries we may be at war with.

And, BJ, I will hide behind protecting the troops, being a former Marine. And if there was one thing I hated the most, it was not having sufficient supplies to get the job done, because of Democrats and their forever insisting military cuts. Yeah, I served under Clinton, and we wore boots until our toes were hanging out the front end. And I am quite certain that we are researching better alternatives to these mines that blow up at the wrong time. There is a lot of money in new techonologies for war, correct?

[Boomer07]

[quote name='steggyD' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:31 PM']Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bhutan
Burma
[b]China [/b]
Cuba
Egypt
Finland
Georgia
India
[b]Iran [/b]
Iraq
Israel
Kazakhstan
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao PDR
Lebanon
Libya
Micronesia
Mongolia
Morocco
Nepal
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Somalia
Sri Lanka
[b]Syria [/b]
Tonga
Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

List of countries that have not signed the treaty, including some potential future countries we may be at war with.

And, BJ, I will hide behind protecting the troops, being a former Marine. And if there was one thing I hated the most, it was not having sufficient supplies to get the job done, because of Democrats and their forever insisting military cuts. Yeah, I served under Clinton, and we wore boots until our toes were hanging out the front end. And I am quite certain that we are researching better alternatives to these mines that blow up at the wrong time. There is a lot of money in new techonologies for war, correct?
[right][post="114171"][/post][/right][/quote]

You know, I've changed my mind. If China, Iran and Syria are for it, then...

SO AM I!!!!

[Guest steggyD]

I'm not saying that they set a good example. I only highlighted them because of what may happen in the future. It's like saying, hey, I'm going to fight you, but I get a gun, and you use your fists.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]You know, I've changed my mind. If China, Iran and Syria are for it, then...

SO AM I!!!! [/quote]


[b] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons//24.gif[/img] Don't forget Cuba, North Korea and Azerbajan....


you always know a treaty isn't worth it when the Stans aren't included

Uzbekastan
Kazakhstan
Krygistan[/b]

[Boomer07]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:37 PM'][b] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons//24.gif[/img]   Don't forget Cuba, North Korea and Azerbajan....
you always know a treaty isn't worth it when  the Stans aren't included 

Uzbekastan
Kazakhstan
Krygistan[/b]


[right][post="114177"][/post][/right][/quote]

My favorite is OllieNstan.

[Guest bengaljet]

[quote name='Boomer07' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:44 PM']My favorite is OllieNstan.


[right][post="114182"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


she's got more curves than a road course,hey now [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/17.gif[/img] WHAT,what happened to the girl--NO FAIR_put her back on or am I losing my sight?

[Guest BlackJesus]

Landmine Business
Over the last several decades, until the early 1990s, more than five million anti-personnel mines were produced annually, with a market value of $50 million to $200 million annually. (This is only "dumb" conventional mines, and does not include more sophisticated "smart," self-destructing mines, or "mixed" systems combining antipersonnel mines with antitank mines, nor antitank, anti-helicopter, and other non-AP mines.)


Forty-seven U.S. companies have been involved in the manufacture of anti-personnel landmines, their components or delivery systems. Some companies said governments, not corporations, were to blame for landmines' deadly toll. "It is irresponsible to imply in any way that companies such as Alliant Techsystems have contributed to the world's landmine problem," insisted Alliant Techsystems, a major defense contractor which was awarded Pentagon antipersonnel and antitank mine production contracts worth $336 million between 1985 and 1995 (a subsidiary, Accudyne Corp., received contracts worth another $150 million in the same period). "To do so wrongly maligns responsible U.S. citizens, and diverts resources that could be applied toward stigmatizing governments that violate international law."



More than 400 million AP mines have been emplaced since World War II, the vast majority in the last three decades, according to Thomas Reeder, a senior mine warfare analyst at the U.S. National Ground Intelligence Center.[u] Of this total, 110 million mines in approximately 70 countries remain to be cleared.[/u] More than 100 million AP mines are also held in storage around the world, according to U.S. military estimates, including 14 million in U.S. stockpiles.

[Guest BadassBengal]

[quote name='steggyD' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:31 PM']Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bhutan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Lao PDR
Micronesia
Oman
Palau
Tonga
Tuvalu
Uzbekistan



[right][post="114171"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

What the FUCK are those?

[Boomer07]

[quote name='BadassBengal' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:48 PM']What the FUCK are those?
[right][post="114188"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Countries.

Get an atlas.

[Guest steggyD]

I'm sorry, but even Clinton found that mines are necessary. One of the biggest reasons is Korea.

[url="http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/1137/INDEX.HTML"]http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/1137/INDEX.HTML[/url]
[quote]President CLINTON: "I ask all nations to join with us and conclude an agreement to reduce the number and availability of those mines."

President CLINTON (17 Sept. '97): "Last month I instructed a US team to join negotiations then underway in Oslo to ban all anti-personnel landmines. Our negotiators worked tirelessly to reach an agreement we could sign. Unfortunately, as it is now drafted, I cannot in good conscience add America's name to that treaty."

