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by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. He is now more than doubling the number of troops there when George W. Bush left office.
The irony was not lost on the President, and he tried to address it in his Nobel acceptance speech. "I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land," he said. "Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other."
Granted, there's a gap here between the rhetoric and the reality. But there's always been something askew about the Nobel Peace Prize, in no small part because it's given in the name of the man who invented dynamite, one of the most powerful and destructive weapons in the human arsenal.
It was rumored that after Alfred Nobel brought his version of Frankenstein into the world, he was torn by guilt over his creation, his shame said to have intensified when a French newspaper prematurely ran his obituary with the headline, "The Merchant of Death is Dead." The article vilified him as a man "who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before."
What's more, until the end of his life he corresponded with a woman named Bertha von Suttner, who had briefly worked as his secretary. Many believe that Nobel was moved by a powerful antiwar book she had written titled "Lay Down Your Arms." Whatever his reasons, when his will created the Nobel Prizes he specifically included among them a prize for peace. Von Suttner became one of its first recipients.
After Nobel's death, events turned grim, as if to mock him further. The arms race exploded beyond anything he could have imagined. From the coupling of science and the military came ever more ingenious weapons of destruction that would take even more lives in ever more horrible ways.
One of the most insidious was the land mine, that small, explosive device filled with shrapnel that burns or blinds, maims or kills. Triggered by the touch of a foot or movement or even sound, more often than not it's the innocent who are its victims -- 75 to 80 percent of the time, in fact.
As a weapon, variations of land mines have been around since perhaps as early as the 13th century, but it was not until World War I that the technology was more or less perfected, if that can be said of weapons that mangle and mutilate the human body, and their use became common.
The United States has not actively used land mines since the first Gulf War in 1991, but we still possess some 10-15 million of them, making us the third largest stockpiler in the world, behind China and Russia. Like those two countries, we have refused to sign an international agreement banning the manufacture, stockpiling and use of land mines. Since 1987, 156 other nations have signed it, including every country in NATO. Amongst that 156, more than 40 million mines have been destroyed.
Just days before Obama flew to Oslo to make his Nobel Peace Prize speech, an international summit conference was held in Cartagena, Colombia, to review the progress of the treaty. The United States sent representatives and the State Department says our government has begun a comprehensive review of its current policy.
Last year 5,000 people were killed or wounded by land mines, often placed in the ground years before, during wars long since over. They kill or blow away the limbs of a farmer or child as indiscriminately as they do a soldier. But still we refuse to sign, citing security commitments to our friends and allies, such as South Korea, where a million mines fill the demilitarized zone between it and North Korea.
Twelve years ago, at the time the treaty was first put into place, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams, an activist from Vermont who believes that by organizing into a movement, ordinary people can matter. She proved it, despite the stubborn refusal of her own country's government to do the right thing.
Last week, Jody Williams condemned America's continuing refusal to sign the treaty as "a slap in the face to land mine survivors, their families, and affected communities everywhere."
The Nobel Committee said that part of the reason it was giving the Peace Prize to President Obama was for his respect of international law and his efforts at disarmament. And twice in his Nobel lecture, the President spoke of how often more civilians than soldiers die in a war. Then he said this:
"I believe that all nations, strong and weak alike, must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I, like any head of state, reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates -- and weakens -- those who don't."
And still the land mine treaty goes unsigned by the government he leads. Go figure.
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Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
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From the Ivory tower protected by military, police and legal protections, safe from the realities of daily attack, with their families protected from terrorism they speak out. A land mine is a protective tool. It is a tool in your arsenal to have, like a gun, when you need it not ten months later. They are terrible!. Five thousand people were killed last year, about a fifth of the number of citizens killed in cars, but they will in times of danger, when our elected officials have to send your sons and now daughters into harms way, be what may keep them alive.
As pointed out the US has not used land mines for years. If they were used, with smart brains, computer controlled on the trails in Afghanistan, we could cut the supplies and number of fighters by two thirds. Also, now if they were to be made into smart land mines we could also destroy them when we left.
Having had children in the zones, I would just as soon have them have this protection as see them come home under the flag or visit them in the VA hospital.
Casey
If security concerns in Korea require the use of land mines, let the South Koreans take over that aspect of border protection.
The US, as the world's only military super power and as a nation seeking to once again ascend to the moral high ground, should be a signatory nation to that treaty.
The US has been on the moral high ground of warfare for quite some time, and doing away with an effective defensive tool will do nothing to improve that. What it will do, is cost the lives of our men and women when we go to war with China!
Semper fi
How can "moral high" ground include ANY of the following?
► we started a "preemptive" (as if Iraq were going to attack the US) war of choice in Iraq
► we decimated Iraq's infrastructure including hospitals and schools
► we sent Blackwater and other murderous contractors who were answerable to no one into Iraq
► we ran Abu Ghraib in a way that would have made Saddam Hussein envious
► we engaged in "extraordinary rendition" of prisoners to nations that would torture them either for us or just for sport
► we engaged in torture ourselves
As for land mines protecting us from the Chinese in the war that you imply is inevitable, you are far too optimistic: a shooting war *directly* (i.e., not through proxies) with China would result in a nuclear exchange.
