Wars and ConflictsΜύ permalink
Land Mines
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Many hundreds of civilians are maimed and killed by land mines each year. Is it time for anti personnel land mines to be abolished.
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Message 2
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
I was under the impression that many governments were open to this suggestion, and that Lady Di championed the cause for a few years leading up to her death. However, one stumbling block is the US government - this was Clinton's admittedly (not sure on Bush's stance on this) but Clinton's government were opposed to the idea.
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Message 3
Posted by Sabre-Wulf (U2142937) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
By abolish do you mean ban the production and sale of them? If so, its a good idea but doesn't get round the problem that there are millions of land mines buried around the world already. Short of getting a world wide amnesty where we all get together and dig them all up I'm not sure what we can do.
Do landmines have an effective life? If we stop laying them now will the danger pass in 5, 10 or 15 years?
Digressing slightly, there was a good episode of the West Wing involving banning of land mines. I seem to remember that in the story the main obstacle to banning land mines was the DMZ between North and South Korea, and they were considered the only way to stop the North invading the South. Don't know how much truth there is to that but it seems plausible. -
Message 4
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Following on from my previous post a wee while ago, there is an internation treaty in place with most countries being signatories. Here is the list of those that are not:
This is the list of the 40 countries that have not signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty as of 20 Sep 2005.
Armenia; Azerbaijan; Bahrain; Burma; China; Cuba; Egypt; Finland; Georgia; India; Iran; Iraq; Israel; Kazakhstan; Korea, North; Korea, South; Kuwait; Kyrgyzstan; Laos; Lebanon; Libya;
Micronesia; Mongolia; Morocco; Nepal; Oman; Pakistan; Palau; Russian Federation; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; Somalia; Sri Lanka; Syria; Tonga; Tuvalu; United Arab Emirates; United States; Uzbekistan; Vietnam
Of those, the one that surprises me most is Finland - wonder why they haven't signed up. -
Message 5
Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
This was my follow up till Sabre-Wulf blew it for me.
Do you think the European countries that voted for U.N. military action in Korea, should shoulder their responsibilities on the defense of South Korea. North Korea has a standing military of 1.2 Million.
P.S. The United States has under the U.N. flag about 1 million Land Mines along (not in) the Korean D.M.Z. -
Message 6
Posted by -OOPSIE- (U248494) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
How many civilians have been killed by mines that were planted by the British army in the past 30 years?
Not many
It's the mines planted by third world countries that cause the most harm, so whatever the UK does is going to make next to no difference.
It's not like mines are hard for a third world country to manufacture either. Mines are a pre first world war technology.
The west abandoning mines is a nice gesture, but mostly a symbolic one, and one that could lead to more wars by reducing the cost to the attacker. -
Message 7
Posted by gooserss (U1983611) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
growing up in n.ireland i remember ads on tv warning kids not to pick up suspicious objects and more disturbingly how to check a farm gate before opening it in case the ira had put an anti personnell mine on it for a passing army patrol, or maybe for the protestant farmer.
didnt the russians use mines shaped as toys in afganistan ?
However in some military cases mines are invaluable in defence and ambush. Does this onclude claymores ?
People need to be more careful and the selling of mines should be drastically cut back, but im not sure of a ban. -
Message 8
Posted by -OOPSIE- (U248494) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Claymores can be used, as long as they are detonated by command and not self detonating.
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Message 9
Posted by Mark E (U204575) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
didnt the russians use mines shaped as toys in afganistan ?
However in some military cases mines are invaluable in defence and ambush. Does this onclude claymores ?
People need to be more careful and the selling of mines should be drastically cut back, but im not sure of a ban.
Μύ
I think the Russians used butterfly mines (I could be way off) that were deplyable from helicopters. But that these could be mistaked as toys by children too innocent to know better.
The problem as mentioned above, is '3rd world' countries, or countries engaged in civil war, where mines are laid almost indiscriminantly. You only have to visit any of these countries to realise the devestating potential of anti-personnel mines on the population.
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Expat, it seems to me the responsibility right now is a UN one.
Do you think the US is right to withdraw one third of its troops in South Korea by the end of the year, and move the rest away from the border? I gather also that S Korea has played its part too, supporting the US in Vietnam and being the 3rd largest provider of troops (non-combat) in Iraq? -
Message 10
Posted by Sabre-Wulf (U2142937) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Time to show my ignorance again, but watching TV footage of experts painstakingly clearing mine fields by hand (and hats off to them) reminds me of the flail tanks used in WW2. Why don't we use similar vehicles now? Are modern mines too sophisticated to be set off using this method?
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Message 11
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Flail tanks were used to clear 'lanes' in minefields to aid attacking/advancing units, if you wanted the whole minefield clearing then I'm afraid it was the old fashioned prod a bayonet in the ground method.
