Trump administration to bring back landmines.

[Mihalik]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc...anada-51332541

I mean... For fuck sake... Why?

It's a dumbass weapon that really just exists to kill civilians years after a conflict is long over.

And just because the "bad guys" have it and doesn't mean we should too.

[Zaydin]

Trumps logic and that of the anti-American right is that if Obama was against it, it must be good.

[Milchshake]

Thanks Susan Sarandon!

[Thekri]

No he didn't, and this has already come up at least twice in the main thread. You aren't reading what you are posting. I will just quote myself from responding to this nonsense in the other thread:

Already posted two days ago, already addressed. It doesn't do what you think it does, there is a lot more nuance to this then the headline says. Everything, from "Anti-Personnel", "Land Mine" "Prohibition", "Use" and even "Obama-Era" is cloaked in legal talk, and doesn't say exactly what you think it does.

Brief rundown:
1) The roots of this specific policy are from the Bush administration, not the Obama administration
2) The policy does not ban any devices at all, it just restricts employment of them at the operational level.
3) It does not address remote detonated mines, anti-vehicle mines, or cluster munitions
4) It does not apply to time limited devices (The ones that automatically self destruct in less than 24 hours), which are actually the most dangerous to civilians due to dud rates.
5) It never applied to Korea, as stated.
6) It never applied to major conflicts
7) Its only real effect was the elimination of mine belts around US bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. These are not the sort of mines that get left and cause civilian casualties years later. The reduction in available manpower means you need effective force prevention measures to supplement reduced number of guards.
8) Obama actually temporarily lifted these prohibition as well, during the drawdown in Afghanistan. He put it back when we had reduced the number of bases sufficiently.
9) This current change is perfectly in line with our established policy over the last two decades, it is extremely unlikely Trump had anything to do with it.
10) Don't get so caught in the "Orange man bad" (As our Trumpster friends call it) frame of mind that you blanket label everything without looking at it. Yes, Trump is a vile, corrupt, disgusting human being. But some of what he gets blamed for is just absurd. The last two pages even include people that seem to be blaming him for Coronavirus, which is just silly, and distracts from the multitude of terrible things he is actually responsible for.

It is fine to have opinions on stuff, but please try to learn something before randomly blaming Trump for shit he isn't doing. It just distracts from all the horrible stuff he is doing.

- - - Updated - - -

Trumps logic and that of the anti-American right is that if Obama was against it, it must be good.

Conversely, just because the Trump administration is for it doesn't make it bad. This only an "Obama-era" restriction because Obama lifted the existing restrictions from the Bush administration, and put it back later, after the military had emplaced the mines they wanted (And withdrew from the bases that needed them).

Trump is dealing with the same drawdown problems that Obama did, and is using the same policy. Basically, if you are going to withdraw from a base, you need something to stop the base from getting overrun while you do so. Since you can't use more guards, mines work great. You can destroy them remotely after you leave, because this isn't 1945 any more.

These weapons have very little in common with the mines that still kill people in France, the Balkans, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Vietnam... All those mines were made during the world wars, and don't have expiration dates.

[kasuke06]

SNIP

I praise you for knowing what you're talking about, but I'd advise you avoid talking to the cultists in here. Things like facts and logic may drive them into a frenzy.
[Infraction]

[Omega10]

No he didn't, and this has already come up at least twice in the main thread. You aren't reading what you are posting. I will just quote myself from responding to this nonsense in the other thread:

4) It does not apply to time limited devices (The ones that automatically self destruct in less than 24 hours), which are actually the most dangerous to civilians due to dud rates.

According to Common Dreams, which is STRONGLY against this:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...-use-landmines

Ok here is the relevant part I am asking about:

"The new policy... is expected to permit the operational use of landmines only if they have a 30-day self-destruction or self-deactivation feature," CNN reported. "The new policy would also allow for the development, production, and procurement of landmines only if they have these features."

So... according to Common Dreams, CNN is reporting that the mines that are allowed are ones with a 30-day self-destruction, or a self-deactivation feature.

