Unexploded Ordnance: US Responsibility for Clearing Landmines

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russ_watters said:
Now I'm just confused. I watched (most of) the clip and read the link you provided. Yes, it's about unexploded ordinance in Laos. Cluster bombs and mines are mentioned specifically as two of the major components of that. Are you objecting to discussion of banning them as being a tangent? Perhaps people didn't mention Laos in every post, but Laos serves as the example for most peoples' arguments about banning them.
It's the cluster bombs. You will never see landmines covering such a large area and so dense. Banning landmines isn't going to help in a case like this were it is the unexploded bombs that are the problem.
 
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russ_watters said:
For example...?
Israel springs to mind instantly.

Surprised you didn't think of them yourself given all the press they've had following the UN condemnation of Israel's use of them in Lebanon in 2006 when the US made cluster munitions, dropped in their hundreds of thousands in the last hours of the conflict, had a failure (sic) rate of between 30-40% :rolleyes:

UN denounces Israel cluster bombs
The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm
 
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In afghanistan the color of UN aid parcels has been changed because they looked identical to cluster bomblets.
This isn't a new problem - in WWII the Germans were accused of dropping incenduries that were painted pale blue allegedly to encourage children to pick them up and play with them, the 'real' reason was that the luftwaffe wanted to distinguish them from army ordanance that was painted green.
 
What is amazing is the Frence are still cleaning up from WW I:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2992249,00.html
 
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They're actually making a movie about people who clear fields of landmines for a living.

 
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