Back From the Brink: Center Commends President Clinton for Rejecting A Defective, Unverifiable Landmine Ban
(Washington, D.C.): President
Clinton’s decision yesterday to decline
to sign the anti-personnel landmine (APL)
ban produced by negotiators meeting in
Oslo, Norway over the past three weeks
was clearly one of the most difficult of
his career. After all, the pressure to do
otherwise was intense, coming as it did
from:
- the First Lady
(who had announced that such a
ban was an appropriate way to
memorialize Princess Diana); - Deputy Secretary of State
and long-time Friend-of-Bill
Strobe Talbott (who
reportedly told a Washington
audience yesterday, “It’s
too bad we couldn’t reach a
consensus during this
particular round, but we’ll
keep working this problem”); - Key members of the
President’s core constituency
like Sen. Patrick Leahy,
Democrat of Vermont (who has
argued that the President might
as well get the credit for
signing onto the Oslo treaty
since the 60 cosponsors on his
legislation imposing unilateral a
total moratorium on U.S. APL use
will force American compliance,
whether we are a party or not); - the national and
international media
(who endlessly and
one-sidedly hyped the
humanitarian dimension of the
landmine issue via both paid
advertizing and so-called
“earned” media); and - the arms control zealots
(who have many friends in the
Clinton Administration’s high
places, not least erstwhile
presidential advisor George
Stephanopoulos, who
announced in Newsweek this
week that Clinton’s legacy would
be determined by his willingness
to ignore the U.S. military’s
strenuous opposition to a
complete ban on anti-personnel
landmines).
The Chips Were Down
To his credit, when the Joint Chiefs
of Staff finally reached the point beyond
which they could not in good conscience
assent to further “compromises”
at the expense of the safety and combat
capability of their troops, President
Clinton declined to ignore their
recommendation. He may have felt he had
no choice, since — as the Center has
repeatedly observed — without the
military’s support the Oslo treaty would
never have been approved by the Senate.
That said, he nonetheless did the
right thing when he declared:
“As Commander-in-Chief, I
will not send our soldiers to
defend the freedom of our people
and the freedom of others without
doing everything we can to make
them as secure as
possible….There is a line that
I simply cannot cross, and that
line is the safety and security
of our men and women in
uniform.”
The Bottom Line
The President will surely be hard pressed in
the days ahead to recant those words —
or at least act in a manner inconsistent
with the strong commitment they express
to America’s servicemen and women.
Senator Leahy has announced he will press
forward with his legislation without
regard to the Chiefs’ concerns. The press
(perhaps motivated less by sentiment than
by the economic benefits associated with
reporting on anything having to do with
Princess Diana) will doubtless continue
to publicize her last cause. And the arms
abolitionists will miss no opportunity
before the December signing ceremony in
Ottawa to bend the Administration to
their will. After all, success in this
arena is critical to building further
momentum behind their agenda of
abolishing anti-tank mines,
depleted uranium rounds, small caliber
ammunition, fuel-air explosives, directed
energy weapons, naval mines, non-lethal
weapons and, ultimately, nuclear weapons.
Mr. Clinton should take comfort,
however, if he is serious about
“doing everything possible to make
our [service personnel] as secure as
possible” and about “not
crossing [the] line [of] safety and
security of our men and women in
uniform” from the fact that
he will have some excellent company.
As the Center for Security Policy has
noted in recent weeks, opposition to
initiatives that would deny the U.S.
military essential anti-personnel
landmine capabilities — while leaving
others effectively free to use such
devices — has been expressed by Secretary
of Defense William Cohen, the
departing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff General John Shalikashvili
every member of the JCS and
every one of the Nation’s regional
commanders-in-chief,
the newly confirmed Chairman of the Joint
chiefs of Staff General Henry
Shelton
and twenty-four of the United
States’ most distinguished retired
four-star ground combat commanders.
Ironically, the President might also
be helped by the remarks of one of the
leaders of the APL ban movement — Stephen
Goose of Human Rights Watch —
who is quoted by the New York Times
today as saying from Oslo: “The
absence of the Americans from the treaty
did not seriously undermine the
objective, which is to reduce civilian
casualties. ‘We want to bring them in, of
course, but I don’t think they are going
to create a humanitarian disaster.’ The
United States has not exported land mines
for five years and is not likely to begin
doing so.”
Amen.
– 30 –
1. See The
Battle Is Joined: Defense Department,
Congressional Opposition Mounts to
Fatuous Landmine Ban (
July 1997).
2. See Celestial
Navigation: Pentagon’s Extraordinary
’64-Star’ Letter Shows Why the U.S.
Cannot Agree to Ban All Landmines
(No. 97-D 97,
14 July 1997).
3. See New
Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs of Staff
Draws Line In The Sand: No Exceptions, No
Military ‘Chop’ on Landmine Ban
(No. 97-D 136,
16 September 1997).
4. See Many
of the Nation’s Most Respected Military
Leaders Join Forces to Oppose Bans on Use
of Self-Destructing Landmines
(No. 97-P 101,
21 July 1997) and Former
Military Leaders Urge President To Hold
That (Red) Line on the Emerging,
Defective Landmine Ban (
September 1997). The President
would be well advised to invite one or
more of these generals — all of
whom have had extensive, first-hand
experience with anti-personnel landmines
— to join former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and Air Force Chief of
Staff David Jones (who has endorsed the
idea of a complete ban on anti-personnel
landmines) as special advisors on this
issue.
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