You claim that this is NOT what they apply to, and claim that these types of mines are "actually the most dangerous to civilians".

There seems to be a mismatch between what you are saying, and what Common Dream claims CNN is reporting.


Ok here is the CNN report:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/polit...nes/index.html

I found the excerpt that Common Dreams is referring to, and Common Dreams seems to be accurately reporting on what CNN wrote.
Having read the CNN article, well your 10 points are not in agreement with what CNN reported.

[Mormolyce]

No he didn't, and this has already come up at least twice in the main thread. You aren't reading what you are posting. I will just quote myself from responding to this nonsense in the other thread:

It is fine to have opinions on stuff, but please try to learn something before randomly blaming Trump for shit he isn't doing. It just distracts from all the horrible stuff he is doing.

While it's fair to clarify some points like that, I don't think it really fundamentally improves the decision - the previous legislation may have been weak but this is definitely still a move in the wrong direction. It's also not the OP's fault that he thinks Trump just did this because it was an "Obama policy", because Trump explicitly framed it that way:

The decision reverses a 2014 Obama administration ban on the use of such weapons, which applied everywhere in the world except for in the defence of South Korea.

The Trump administration said Mr Obama's policy could put US troops "at a severe disadvantage".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51332541

The US is pretty much the only first world nation that didn't sign up to the 1997 mine ban treaty, it is frequently criticised for this:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

In summary, your clarifications are fine and all but the criticism the decision is being met with remains valid.

I praise you for knowing what you're talking about, but I'd advise you avoid talking to the cultists in here. Things like facts and logic may drive them into a frenzy.

I don't see much evidence of that on the anti-Trump side.

[Thekri]

According to Common Dreams, which is STRONGLY against this:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...-use-landmines

Ok here is the relevant part I am asking about:



So... according to Common Dreams, CNN is reporting that the mines that are allowed are ones with a 30-day self-destruction, or a self-deactivation feature.

You claim that this is NOT what they apply to, and claim that these types of mines are "actually the most dangerous to civilians".

There seems to be a mismatch between what you are saying, and what Common Dream claims CNN is reporting.


Ok here is the CNN report:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/polit...nes/index.html

I found the excerpt that Common Dreams is referring to, and Common Dreams seems to be accurately reporting on what CNN wrote.

For one thing, Common Dreams is the definition of a biased source, and the person writing that article has never done either mine clearance or mine emplacement. In short, they don't know what they are talking about. They are a progressive political news site, not military analysts. Same goes for CNN, which is generally attroctious in talking about specific military hardware. This stuff is complicated, and your average journalist doesn't know any more about it then your average civilian.

Secondly, it doesn't contradict me. Time limited devices are less then 24 hours. These were permitted under every regulation, and nothing has changed with this policy. What this policy allows is devices up to 30 days. This is exactly what you quoted.

The reason why the shorter devices are more dangerous should be obvious, they are expected to take care of themselves. If you emplace mines for 24 hours, they are "Fire and forget". You emplace them, and 24 hours (Or less, depending how you set them) later they self destruct. If you emplace a mine for 30 days, you are responsible for it for 30 days. The problem comes from dud rates, like I mentioned. Basically, the self destruct device on 5-10% of the mines will probably fail, leaving active, but malfunctioning devices still in the area. This can cause casualties much later. They are still less dangerous then the WWII era mines the soviets left in Afghanistan, but they are definitely a risk to civilians.

Now the 30 day ones are very different. They only self destruct 30 days after being abandoned. You can keep renewing the 30 days indefinitely as long as you remain in contact with the mine (Through a wire usually). So we don't intend to actually use the 30 day feature, it is just a failsafe in case we have to leave in a hurry. What we actually do is physically demine the area before we leave. I did this on three different bases in Afghanistan with exactly this type of mine. Dud rates aren't a big issue, because you are physically removing every mine before you do. These would be a risk to civilians if they were deployed in the field, but like I mentioned, they are really only used in belts around the fencing protecting bases, inside a double fenced perimeter (So inside the first fence, but still outside the final perimeter fence). They only kill people that have already crossed the first fence of a secure military facility, and it you crossed that much Concertina Wire, you should know what you are getting into.

