The Wrong Solution To Land Mines

February 10, 1996

Death or dismemberment is the goal of all devices bred when mankind's creativity is married to designs of territorial conquest or national defense.

By definition, weapons are horrible--but while bullets and bombers can be unloaded or called back to base, antipersonnel land mines keep on killing indiscriminately long after the battlefield is silent. Like the dragon's teeth of ancient myth, they have been scattered about the earth, ageless, always ready to bite.

A plan by the United Nations to negotiate an enforceable and verifiable worldwide ban on land mines is laudable. A bill approved by Congress last month that requires the U.S. military to unilaterally eliminate these weapons from its arsenal is not.

To use arcane Pentagonese, land mines are a "force multiplier," which means that a cheap, pressure-sensitive explosive can effectively do the job of many soldiers, freeing troops for more important work.

Land mines are excellent sentries guarding an area as large as a border or as small as a base camp. They can slow the advance of a heavily armored enemy, and force opposition soldiers to detour into a trap.

Congress should do all it can to help America's soldiers perform their difficult mission with the greatest safety--and effectiveness. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Lane Evans (D-Ill.) needlessly handicaps America's fighting forces while doing nothing to limit the murderous misuse of these weapons by less responsible forces.

There are an estimated 110 million land mines still buried in more than 60 countries, killing or maiming an estimated 26,000 people a year and further devastating some of the world's poorest regions. Children out for a frolic are among the primary victims.

In Bosnia, where 20,000 U.S. troops are taking part in the NATO peace-enforcement mission, there are between 3 million and 6 million land mines scattered throughout the wooded, hilly war zone. They are, indeed, dragon's teeth: Twenty international peacekeepers already have been injured or killed by mines, in addition to the 225 casualties inflicted on the UN Protection Force that preceded the NATO mission.

"No one is more aware of the threat from land mines than we are, particularly now with the deployment of our troops in Bosnia, where land mines are one of the biggest threats we face," said Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon. But land mines "remain an integral part of our war-fighting methodology," he added. "A blanket prohibition on the use of land mines now would impede our military effectiveness."

That is true. The U.S. military lays its mines with responsibility, mapping locations for retrieval or zoning off when hostilities cease. The Pentagon even has "smart mines" that self-destruct or turn themselves off after a month or so in the ground, although critics charge this fail-safe system is not yet foolproof.

The only ban on land mines to which this nation's military should be subjected is one that imposes the certainty of their elimination on all parties to conflict. The Leahy-Evans bill is bad legislation. Congress should lobby on behalf of a global ban but leave the Pentagon free to lay land mines until that day comes.