Like those who have suffered the terrible effects of friendly fire, soldiers and Marines who have been forced to retreat through their own minefields are all too aware of the tragic toll such an action can entail. Such a cost is especially unsupportable since the type of mines utilized by U.S. forces and the manner in which they are employed by those forces do not contribute to the humanitarian problem that impels diplomatic and legislative initiatives to ban APLs. This will be particularly true if, as there is every reason to believe will be the case, other nations capable of mass producing inexpensive but highly lethal landmines continue to do so. But the arms abolitionists refuse to acknowledge the important distinctions between types and methods of employment of anti-personnel landmines.
Moral equivalence is the order of the day to such partisans .
Uncertainty whether others will comply with the ban is immaterial. This logic has already induced the United States to agree to unverifiable and violated bans on biological weapons, blinding lasers, booby-traps and, most recently, chemical weapons. Fortunately, the American people have been known to reject noblesse oblige arms control nostrums as naive, ill-advised and unsupportable. But for these sorts of seductive initiatives to be rejected, the public needs to be informed about all the relevant facts and to receive the unvarnished, expert views of their military leaders . It is to be profoundly hoped that the recent public declarations by forty of our Nation's most eminent general officers will mark the beginning of the end of the effort to impose a landmine ban that will actually jeopardize the safety of untold thousands of American troops and their ability to prevail in future conflicts.