Profiles In Courage: Top Generals Testify Against Defective, Dangerous Bans On Anti-Personnel Landmines

(Washington, D.C.): A breath of fresh air will blow through the United States Senate
tomorrow.
In a hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee, four of the Nation’s most highly
regarded military officers will speak truth to power: They will draw upon their experiences
as decorated commanders of U.S. ground forces to discourage the sixty-or-so Senators who
think the U.S. armed forces should be denied the use of anti-personnel landmines (APLs)
from legislating such a ban.

To date, many of these Senators have not had to confront the practical implications of their
proposal. They are responding to pressure from: the Nobel Committee, which awarded its Peace
Prize last year to the anti-landmine crusaders; those who believe such a ban is a fitting tribute to
the memory of the most prominent of those crusaders, Princess Diana; and the editorial line of
most of the Nation’s media and many in the public who have been moved by images of
landmine-maimed women and children.

The Case Against Banning Landmines

Thanks to Chairman Jesse Helms’ leadership, the Foreign Relations Committee will afford
Senators an opportunity to hear for the first time the unvarnished truth about this “ban” from four
Profiles in Courage: former Marine Corps Commandant General Carl Mundy,
former
Assistant Commandant and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient General Raymond
Davis, former Commander of the U.S. Army, Europe General Frederick
Kroesen and the
former U.S. Military Representative to NATO, General John Merritt.

These men are prepared to say what may be politically incorrect because they know from
first-hand experience that a ban on U.S. use of anti-personnel landmines — whether imposed
unilaterally (through legislation) or multilaterally (through an unverifiable, ineffective treaty) —
would have one absolutely predictable result: the unnecessary loss of American lives in
future
conflicts.

The retired four-star generals can describe how APLs are used responsibly by American
commanders to protect their troops in exposed positions, particularly when they are first
introduced into hostile territory and are susceptible to being overrun by superior numbers of
enemy forces. They will explain how anti-personnel landmines are essential to shaping the
battlefield and improving the chances for success without exposing U.S. forces needlessly to
enemy fire.

Perhaps most important to Senators, these officers can establish why the APLs used by the
U.S.
military do not contribute to the humanitarian tragedy that has animated efforts to ban landmines:
the carnage wrought on civilian populations by APLs left in the ground long after the war is over.
The generals know that our forces use exclusively short-duration landmines, the kind that
self-destruct or -deactivate within a few hours or days. The only exception is the No Man’s Land
between North and South Korea — an area that is completely off-limits to civilians — where they
contribute enormously to deterrence of a North Korean invasion.

Equally noteworthy is the fact that, even if the American armed forces were obliged to forego
future use of anti-personnel landmines, there is no reason to believe that the toll taken by others’
APLs would be appreciably reduced. For one thing, mines are so cheap to manufacture and so
effective a means of terrorizing civilian populations and driving them out of coveted areas that no
arms control agreement will prevent APLs’ production and use. This will be true in some
countries that sign on to a ban, knowing it to be completely unverifiable, to say nothing of those
who do not even bother to do so.

For another, there are many millions of landmines in the ground already. The ban signed in
Ottawa last December will not remove a single one of these. In fact, many de-miners believe that
the net effect of this much-ballyhooed arms control effort will actually be to divert energy and
financial resources away from the expensive business of clearing this lethal legacy of past
conflicts.

A Call to Arms

The greatest significance of today’s hearing, however, may be the evidence it provides that
those
who have retired from active duty in our Nation’s armed forces can nonetheless contribute greatly
to the welfare and effectiveness of those still in uniform. Indeed, the gentlemen appearing as
witnesses are supported by twenty-one other four-star generals who wrote President Clinton an
Open Letter last July urging that he reject limitations on American use of APLs.<a
href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Importantly, it appears that the generals’ letter not only served notice on the
President that
his endorsement of the landmine ban would face strenuous opposition from respected
retired military commanders. Their courageous example did much to inspire today’s
uniformed leaders to advise Mr. Clinton that the latter could not support such a ban,
either. As a result, President Clinton regretfully concluded that he had to reject it, too.

With this precedent in mind, forty-three retired flag officers — among them Generals Davis
and
Kroesen — wrote the President once again on 15 January.⁽²⁾
As Martin Sieff reported in today’s
Washington Times, these generals and admirals expressed grave concerns about the
Clinton
Administration’s decision last October to deny the U.S. military the means by which to exercise
dominance of space. In their view, America’s equities would suffer greatly if an adversary could
deny us use of space — or use it against us.⁽³⁾

They understand that whether one proposes to “ban” landmines, space control
technologies
or (as 117 former and present heads of state and other muckety-mucks are now
urging) nuclear
weapons, the upshot will be the same: Vital defense capabilities required by U.S. national
security will be sacrificed, while threats posed to American citizens, troops and interests
will not be reduced, and may well be intensified.

The Bottom Line

The Nation owes a real debt of gratitude to those among its old soldiers — and sailors and
airmen
— who have chosen not, as General MacArthur famously put it, to “fade away” after retirement,
but to add to their past, distinguished service in uniform with further, truly heroic contributions to
America’s security.

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1. See the Center’s Press Release entitled
Many of the Nation’s Most Respected Military
Leaders Join Forces to Oppose Bans on Use of Self-Destructing Landmines (<a
href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-P_101″>No. 97-P 101, 21
July 1997).

2. See the Center’s Press Release entitled
43 of the Nation’s Most Eminent Military Leaders
Insist that the U.S. Must Be Able — And Allowed — to Dominate Outer Space
(No. 98-P 07, 15
January 1998).

3. For more on the implications of a U.S. inability to control space,
see the summary of the
Center’s High-Level Roundtable Discussion on “The Need for American Space
Dominance,”
(No. 98-P 16, 23 January 1998).