ERIC NEWSOME: There are those who think that this may represent a new phenomenon in international relations, a level of participation by citizens organizations that we've never seen before, certainly not at this intensity.

President CLINTON: "Since 1993, we have devoted $153 million to this cause. Our experts have helped remove mines from the ground in 50 nations."

President CLINTON: "These two requests are not abstract considerations. They reflect the very dangerous reality we face on the ground as a result of our global responsibilities."

NARRATOR: The Korean Peninsula has long been divided by internal strife. Separating communist North Korea from South Korea is a 152-mile long, two-mile wide strip of no man's land -- Korea's demilitarized zone, or DMZ.

Since the end of the Korean War in 1954, American troops have been stationed in South Korea to discourage an attack by North Korea, a totalitarian dictatorship with a large army. North Korea's economy is weak and its military forces are equipped with antiquated weapons. South Korea, which has modern, high-tech forces, is one of the largest economies in the world. The US military maintains that anti-personnel landmines employed along the DMZ are a critical part of defending this border.

Dr. William Taylor, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, served on the DMZ and has made 70 trips to Korea.

Dr. WILLIAM TAYLOR: We have 37,000 US troops in South Korea, most of them near the DMZ. They are terribly vulnerable to a surprise attack by 1.1 million North Korean soldiers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, surface-to-surface missiles. The biggest protective device that we have along the 152-mile DMZ, two miles wide, are landmines.

NARRATOR: President Clinton directed the Pentagon to develop alternatives to enable to US to stop using anti-personnel landmines everywhere but Korea by the year 2003. In Korea, the president said the US military would reserve the right to use anti-personnel landmines until a suitable alternative can be developed. The target date to remove landmines in Korea is the year 2006, but only if the Pentagon finds alternatives.

The US strategy for using landmines in Korea is to slow and channel a massive North Korean frontal attack on the South. General Robert Gard, a combat veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars says landmines are not only unnecessary, but also likely to be ineffective.[/quote]

[url="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/40193.htm"]US bans non-detectable landmines.[/url]

I also know that we are using self-destructing land mines now, and are moving towards smart mines, etc. Instead of pointing out the progress of what we are doing, and the mines of the future, which will not be like those that everyone used in the world wars, you post these links that talk about little kids getting their legs blown off, etc. They are weapons, used in wars, we still fight wars, until wars no longer are fought, I would have to say that mines are very helpful.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[i][b]I always love how when something bad about Bush is brought up ... His lackeys envoke the old "Clinton did it too"....

I am not a defender of Clintons... Hell he was a US president which meant he did a lot of evil shit just like the others have....

My critique of the US doesn't only aplly to Republicans.... they just happen to be the evil fucks destroying the world at the present.....[/b][/i]

[Guest BlackJesus]

In early 1996, 15 top retired U.S. generals, including Norman Schwarzkopf, endorsed a ban on landmines in an open letter in the New York Times.

[i][b]= seems they don't think they are necessary [/b][/i]





[color="red"]
At the current rate, it would take 1,100 years to clear the world of mines, and then only if not a single new mine were laid. [/color]

[Guest mongoloido]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:55 PM']...To date, the United States has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty despite being a leader in demining and victim assistance efforts...[/quote]


So why are you out for blood again? The US does the right thing in demining and victim assistance, but refuses to hamstring itself with a treaty. Shit can happen. Bad things like guns, bombs, tanks, and mines can be critical to protecting our nation, other nations we protect, and all of their citizens. I would hope the US does the right thing trying to demine areas that are no longer warzones. I would also hope we helped in victim relief. I would finally hope the US does as much as it can to help others while protecting it's soldiers. The article you use to crucify says we are doing all three.

[Boomer07]

[quote name='bengaljet' date='Jul 13 2005, 10:47 PM']she's got more curves than a road course,hey now [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/17.gif[/img]   WHAT,what happened to the girl--NO FAIR_put her back on or am I losing my sight?
[right][post="114185"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

You're not losing your sight. I just screwed up posting the pic. Here are the [url="http://forum.go-bengals.com/index.php?showtopic=6787"]Mariah Pics[/url]

[Guest mongoloido]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Jul 13 2005, 11:59 PM'][color="red"]
At the current rate, it would take 1,100 years to clear the world of mines, and then only if not a single new mine were laid. [/color]
[right][post="114200"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


site your source please.

[Guest steggyD]

I'm not defending Bush, and I only brought up Clinton to help show that it's not just a Bush thing to defend landmines. I am defending the use of landmines in wartime situations. That's all. I'm sorry that some kid died by a landmine, but those mines are a thing of the past. I assure you our weapons are getting better over time. Maybe we should go back to the days of lining people up in a field and just shooting at each other. Then maybe we can stop all this nonsense, right? I'm just looking out for fellow troops, I can't help myself.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]site your source please.[/quote]

[b]about 15 lines down the page[/b]

[url="http://www.sfjustlife.org/justicepeace/landmines.asp"]http://www.sfjustlife.org/justicepeace/landmines.asp[/url]