This and his backing of key Patriot Act provisions that cirumvent liberty were the final straws and the reason I no longer support Obama. I was disappointed that he sent troops to Afghanistan, but I knew he would do so. I did not know he will staff his admin with guys like Bernanke, Geithner and Summers. Obama is really a moderate Republican posing as a Democrat.
do you support Sister Sarah in 2012 ? how about Rudy or Mitt ?
Sorry, but a "moderate Republican" is nothing more than a mythical creature.
The military-industrial complex wins again....n
The military-industrial complex wins again....e
The military-industrial complex wins again... passage of a huge defense budget while the American people go without decent health care, homes, and jobs, and education.
The American people lose again! Why do I feel so terribly betrayed??
"Why do I feel so terribly betrayed??"
I would speculate that it is because you don't have the facts yet comment anyway.
No children are harmed by the land mines the US still has deployed. That mine field is under double armed guard in a demilitarized zone.
Clinton, not Bush, originally implemented this policy ans they did so only after we were denied an exemption for the Korean peninsula. While refusing to sign the treaty we have also drawn down our stock of land mines and retro-fitted the existing mines to become safer.
The hysteria and hyperbole connected to this issue are, frankly, disgusting in their similarity to the fact challenged swill coming out of the radical right. The reasoning for this decision has been made clear for over a decade and yet the left continues to ignore our military commitments in favor of Utopian fantasy.
"No children are harmed by the land mines the US still has deployed."
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That might be true. What about the ones we sold?
America has not lost its moral compass -
its moral compass has been hijacked -
stolen by corporate, political and personal greed .........
right on !!!! fanned
Remember when Obama called for the elimination of nuclear weapons? July 2008
"It's time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons," the White House hopeful said.
"As long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll retain a strong deterrent. But we'll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy."
And yet he is against banning weapons that are unnecessary and primarily maim and cripple innocent non-combatants. The man obviously just reads the scripts that are written for him.
Your opinions are over-valued.
I believe we sell them to countries that do, particularly Israel.
"Have we so lost our moral compass?" I assume this comment was meant as rhetorical. A previous post by Queen Noor reference the same subject only warranted about 130 responses from viewers. Comments reference the behavior of Tiger Woods number in the thousands.
Our society has become more interested in women with clown-car vaginas and maintain more of an interest in the sex lives of politicians rather than their voting records.
Until there is a substantial war tax and the draft is reinstated, the majority electorate will ignore the horrors of war and accept the "collateral damage" to innocent people. Only then, once it hits home via their wallets and the loss of their loved ones, will people actually pay attention to what is really important to ensure a society with an actual moral compass.
This is just one more of Bush's policies that Obama has embraced. Obviously he is indifferent to the suffering of others. Perhaps he would change his mind if it was one of his little girls who had their arms or legs blown off?
Obama will use receiving the prize as a public relations tool to sell the death and destruction he plans to inflict on people in the future. Maybe he will put it on display during his 2012 campaign.
If the US was, say, Peru or Iceland, and it wasn't responsible for defending so much of the world, it would be easy to sign off on the treaty. We have these weapons because we may need them. Besides, if they are being stored and not used at the present, what the problem?
Jody Williams and the International Committee to Ban Land Mines she co-founded need more widespread support: http://www
President Obama should take the lead and get the U.S. on board the Land Mine Treaty. Write op-ed pieces for your local paper. Write the White House and Congress. This would be a tangible, concrete good that could be part of the legacy of this President and Dem Congress.
This country's been owned by the defense industry ever since JFK was murdered..
Wise up, people. We're going to get what they decide we get. Our freedoms, liberties are an afterthought, compared to their voracious appetite for our budget and their lifestyle.
.
When it comes to invoking “just wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive and scrawl Death to R*gheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama.
http://www
Land mines and cluster bombs both deserve to be outlawed forever, like mustard gas.
Agreed. There are still land mines in Viet Nam that cannot be collected. Who finds them? Unsuspecting little kids.
Anyone who has witnessed the results of the maiming of these land mines, that means you can ask anyone who has visited the El Paso Burn Center in Texas during the Viet Nam era, can attest to the dire results. Forty years later those same draftees who recuperated in the hospital are putting on their prosthetic legs and arms on a daily basis. That is, iif they are lucky enough to be able to afford them, or inserting their fake teeth into their partial jaws (did you know that dental care is not provided for those soldiers, nor replacement dental parts? They pay for their own dental care.
Yes, x76, I agree, land mines, ieds and cluster bombs should be banned forever, just like mustard gas.
I'm not trying to be nit picky, but IED's can't be "banned"-- I mean, there's a reason the acronym means Improvised Explosive Device. Operative word: Improvised.
Is it horrible? Yes, of course. But they're aren't "manufactured" and bought and sold, etc., and so obviously they can't be controlled. They are made precisely because the enemy can't get ahold of manufactured devices.
We don't use them.
If we sign the international agreement to destroy them I have three questions.
First, how much will that cost us domestically?
Second, how much money does the US then provide to other countries?
Finally, why should we believe any numeric statistic or certification of destruction from any government?
"We don't use them."??!!
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