Trump lifts restrictions on US landmine use

[Andy Smith]

I just got sent this....

 

Trump lifts restrictions on US landmine use

US forces will now be free to use anti-personnel landmines worldwide "in exceptional circumstances".

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

My initial thoughts are – yes, but what’s really new? I understood that defensive mines had been used by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria (also reportedly placed for allied protection regardless of any of the ally’s national commitments under the convention). The BAMN mindset (by any means necessary) always prevails when you have people to protect and anyway, the other side makes the mines it cannot buy. And of course, most AP mines are placed for ‘defence’ – so for protection. Its when the need for defence has passed that the problems arise. Obama said ‘no more’ in 2014 – but did anyone really believe that would really happen? If there are AP mines in store, of course they will be used. That’s why the convention included a requirement to destroy stockpiles – and presumably why Obama ordered the destruction of US stockpiles – if that actually happened, or did it just get scheduled for sometime ‘soon’. [I wonder, incidentally, does the UK still allow a US stockpile to be held in Diego Garcia? It’s a long time since that question got asked.]

 

Remotely switched Smart mines or SDA mines? Well, nothing’s changed in the technical capacity since we went through that last time. They may be less dangerous to civilians after conflict – or more so if people believe they have all become ‘harmless’ so go into minefields they would otherwise have avoided. If they suffer, they would only be collateral damage, technically ‘illegal’ but ‘legitimate’ because not ‘disproportionate’ (lawyer’s words, not mine, and written long before the current leaders). Yes, the doublespeak has not changed significantly.

 

The current leadership mindset may be regrettable but I cannot see this making any difference on the ground. It will probably make some empty people wealthy as production re-starts, but Donald’s friends are not short of things to invest in.

Still, maybe some of the idealism of the early days will resurface and galvanise a ban industry that has become professionally moribund in the slow comfort of its own self-serving bureaucracy (with comfortable salaries to protect)? There’s nothing wrong with hoping. If all the campaigners achieved was to ensure that the new generation of US mines was easy to detect that would be something. They probably will be easy to detect anyway, so campaigning for that could be a potential ‘win’ for all except those who pay. OK, maybe that’s just a tad cynical. I am old, but am I also wrong?

 

Funny old world,

Andy

[Rae McGrath]

Andy, 

You wrote this without too much thought obviously, or perhaps you are getting addled with age as you suggest. But just because your dismissal of what you term ‘the ban industry’ pisses me off, because it’s a casual slur based on your own belief that you actually know what you’re talking about in that regard, let me point out that NGOs have monitored compliance of both the landmines and cluster munitions treaties far more closely and accurately than any other such treaty where governments and the UN are entrusted with the task - that alone does two things; it makes a nonsense of your cynicism for which you should have the grace to apologise, and secondly it monitors two international treaties and publishes reports annually for about what it costs for most other treaties to organise an occasional compliance meeting. If that’s what you call a self-serving bureaucracy then I’d say you’re mixed up - unmonitored treaties are meaningless. I know you always like to boast about working for buttons but your inference that those involved in continuing advocacy and monitoring are overpaid is a cheap shot when you obviously have no idea what those jobs are and how much they are paid. If you were really interested you could find out of course, but why bother eh? 

And, for the record, your analysis of the impact of the recent changes in US policy on landmines and cluster munitions under Trump is not so good either.

Hope you’re well and remain comfortably underpaid.

Rae

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From: demi...@googlegroups.com <demi...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Andy Smith <a...@nolandmines.com>
Sent: 01 February 2020 20:59
To: demining <demi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [HD] Trump lifts restrictions on US landmine use

 

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[Andy Smith]

Thanks for thoughts from the inside Rae, even if they were written “without much thought obviously”.

 

Being considerably older than me, I defer to your greater knowledge of age addling. And if I piss you off, well, your rant puts me in my place, doesn’t it?

No.

 

Because when you invent a personal attack to defend an ‘industry’, you betray a lack of actual arguments in its defence. Sad that I can defend it better than you. With realistic reservations based on the fact that some campaign lies and simplistic rhetoric has always made me gag, I have always supported the AP Mine Ban and I recognise its success in having removed much of the market for the mines. My view on the ban industry is not self-interested and my impatience with what it has become is evidence based – unlike your view of me (which really should be irrelevant). I spoke at a side-event in Ottawa and supported the ban-bunny gravy-train right up to the point when the Bosses told me it was not their role to be concerned that injured deminers got properly looked after. I have the exchanges in writing. Bureaucratic doublespeak worthy of you at your worst, perhaps.