[Omega10]

While it's fair to clarify some points like that, I don't think it really fundamentally improves the decision - the previous legislation may have been weak but this is definitely still a move in the wrong direction. It's also not the OP's fault that he thinks Trump just did this because it was an "Obama policy", because Trump explicitly framed it that way:

Here is some more from the BBC article you linked.

The Obama-era ban applied to the US military everywhere but on the Korean Peninsula. That exception was made under pressure from military planners, to protect US troops based across the de-militarized zone from the North Korean military.

Mr Obama also ordered the destruction of landmine stockpiles not made to defend South Korea. But the Trump administration has now scrapped that policy, stating that the president was "rebuilding" the US military.

"The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama administration's policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries," a White House statement said, adding: "The president is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops."

Mr Trump has given the all-clear for the use of "non-persistent" landmines that can be switched off remotely rather than remaining buried beneath the ground.

This article talks about allowing "non-persistent" landmines, which is not quite the same as the CNN report, though it's possible that CNN is just defining what "non-persistent" means. I am assuming that number 3 "remote detonated mines" means remotely blowing it up to destroy enemies, rather than the BBC description of where it is remotely used to deactivate the mine, as in not exploding it.

[Thekri]

While it's fair to clarify some points like that, I don't think it really fundamentally improves the decision - the previous legislation may have been weak but this is definitely still a move in the wrong direction. It's also not the OP's fault that he thinks Trump just did this because it was an "Obama policy", because Trump explicitly framed it that way:


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51332541

The US is pretty much the only first world nation that didn't sign up to the 1997 mine ban treaty, it is frequently criticised for this:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

In summary, your clarifications are fine and all but the criticism the decision is being met with remains valid.

Again, looking further will demonstrate further complications here. Yes, this is true, but not joining the treaty was a Bill Clinton Administration decision, not a Trump or Obama one, and there were key reasons why. Notably it is because the US continued to lay mine belts that protected NATO allied positions. The US has laid anti-personnel mines in eastern Europe, Korea, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan that protected NATO bases, not just US ones, and all those signatories did not object to hiding behind US minefields. Basically someone in NATO needed to stay out, because the tactical effectiveness of mines is to great to skip when all your enemies are still using them.

The history of restrictions since then has been the side effect of this decision to stay out of the treaty. The US never intended to abuse mines the way the Soviets did in Afghanistan, or even the way the US did in Vietnam. It maintained the capability though. So the bush administration put the restrictions in place that capped mine delay times at 30 days (Which can be reset indefinitely) for permeant emplacements and 24 hours for field expedient or scattered mines (Which are not renewable, they will self destruct 24 hours later, with nothing you can do about it), all of which apply only to anti-personnel mines, Anti-Tank and Anti-Material mines are outside the limits of both the treaty and all subsequent regulations, and remain in use by everyone. The Obama administration later banned then 30 day indefinite minefields (Except Korea), but never touched the 24 hour scattered minefields. In 2014, they removed the ban on employment of 30 day renewable mines, to allow deployment of mine belts to cover the Afghanistan bases that were drawing down. In 2015, this ban was reinstated, and that is what the current administration just removed. Presumably to cover similar drawdowns in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

None of these "Bans" had any effect on the purchasing or fielding of any anti-personnel mine, only on their use. The US maintains large stockpiles of many types of mine, ready for use in extreme situations. This removal of the restrictions will allow the military to utilize semi-permanent mine belts that they don't have to lay again every 24 hours for base defense. It will NOT lead to emplacement of mine fields in civilian trafficked areas that will remain in place for decades. That is still a war crime, and the mines will still deactivate in 30 days even if we have to hastily abandon a minefield (Still leaving duds, but not as bad as the already legal 24 hour scatterable mines)

[Mormolyce]

Nobody is blaming Obama or Trump for the refusal of the US to sign that treaty in 1997. The point is, it's a decision the US has been criticised over for 20+ years and continuing to move further away from that position is only going to deepen that criticism.

