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Today's Top News
Shock over Obama Decision to Reject Landmine Ban
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration announced yesterday that it would not be joining a treaty signed by 158 other countries to ban landmines. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the decision "lacks vision, compassion, and basic common sense."
As more and more countries refuse to produce landmine weapons, the United States is currently producing the first of such weapons in over 10 years.
Nicknamed "the spider," this new weapon puts the United States on the same short list of nations that includes Iran, North Korea and Burma, a list of countries producing landmine weapons banned by an international treaty. (ABC News/2006) The group was also stunned by the manner in which the decision was apparently made and subsequently announced.
Although anti-landmine activists and congressional leaders had been urging the administration to begin reviewing the treaty for months, Obama administration officials never indicated that it had even started the process.
HRW said the review must have been done without consulting experts outside the administration, organizations working on the issue, or lawmakers that have been dealing with landmine concerns for years, like Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy.
Foreign allies were apparently not consulted either, the group noted, adding that the 1997 treaty has already been endorsed by nearly every U.S. military ally.
"The Obama administration's decision to continue the Bush administration's policy of refusing to join the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines is a reprehensible rejection of the most successful disarmament and humanitarian treaty of the past decade," HRW said.
Report: Treaty Is Saving Lives
The Obama administration announcement came just days after a new report was released demonstrating that the use, production, and trade of antipersonnel mines have dramatically reduced since the treaty entered into force 10 years ago, saving potentially millions of lives.
A significant amount of land has been cleared of mines during that period, and new casualties each year are declining, said the "Landmine Monitor Report" for 2009 produced by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), a coalition of organizations working on the issue worldwide.
More than 2 million antipersonnel mines and a quarter million antivehicle mines have been safely removed from over 90 countries and territories since 1999. An area twice the size of London has been cleared over that time, with last year's operations freeing more land of dangerous unexploded munitions than ever before.
While about 26,000 people were killed or maimed by landmines each year in the 1990s, only 5,197 casualties were recorded last year.
Still, the human and economic costs of landmine use remain too high, say humanitarian workers.
"Landmines are found along roads, in fields and forests, beside power pylons, near wells and riverbanks, in homes and public buildings. As a result they can cause economic paralysis by restricting movement in what are usually agriculture-based economies," explains the U.S.-based nonprofit group Landmines Blow.
Without landmines, agricultural production could more than double in both Afghanistan and Cambodia, the group notes, adding that over one fourth of all the arable land in Libya remains unusable due to mines left behind from World War II.
Seventy countries still have areas in need of mine clearance, noted this month's ICBL report, and little progress has been made on providing aid to the survivors of landmine explosions.
Obama Administration to Attend Landmine Conference
Government ministers, heads of state, UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and hundreds of other experts and survivors will be attending a conference in Cartagena, Colombia next week to discuss the impacts of the treaty and consider how to advance the cause of safety from unexploded munitions worldwide.
The Obama administration announced earlier this month that it would be sending officials to the treaty review conference, marking the first time the U.S. had ever officially participated in the treaty process. That announcement raised hopes within the human rights community that Obama's diplomats would finally begin the process to agree to the treaty.
"Engaging with its allies under the framework of the Mine Ban Treaty is a positive step, but the U.S. should not arrive empty-handed in Cartagena. The U.S. needs to come to the table expressing a sincere commitment to relinquish this weapon and join the treaty," HRW's Steve Goose said in a statement Monday, just 24 hours before the surprise announcement that a decision had indeed been made -- just not the one human rights advocates were hoping for.
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70 Comments so far
Show AllOnce we saw Obama make his declaration of love for Israel we knew he cared little about human rights. He should join Hillary Clinton as a friend of the right wing sect called The Family.
Not for nothing that his administration keeps on giving huge contracts to Blackwater, ermmm, Xe . . .
Weapons, including landmines are our grossest national product. Once again, it comes down to money. Considering Hillary Clinton's past activism against landmines, Obama's response is all the more disappointing.
I'm having trouble figuring out why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.
same here, it's 1984 doublespeak, war is peace, hate is love, right is left, black is white, slavery is freedom. Everyday I feel as if I'm Alice through the looking glass.
Obama won the Piss Prize.
