Trump is expected to expand landmine use for the US military by loosening restriction

[Boats]

Trump is expected to expand landmine use for the US military by loosening restrictions on these brutal weapons
By: Ryan Pickrell - Business Insider - 01-30-20
Re: https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...ictions-2020-1

Personal note: These are nasty little bastards that kill wildlife and innocent folks if ever they walk into that mined area.

Photo link: https://i.insider.com/5e331abc24306a...jpeg&auto=webp
An international sign warning about mines hangs beside a minefield at Bagram Air Base on Friday, March 22, 2002.

* The Trump administration plans to overturn Obama-era restrictions on the use of anti-personnel landmines, weapons targeting individual persons, Vox and CNN reported Thursday.

* While the Obama administration largely committed the US to upholding the 1997 treaty banning their use — with the exception of the defense of South Korea — the new policy is expected to expand their use.
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* The anticipated policy change will, State Department and Pentagon officials told reporters, continue to put restrictions on the use of persistent anti-personnel landmines, which can remain active for years, but will give combatant commanders the authority to use non-persistent mines in conflict zones. These weapons can be set to deactivate or self-destruct after 30 days. (But there are no guarantees that they will "all" be deactivated.

The Trump administration plans to reverse Obama-era limits on landmines that would give the US military more freedom to use these brutal weapons that are banned by countries around the world, according to multiple reports.

The US is not a signatory to the 1997 treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines (APLs) which more than 160 countries have signed, but the Obama administration committed the US in June 2014 to upholding "the spirit and humanitarian aims of the" treaty. The only exception, the Obama administration revealed that September, was the defense of South Korea.

US policy has been for years that the use of APLs is forbidden outside of the Korean Peninsula, hidden weapons that maim civilians even years after a war is over. Trump is expected to overturn that policy in coming days.

"There is a change coming out, but I am not going to comment on it before it is," Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Thursday. State Department and Pentagon officials offered some details to Vox and CNN though.

The US "will not sacrifice American service members' safety, particularly when technologically advanced safeguards are available that can allow landmines to be employed responsibly to ensure our military's warfighting advantage, while also limiting the risk of unintended harm to civilians" a State Department cable obtained by Vox's Alex Ward reads.

The cable reportedly says that under the new policy, landmine usage will be permitted around the world. Only those landmines that have a 30-day self-destruct or self-deactivation feature will be available for use, CNN's Ryan Browne reports, citing defense officials. So-called persistent landmines, which do not self-destruct, will continue to be prohibited.

The authority to use landmines in conflict zones will reportedly be in the hands combatant commanders, the generals and admirals who oversee military operations around the world.

CNN, citing defense officials, reports that the anticipated policy change is being triggered by the results of a 2017 review that found that restrictions on landmine use "increased risk to mission success."

Some experts disagree. "Antipersonnel landmines are of low military utility, but excel at long-term cruelty and terror against civilian," Ankit Panda, a foreign policy expert and a senior editor at The Diplomat, wrote on Twitter.

Landmines, according to the Landmine Monitor, have killed around 130,000 people, mostly civilians, between 1998 and 2018. In that last year alone, the watchdog group recorded 6,897 people killed or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war.

The 1997 Ottawa Convention, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, was created, according to the treaty's preamble, "to put an end to the suffering and casualties caused by anti-personnel mines, that kill or maim hundreds of people every week, mostly innocent and defenseless civilians and especially children, obstruct economic development and reconstruction, inhibit the repatriation of refugees and internally displaced persons and have other severe consequences for years after emplacement."

With the policy revision, the US would be moving further from this aim.

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Personal note #2: Let's hope they shoot these land mines down - they don't care who they kill and when they get stepped and they don't necessary kill you outright - they may just blow your legs off. Land Mines are nasty - these are most likely the worst weapons ever made besides a nuke! Korea - WWI - WWII - VietNam - are still loaded with unexploded bombs and land mines. Terrible little bugger's.

Boats