I don't think these clarifications really change the debate significantly.

[Omega10]

For one thing, Common Dreams is the definition of a biased source, and the person writing that article has never done either mine clearance or mine emplacement. In short, they don't know what they are talking about. They are a progressive political news site, not military analysts. Same goes for CNN, which is generally attroctious in talking about specific military hardware. This stuff is complicated, and your average journalist doesn't know any more about it then your average civilian.

Secondly, it doesn't contradict me. Time limited devices are less then 24 hours. These were permitted under every regulation, and nothing has changed with this policy. What this policy allows is devices up to 30 days. This is exactly what you quoted.

The reason why the shorter devices are more dangerous should be obvious, they are expected to take care of themselves. If you emplace mines for 24 hours, they are "Fire and forget". You emplace them, and 24 hours (Or less, depending how you set them) later they self destruct. If you emplace a mine for 30 days, you are responsible for it for 30 days. The problem comes from dud rates, like I mentioned. Basically, the self destruct device on 5-10% of the mines will probably fail, leaving active, but malfunctioning devices still in the area. This can cause casualties much later. They are still less dangerous then the WWII era mines the soviets left in Afghanistan, but they are definitely a risk to civilians.

Now the 30 day ones are very different. They only self destruct 30 days after being abandoned. You can keep renewing the 30 days indefinitely as long as you remain in contact with the mine (Through a wire usually). So we don't intend to actually use the 30 day feature, it is just a failsafe in case we have to leave in a hurry. What we actually do is physically demine the area before we leave. I did this on three different bases in Afghanistan with exactly this type of mine. Dud rates aren't a big issue, because you are physically removing every mine before you do. These would be a risk to civilians if they were deployed in the field, but like I mentioned, they are really only used in belts around the fencing protecting bases, inside a double fenced perimeter (So inside the first fence, but still outside the final perimeter fence). They only kill people that have already crossed the first fence of a secure military facility, and it you crossed that much Concertina Wire, you should know what you are getting into.

Obvious to YOU maybe, but I also have never laid mines

I now know that 24 hour mines were meant to be "Fire and Forget", and if I understand correctly, these are no longer considered safe to use - and are banned right?

30 day - ahhh these have specific purposes, in particular they are in places where civilians would not be. I did not know that 24 hour mines were never meant to be demined, while 30 day mines are always expected to be demined.

Presumably if you leave quickly, 30 day mines will have some that fail to deactivate, which could be a safety hazard for anyone roaming around that area. So this seems to be not fool proof from a safety standpoint (mines laid, people left fast without demining, fences come down and the mines that failed to deactivate are now potentially deadly and out in the open).

Thanks for your explanation. Much appreciated!

[Elegiac]

*sigh* Guess it's time to bring back this commercial.



Also, for those of the anti-war persuasion interested in classifying the sort of "lol you snowflakes getting triggered by indiscriminate weapons" garbage that military hardware enthusiasts are fond of, I present to you this term: hawksplaining.

[Omega10]

*sigh* Guess it's time to bring back this commercial.



Also, for those of the anti-war persuasion interested in classifying the sort of "lol you snowflakes getting triggered by indiscriminate weapons" garbage that military hardware enthusiasts are fond of, I present to you this term: hawksplaining.

Yeah I know. Understanding the logistics and different types of landmines does not make me like it. I get tired of all the different ways we have of hurting and killing each other. And sometimes I just get tired of fighting different versions of basically the same battle.

About a year ago, I spent time going through a lot of the links that Skroe provided. When it all sunk in as to what it was about, I was completely horrified. But I was fine while I was doing the actual research. With this ad, you just kind of shortened the time between being fine and being not fine.