As someone else pointed out, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize's "Toastmaster" category.
"I'm having trouble figuring out why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize."
There's a lot of other people stumped, too.
Just so there is no misunderstanding, Obama reminds us that like the new generation of US atomic bombs, the mine pictured above is not really new, the US is merely, in the interest of safety, modernizing its arsenal of existing mines in order to keep them from becoming hazardous before they can be decommisioned in the year 2117.
Thank you for that information. I feel so much better.
Me too, Mordechai.
Now I'll go out to do some fucking around to regain my virginity - to follow the rule: "Arming for Peace is like fucking for virginity".
Shocked? Indeed I would have been shocked had he banned them. Obama has sold his soul..it's quite plain to see if you would just take off your blinders.
Get off the Hopium, fools.
Obama's got a black soul. It's clearly shining through. In reality he's a central character and soul of the white establishment.
"Hopium." If you trademarked that word right now, you could make a fortune in usage fees by 2012.
Obama can murder his wife and children on national television and I tell you I will not be shocked. There is nothing . . . nothing . . . this fool can do any longer that will shock me.
You got that right my friend.
Yeah, but he's no fool. If he were, he might be forgivable.
If they are shocked, then they have not been paying attention.
their participation in the process will be much like their participation in the human rights and climate change treaty negotiations..trying to scuttle any accord.
If Obama cannont or will not provide a rational explanation for his refusal to participate on this vital issue, Congress should intervene and force its passage. Given their past inaction on the secretive Bush abuses, this will not happen withouit forceful insistance from the populace.
I will only be shocked by Obama when truth comes out of his mouth.
The peace prize is just good PR for the ruling elite and the corporate empire.
Just look at that war criminal Henry Kissinger if you want the Nobel Peace Prize defined.
Its a joke.
A killing joke.
Happy Genocide Day!
This article does a great job in confirming that Obama simply does not give a damn about the havoc and destruction that he is causing in other countries. American exceptionalism at its finest [or worst]. The article also makes a wonderful point of stating how these landmines are taking away much arable lands from the citizens of Afghanistan and Cambodia to say nothing of the 26,000 people who have been killed and maimed and crippled by the landmines since the 1990s.
It is certainly doubtful if the people in these third world countries have much to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day considering how much carnage the United States has wrought upon these wretched people.
Erroll, I was thinking along similar lines. I wonder what his feelings would be if there had been a war fought on American soil in the recent past where land mines littered the countryside? How would he feel about taking his wife and kids for a hike in the great American wilderness knowing one wrong step would mean a lost life or limb? Oh, but since we haven't been affected by land mine use, no need to worry, right? Blind American exceptionalism indeed. 'Scuse me while I puke!
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
Is it too late to rescind the Peace Prize that he never should have got in the first place?
Not surprised at all by this. Obama is Bush's 3rd term. Glad I had the sense not to vote for him. If anyone is shocked by this, they haven't been watching his voting record or anything he said during his campaign. This is the same man who said "all options are on the table" for Iran. He's a war monger just like Bush. I wish more people had woken up before he was elected.
Dear Debbie.I am awake now! I will no longer vote "republicrat"!
Is O a war criminal? Yes. Is he bought and paid for? Yes. Is he a liar? Yes. Is this imitation Tiger Woods a lying, bought and paid for war criminal? Yes
.
Well said.
I would add that all articles in the media that convey the "US" or the "Administration" position on the use of a weapon should be required to:
A) State the name and stock symbol of the manufacturer.
B) State the names of all politicians who received bribes (campaign contributions, of course) from said corporation. (party affiliation of the politicians isn't applicable because it's irrelevant).
C) Name the states in the USA (or elsewhere- is it outsourced?) where the weapons are manufactured and how many jobs are provided by this activity.
D) List the pentagon contracts, the cost and the names of the politicians who voted for them which were awarded to the weapon manufacturer.
E) List any EPA actions against the manfacturer involving pollution since the weapon manufacturing contract was awarded.
At that point, the reader will "understand" the rationale behind the decision.
Note: Compassion is not part of the empire's vocabulary. Money, however, is most of it.
Obama's a dud.
Obama is a dud projectile against military might.
Obama's a dud.