 

“Boast about working for buttons...” Well, the pejorative terms there are both ‘boast’ and ‘buttons’. Having worked at high-paid levels with governments, UNDP, GICHD, INGOs and commercials, I have often been rather well paid. And if I have often not been paid at all, that is the cost of doing what I think matters. Most of my unpaid work has been necessarily so for two reasons. First, if I push equipment I have designed at the same time as making a profit from it that would undermine my independence when I say the equipment is needed, so I have had to make my lack of commercial interest clear. Second, I have often just got on with things that need to be done because waiting for uncertain support would have wasted my time. Both selfish reasons, I admit, and if I have appeared to boast to you, I apologise.

 

Yes, unmonitored treaties are arguably meaningless, but any agreement that cannot be enforced is also easy to dismiss or conveniently forget (whether monitored or not). Think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example. And yet, these pledges are not meaningless to many, including me. True, monitoring may have helped keep the AP Mine Ban’s goals in mind – but being unable to prove what an absence of monitoring would have achieved, you have ‘gone off on one’ as though I had made a personal attack on you. It was not intended to be so. But maybe it was inevitable that my throwing rocks into the bush to see what jumped out would strike you in a weak spot? Ban bunnies have ever been sensitive beasts.

 

I have been re-reading international law, international humanitarian law, the CCW, CCM and APM Convention recently. But no, I have not spent time working out what the professional ban people people are actually paid. Why not tell me instead of suggesting that I am lazy? Also, why not say what is not so good about my (admittedly) superficial assessment of recent changes in US policy over anti-personnel mines – that would have been interesting – but that might have obliged you to put a rational argument together without listening to the bottle call, so ‘why bother, eh’?

 

Whatever, I am glad that my cynicism is nonsense to you Rae. The world will always need idealists, perhaps even professional idealists.

 

Thanks, I am well. By happy coincidence, paid and well just now. If you want to take this off-line and be as offensive as you would like – please do so. You know my email address.

 

With regards,
Andy

 

www.nolandmines.com
www.ddasonline.com

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[Rae McGrath]

Andy

'Ban bunnies' ... really? 

Forget it.

Rae

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From: demi...@googlegroups.com <demi...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Andy Smith <a...@nolandmines.com>

Sent: 02 February 2020 11:30
To: demi...@googlegroups.com <demi...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/demining/C6AC50DE954A4B03B2C501CBD0D09720%40AndyPC.

[Robin Collins]

Re stockpiles destruction, this is from the 2017 Monitor report on USA

http://www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2017/united-states/mine-ban-policy.aspx

(2019 report: http://www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2019/united-states/mine-ban-policy.aspx)

As part of the 2014 policy announcements, the Department of Defense disclosed that the US has an “active stockpile of just more than 3 million anti-personnel mines in the inventory.”[21] This represents a significant reduction from the previous total reported in 2002 of approximately 10.4 million antipersonnel mines.[22]

[...]

The shelf-life of existing antipersonnel mines stockpiled by the US decreases over time in part because batteries embedded inside the mines deteriorate as they age. The new policy precludes the US from extending or modifying the life of the batteries inside the existing stockpile.[24]

A Defense Department spokesperson stated in 2014 that the existing antipersonnel mine stocks “will start to decline in their ability to be used about [sic]—starting in about 10 years. And in 10 years after that, they’ll be completely unusable.”[25]

[...]

In December 2014, the US Army announced that Expal USA—the US subsidiary of Spanish defense company Expal—had won a contract to destroy Gator and Volcano mines at its facility in Marshall, Texas.[28] The contract’s estimated completion date is June 2020 according to Maxam, the multinational company that owns Expal.[29]

To destroy the ADAM mines, the US Army contracted General Atomics to build a special “munitions cryofracture demilitarization facility” at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma.[30] According to a Pentagon presentation, the ADAM mines are being destroyed through disassembly and cryofracture in a process of demilitarized that began in December 2004 and is set for completion by June 2018.[31] The plant is expected to process 50 projectiles per day to destroy the 10,041 tons of munitions in the demilitarization account.

Since 2011, at least 96 M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munitions and 40 M74 antipersonnel mines as well as other “problematic munitions” have been destroyed in a static detonation chamber built to destroy US stocks of chemical weapons.[32]

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[Andy Smith]

Mmm, the optimism at the end of my first post may have been prescient since Robin’s posting shows that at least some bunnies have been galvanised into action based on the idealism I have always supported. Arguing against the shallow understanding of the US leader is good - and those at the Ceasefire/Rideau Institute have included the concern for the front line that I have always wanted to see.

 

...financial support for deminers who need better remuneration, insurance and compensation for their injuries...

 

Now, why couldn’t the ICBL staff have said that?

 

Rae, it seems that I offended you by calling ICBL campaigners “ban bunnies”, a term first coined more than 20 years ago when it was used to describe people who popped up from time to time, said something that was designed to tweak your conscience, then disappeared back into the long grass. When I was called a ‘ban bunny’ back then, I did not object because I was one.

