From the Salmon

There’s a wealth of amputation
Waiting in the ground
But no one can remember
Where they put it down
If you’re the child that finds it there
You will rise upon the sound
Of the mines of Mozambique

Bruce Cockburn - “The Mines of Mozambique”

On the morning of July 8, 2005, fourteen-year-old Duong Ba Tien left to go work in the peanut fields of Vietnam. He never came back. Hours later, his mother found him, his life snuffed out by a Vietnam War era explosive he encountered while digging in the ground.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, estimates that landmines and unexploded ordinance cause 15,000 to 20,000 new casualties each year. That’s 40 casualties a day. And most of these casualties are suffered by civilians.

While it’s true that I have a general distaste for weapons and for the potential death and destruction that each represents, I find landmines to be particularly objectionable. Antipersonnel landmines are indiscriminate, difficult to detect, and the danger they pose usually outlasts whatever military purpose ostensibly justifies their initial deployment. They render valuable land unusable and literally cripple their victims’ livelihoods and families.

In 1997, 122 nations signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. Since then, 144 countries have ratified the treaty, with eight more approaching ratification as of the beginning of this year.

The United States is not one of those countries.

In 1998, the U.S. made plans to become a full member of the treaty by 2006. In February 2004, the Bush Administration reversed course, abandoning the official policy to give up the use of antipersonnel mines and sign the treaty. In essence, the new policy has reserved the right for the U.S. to use landmines whenever it sees fit for at least four more years, if not indefinitely. In doing so, the U.S. becomes the only country in NATO not to join the treaty and the only country besides Cuba in the Western Hemisphere not to become a signatory.

Much of the reasoning behind this reversal is that the U.S. military does not want to relinquish their ability to deploy so-called “smart” mines — mines that are designed to self-destruct or self-deactivate after a specified time period. In theory, they sound safer — although certainly not safe. But there is a failure rate of perhaps 10% or more. And these mines are typically dropped from airplanes in large numbers, making their deployment much more stochastic and making them difficult and expensive to track down and clean up.

It is worth mentioning that the U.S. is the largest contributor to international landmine cleanup activities. And the U.S. has reportedly not used landmines since 1991, has not exported them since 1992, and has not produced them since 1997. All of this is commendable. But it doesn’t justify the Bush Administration’s decision to back out of the treaty. And, as recent events indicate, even these self-imposed bans are now in danger of being reversed.

Last week, Human Rights Watch reported that, as of May 2005, the U.S. military may have deployed a new system of antipersonnel mine in Iraq. And in December, the U.S. government will decide whether or not to devote $1.3 billion to the development of a new antipersonnel mine called Spider.

The Bush Administration has a clear, universal aversion to international treaties. But with each treaty it rejects, this administration forfeits a little bit more moral authority on the global stage. Instead of leadership by example, instead of influence by involvement, we give other nations plenty of reason not to comply. In the words of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.):

What message does this send to the rest of the world? We are by far the most powerful nation on earth, and the world looks to us for leadership. By backing away from the progress we have pledged to rid the world of these indiscriminate weapons, others will ask why they, with their much weaker armed forces, should stop using them.

Once again, the Bush Administration had the opportunity to join the civilized world in solving a global crisis, and once again they have chosen unilateralism and arrogance over leadership and cooperation.

I think this is bad policy, poor leadership, and shameful conduct by my government. And I plan to contact my Senators and tell them so.