Obama's a dead project against might as right.
Obama's a dud.
Obama's a project for might as right.
Obama's a great success.
But the Republicans make him look good in comparison.
Now we know that trying to work through Obama is a waste of time. Time to work on the House of Representatives and getting good candidates to do battle with the military industrial security financial complex.
Well, good luck on working with the system to change the system.
It might work - who knows? Maybe in another decade or two. The results aren't in yet. The good results are always a few more year into the future. Always so few years that we just might hope for it, always so many that we - or our off-spring - are likely to have forgotten or grown irrelevant when the projected time arrives. We just need some patience here. [Two years passing] Keep working on it. We just need some patience here. [Two years passing] Keep working on it. We just need some patience here. [Two years passing] Keep working on it. We just need ... to repeat generating hope ad infinitum.
Sorry to be a little disillusioned today. Do I have a solution? Yes - loads'a them.
It "starts" e.g. right now with me and you and everyone who gets it 'aiming for a consumption of material goods at the level of continuable ecological footprints' - pulling downwards in use of resources at every conceivable opportunity, and upwards in use of reflection and mental expansion of comprehension at all times.
Tough call? - Not at all. Really.
Real joy lies in working inwards to being still at the center of mind in order to feel ever more of the buzz of the planet living in us. Cosmic orgasm is an ongoing phenomenon we can all access - by getting off the distractions caused by material consumption over and beyond the need for sustaining increasing clarity and stillness of mind while being active in body and life.
Get it? - Sure you do. Good luck with it. Go on with your life:
Love,
Sing &
Dance
hey smarter, i couldn't agree with you more---except what about when the jackboots come to take us to the concentration camp? ..no., ..i think it is time to find courage to face and accept imprisonment, torture and death, and to act out of that courage and freedom...
Guernica - I entirely concur.
When 'the jackboots come' - or other true unfairnesses are encountered: FIGHT BACK! That's covered in "being active in body and life", as I see it. - Fight or strive continously & consistently - within your power of maintaining a generally good mood in yourself - for a balance based in goodwill reciprocity, living the "Golden Rule of Ethics". Do to the world as you think the world should do to all. I.e. live your own main rule - which at the deepest needs to follow the natural law of Reciprocity.
No mystery in that: Mimicry is the basic human response-function, and we have a natural bent (which sadly may be overruled) toward making that mimicry benevolent. We simply have an inborn sense deep in mind that benevolent mimicry is the only behaviour that works well over time. The world mirrors you, you get what you give, "Do unto others as you'd have others do to you", "Everyone may do what they want within allowing others the same" ('Allowing other the same' is 'the reciprocal clause') - plus other permutations of the same principle.
We all know this in us, and don't let anyone trick you into thinking other-wise. That's not wise.
Tnx for provoking this specifying addition, Guernica. And as your nick implies: No Pasaran!
Learn and know about the good forces of human history, and stick with them. Support them and find solace in them. Trust them, follow them, and if that ultimately should kill you, know that consciousness at the core of the "me"-feeling always continues, and you're better off that way. Do not seek death, but accept with curiousity that your body will someday die. Death as end to being is a sham. Mostly derived from the christian notion of a beginning and and end to anything and everything. Which again is based on the banalized symbolism in the wildly vengeful Abrahamic book 'Genesis' - a book that really should be read only under wise adult supervision.
Fight on.
Look nothing, absolutely nothing will stop the US Fourth Reich from achieving its military goal of total global market domination of the worlds resources, whether it be new and improved land minds, F-35 sales to israhell, bigger nuclear weapons, rigged elections in lands most americans can't even find on a wall map, increased homeland security funding and, by all means, more MSM bullshit fear from terrorist.
Amerika now is worlds most dangerous nation controlled by q power elite that far exceed the powers of Obama, both parties, and the constitution. Imagine if there is just ONE more terrorist attack in the "homeland" and you can kiss your freedoms goodbye.
Add land mines to the list of Obama's betrayals.
Think Princess Di is rolling in her grave?
The worst aspect of all this is that Obama is being called a liberal or even socialist for these neoliberal, corporate, bankster policies.
Once again they tar the name of the left with lies ... and the corporate media is only too happy to coordinate the slander.