 

I am surprised that you did not ask for details of the offence given by the ICBL over deminer injury.

 

The text of the Ottawa convention includes the overall goal of putting “an end to the suffering and casualties caused by anti-personnel mines” – plus a requirement to share data.

.

“Each State Party undertakes to provide information to the database on mine clearance established within the United Nations system….” No UN database was ever established, but the UN was under no obligation to comply. So, at Colonel Z’s request, I started gathering accident/incident data. I paid for software and ran the DDAS from 98 until 2010 (and have never really stopped). In 2003 the UK government paid for a software revision (done by me but managed in Geneva). GICHD was meant to gather accident and incident records but gathered none in two years, so did not object when I started adding data again myself. In retrospect, all they did was stop me giving away the database on CD.

 

In 2010, the GiHAD started its RAPID spreadsheet summarising accidents and told MACs to stop sending their accident reports to the DDAS. They recognise that their spreadsheet is useless now, but accept no responsibility for the fact that many accidents have been repeated in the last ten years – accidents that might have been avoided if others had been able to take notice of the circumstances. MACs and INGOs have asked me for copies of their lost accident data. GICHD itself has asked for evidence from it many times, even recently, so the value of a real accident record is widely recognised. To insist on “evidence based decision making” while doing nothing to encourage the gathering and sharing of evidence is patently absurd.

 

So in 2015 I asked the ICBL Director to support the gathering of data about explosive hazards found on land that has been released and about accidents that happen during demining. Both of those data streams are essential evidence in risk management to avoid accidents, reduce their consequences – and prevent the constant drive to increase speed while lowering cost leading to the release of unsafe land. Since I hold the only record that there is (incomplete but indicative of real problems). I asked them to take it over – or get someone else to. They took ages to answer but I badgered them. The following year, they eventually answered with professional fluff (clever people there, its true). It seems that the professional ICBL campaigners’ concern is to tick boxes over square km of land released and the number of signatory countries appearing to comply within the timeframe. The same campaigners who use sad images of injured children seem unconcerned that the constant push for greater speed at lower cost – designed to make their campaign look ‘successful’ – is actually increasing risk for civilians and deminers. I showed that it was having this effect – there is enough evidence to at least raise concern – but I could not persuade them to take it seriously despite the wording of the convention requiring data gathering and data sharing. They actually argued that an absence of data was evidence of a good programme. Honestly, is that naive, gullible, or just careless?

 

But of course, that’s just Andy going off on one. Pat him on the head and turn away. He really does cares but simply does not understand the politics. Well, that’s certainly true.

 

Professional campaigners move from campaign to campaign like advertising executives – except that they can move on with a warm feeling of having done something morally good. And I am not saying that they do not do some good – I usually support the campaigns – but I am saying that the goals in their job requirements are significantly different from those of field people. If they want to be taken seriously in the field, they should remember to support field safety requirements before tick-box campaign needs that reduce safety.

 

JMU/CISR hold a copy of my software database and PDF files of DDAS reports in their data repository now (they have renamed it AID – Accident and Incident Database), but that is no thanks to the ICBL professionals. Good ol’ JMU. I still hold the library of original investigations – too large to be included in the software version – and they can have it anytime – but they do need to get a system for gathering, entering and analysing data.

 

JMU’s move has had an effect in the mountains. Ten years too late, the slow thinkers up there have decided that a new database of accidents should be started. Can’t have JMU stealing a march on the ‘professionals’ can they? The signs are not promising because the Good, the Bad, the Damned, and the Ugly will decide what information is gathered and what the rest of us need to know. If the Damned and the Ugly get their secretive and dishonest way, I’ll have to pop up from time to time and say something designed to tweak a conscience before disappearing back into the long grass. Yes, I still have floppy ears Rae. But I doubt whether there will ever be enough money in it, so the plan will probably die a RAPID death. Well, would you give control to the GiHAD – an organisation that has proven carelessly negligent in this area for the past twenty years – a commercially motivated ‘team’ that has trouble acknowledging any need for honesty or transparency (because knowledge is power and power = MONEY)? I am sure they could take years just to design a database and even longer to agree what should go in it – so any donor that does ‘due diligence’ really should think twice (unless they just want to tick a box with no real change, so repeating the RAPID fiasco).

 

I notice Rae, that you do not object to my use of the affectionate nickname ‘GiHAD’ – another harmless expression. It has only lived on because it winds them up (okay, and also because GICHD is a mouthful of clumsy syllables that contract to GICHuD, which is conveniently close to GiHAD). They cannot see why that is both puerile and funny because their public face does not permit self-critical humour. I don’t hate them – I have been contracted to them several times – but I do find their confused goals very hard to respect.

 

So, please don’t be offended by ‘ban bunny’. No one would take you, or me, for a rabbit.

 

Regards,
Andy

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