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Message 12
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
The modern day combat equivalent of the flail tank is seriously spectacular. In the first Gulf war, we used a rocket which fired in a short ballistic arc with a range of about half a mile (if I remember correctly). Now comes the good bit-the rocket tows a tube of high explosive behind it, which detonates after it has laid out its full length, and this sets off all the mines around it! I guess it is conceptually based on the old Bangalore Torpedoes in WW2, and like the Bangalore, it blows a path through obstacles, only the modern version does this through the entire minefield, clearing a path straight through!
Going back on to topic, the problem with mines is that they last for decades, particularly the modern plastic variety, since they don't corrode, and simply sit there waiting for some poor person (or animal!) to set them off. Places such as Lebanon are littered with thousands of them, and these mines are literally stopping people from farming the land, since it is simply too risky.
The UN has a large mine-clearance operation in several countries, most notably Cambodia and the countries of former Yugoslavia.
Cheers
DL -
Message 13
Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Wednesday, 26th October 2005
Do you think the US is right to withdraw one third of its troops in South Korea by the end of the year, and move the rest away from the border? I gather also that S Korea has played its part too, supporting the US in Vietnam and being the 3rd largest provider of troops (non-combat) in Iraq?Μύ
Hiya Mark,
It so happens I've been to Korea and have spoken with some of our troops there. It was a while ago, when they had the Olympics. I recall one guy telling my Dad that incidents were going on near every night. The N Koreans would send out patrols into the D.M.Z. try for a kill then haul ass back North. They also have numerous tunnels dug under the D.M.Z. I really don't see anything wrong with the South Koreans defending their own border. They are VERY capable. Also at the moment they want the U.S. presence to have a lower profile. The big bear in the closet is North Korean Arty. They have the most in the world. The bulk of which is aimed directly at Seoul. The South Koreans have in return been superb allies. The United States has had about 38,000 troops in S Korea to include an infantry division on the D.M.Z. for about 50 years.
Cheers. -
Message 14
Posted by Mark E (U204575) on Thursday, 27th October 2005
Thanks for the insight expat.
Do you think the N Koreans are a real and imminent threat, or do you think it's posturing? -
Message 15
Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Thursday, 27th October 2005
Hi Mark,
Do you think the N Koreans are a real and imminent threat, or do you think it's posturing?Μύ
They are a very real threat, I'm not so sure about the imminent part. They love to bluff and posture, but with a fruitcake in charge anything can happen.
Cheers. -
Message 16
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Thursday, 27th October 2005
I can't really figure North Korea out, so tried to put myself in their shoes. I would guess that they feel massively under threat. From Pyongyang's perspective, the enemy is at the gates. There are thousands of heavily armed soldiers from the world's most militarily powerful nation camped on their southern border, and the massively overpopulated nation of China to the north. I would imagine they feel threatened, and the country is ruled by paranoia (just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!), and I suspect this paranoia and fear is the reason why they are striving so hard to gain nuclear weapons. I would doubt they have any expansionist aims, they probably never did back in the 50s, I've always thought they were cajoled into the war by Stalin, and they fear invasion by the South, by America and by China a lot more than the south should fear them.
Economically they aren't strong enough to cope with a conflict of any length despite the size of their armed forces. If the country was mobilised for war, its economy (what there is of it) would collapse immediately.
Can't be a good place to live! -
Message 17
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Thursday, 27th October 2005
The problem with banning land mines is that such a ban would never work anyway. Gun ownership is illegal in the UK, but criminals still use them. States who wanted mines would still use them, even if other countries did try to ban them.
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Message 18
Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Thursday, 27th October 2005
A little background prior to the Korean war. In early 1950, a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson omitted the ROK (South Korea) from the United States' defensive interests. A few months later, the DPRK's leader, Kim IL-Sung, shopped around a plan to reunify Korea by force, obtaining the consent of the USSR and China for what then looked like a quick and easy conquest.
North Korea and China have been as close as allies can get since WW2. All American forces in South Korea have already been written off. They are a tripwire. North Korea has no expansionist goals other than their obsession with reunification under their system and leadership. They do not have to mobilize for war, Because they already are. Their economy collapsing would be akin to a zephyr's effect on a hurricane. They have developed the nuclear option because it is a money maker. It is also political leverage in their international dealings.
The South Koreans are under no illusions as to the North's desires. Lately there has been a thaw in relations between them. South Korea has given them millions in food aid in return for brief family reunions. The United States is moving all troops from the D.M.Z. to the extreme south in order to better facilitate the warming relations. South Koreans are referred to as The Irish of the Orient, they are smart and hard working. Lets wish the best for them both.
Cheers.
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