"The Obama administration's decision to continue the Bush administration's policy . . ."
came as no surprise.
Anyone that was shocked by Obomba's decision on land mines has not been paying attention or bought into his con game. I did not realize how good his con was until in the last election I could only persuade a handful of people to vote third party and the mantra I heard over and over again: do you want McCain and Palin to win? By voting third party you are really wasting your vote and are supporting the McCain Palin ticket. Well folks,I do not see much difference.
...and at least with republicans in office you get serious opposition, instead of a lulled-to-sleep, defend-him-at-all-cost left wing that seems willing to rationalize any sort of monstrosity this administration has to offer because a 'liberal democrat' is in office!
You must be kidding about serious opposition from the Republicans. They had NO proposal for health care reform. They controlled the government for many years and did nothing. They are only about Power. They have sold the idea that the military is separate from the government and direct money to the military and corporations. They don't care about the country. They don't care about the world. They want to keep the oligarchy going.
You misunderstood. What I meant was that at least with a republican administration, the LEFT is aware, upset, and mobilized. Unfortunately, with the charasmatic, smooth-talking democrat obama, the left is simply too enthralled to be anything more than a bit miffed at his egregious decisions and continually finds ways to rationalize his behavior.
It was a stroke of PR genius to get a neocon into office disguised as a progressive black man.
"It was a stroke of PR genius to get a neocon into office disguised as a progressive black man." - Exactly.
Diana: Your last sentence just described the consummate con man!
A Vote of Confidence Amendment will give American voters the power to dismiss any federal officeholder at any time.
VOCA, Now !!
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
his love for surprise explosives is pretty consistent with his destructive nature - there is a reason why devil's effectiveness require angel's mask
edweg
FYI
1. The Spider system is in test and has not been procured as had been stated earlier.
2. The spider system actually has a remote human monitor that has to activate each individual mine unless the system is in override.
3. Over 50% of the world does NOT belong to the treaty including: China, India, Russia, USA, Syria, Poland, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, North and South Korea, Sri Lanka, Laos, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
There seems to be some confusion over this being the US a lone or rare holdout and it isn't, there is a lot of work to do in MANY countries to get the treaty ratified.
Don't you think, however, that if the US took an anti-landmine position, it would have a great deal of effect on the rest of the world?
However, as I've said before, if we ever committed peace, the MIC would have to start making refrigerators and stoves. A guy buys a refrigerator, he keeps it for fifteen or twenty years. Where is the profit in that? A guy buys a thousand pound bomb and BOOM!! He has to buy another. Now that is real profit! All we have to do is keep the world fighting each other, keep invading other countries, supply both sides with weapons and the profits will keep rolling in.
We've already seen that, as in previous administrations, bombarding our alleged representatives with millions of e-mails, letters, phone calls, has absolutely no effect. They look to their owners in the Oligarchy and follow orders.
Now, peaceful demonstrators are locked up, harassed, their homes invaded and their papers, books and computers confiscated. More Draconian laws are passed every week to destroy what little is left of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And, sad to say, WE LET THEM!!
Let me try to shine a little ray of hope. We are letting them shred our Constitution, but they haven't completely succeeded, yet. We still can fight but every day lost is a major loss to our freedoms. They must be stopped, NOW!
Where are the Americans testing them? Iraq? Afghanistan? How is that working out? I know they rushed the similarly lethal cluster bombs to the Israelis for testing, as many limbless people in Lebanon can attest. The US has spent hundreds of millions on them anyway, that must buy a lot of testing.
The "spider" has a remote human monitor UNLESS the system is in "override". So theoretically it could be less indescriminately lethal to civilians...unless you flick the switch...gee I wonder why the switch is there? To be used maybe?
That is a nice list of countries the US finds itself amongst...Syria, Burma, Saudi Arabia. I guess if you are talking population then yes China and India make up a good chunk of the world, so pay no attention to the other 150 odd countries.
Maybe Obama could get together with Kim Jong Il and the rest of the "coalition of the land mine" and see what else they have in common.
Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace
Are Democratic apologists still stating that Obama hasn't had enough time in office yet to change policy?
It's going to take all his oratorical skills to talk his way out of this one.