I'm a nerd, so I have to do the research. I'm a human so I can't afford to be horrified for the whole time I'm doing the research

[Elegiac]

Yeah I know. Understanding the logistics and different types of landmines does not make me like it. I get tired of all the different ways we have of hurting and killing each other. And sometimes I just get tired of fighting different versions of basically the same battle.

About a year ago, I spent time going through a lot of the links that Skroe provided. When it all sunk in as to what it was about, I was completely horrified. But I was fine while I was doing the actual research. With this ad, you just kind of shortened the time between being fine and being not fine.

I'm a nerd, so I have to do the research. I'm a human so I can't afford to be horrified for the whole time I'm doing the research

Word. And therein is the quagmire.

One of the things that gets talked about in political science, particularly the media studies discipline, is the way in which the conversation surrounding warfare has shifted between the pre and post Vietnam eras - and most notably, the way in which it has stayed the same. The success of the military industrial complex is contingent on the American public being isolated from the human costs of said complex, something which Vietnam punctured (by bringing the war "into the American living room" to use the cliche) and ultimately led to the final death of the social narrative of 'glorious, patriotic warfare' of the sort that justified enlisting in WWI.

So to rebuild this distance between the citizenry and the war front, more emphasis is placed on warfare as a function of America's technological and industrial achievements. When people like Donald Trump bang on about how the US has "the best military", that's just most base and uneducated manifestation of that phenomenon.

All of the paragraphs long thinkpieces, treatises, and essays about American hardware and military organization relative to other countries whenever questions of international relations arise are intended to obfuscate from the human costs of military intervention by painting it as a contest of logistics rather than an arena in which most of the casualties end up being civilians.

This isn't just a manifestation of nationalist attitudes towards other countries, either. You'll note the intersection between people who insist on exorbitant amounts of military spending yet who simultaneously insist the US cannot or should not spend the money on any domestic programs - again, this is a deflection. It's attempting to use the fear of...something (China/Russia/ISIS/Al Qaeda/Kraplakistan, etc.)...as ideological justification for buttressing the status quo.

Make no mistake; the military industrial complex isn't just an expression of jingoism. It's also a tool used by the American aristocracy to keep the public in line and ignorant of the simple truth that your average American has vastly more in common with your average Iranian, Chinese, et cetera than any American billionaire or beltway elite.

[Elegiac]

Ottawa treaty can go suck it. Signing it was the biggest disaster for Finnish defense forces in the past 30 years.

Not being able to render large swathes of land deadly for years after the conflict in question has ended is a disaster, apparently.

Y'all would have complained when they banned chemical weapons, christ and allah.

[Orbitus]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc...anada-51332541

I mean... For fuck sake... Why?

It's a dumbass weapon that really just exists to kill civilians years after a conflict is long over.

And just because the "bad guys" have it and doesn't mean we should too.

He probably wants to put it at his border wall, so when the wall falls over from 40 mph wind, it can also explode.

[Acidbaron]

He probably wants to put it at his border wall, so when the wall falls over from 40 mph wind, it can also explode.

Wouldn't that resulting in the wall being launched back onto US soil, or is that far too cartoony?

[zorkuus]

Mines are the most cost efficient way of preventing an invader from just marching in to your country. This is a fact.

Like that matters in modern warfare.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Mines are the most cost efficient way of preventing an invader from just marching in to your country. This is a fact.

Plus the way that mines were deployed here is different from how they are deployed in some third world countries that just arm them and forget them.

Land mines also render the land that they are placed on very much unusable without a mine squad coming in and deactivating/disposing of them after the fact. A deed that barely any country did to the extent they needed to aside from places in mainland europe. And even then, civilians are caught in mines that the mine sweepers miss. Just because land mines are effective at deterring invaders does not mean their long term impact is worth it.

IF you had lost your legs due to an old land mine long after a conflict had ended, I'm sure you'd be against them, but that is a hypothetical situation, and I doubt anything would change your mind otherwise. At least the further and further we get out from WW2 and vietnam, the less documentaries are made about the thousands of civilians maimed by post-war land mines... simply because we don't use them any more.