Former Military Leaders Urge President To Hold That (Red) Line On The Emerging, Defective Landmine Ban

(Washington, D.C.): Ten retired
four-star generals with exemplary records
of service to the Nation today wrote
President Clinton reiterating concerns
they and fourteen of their colleagues
initially expressed to him on 21 July
1997 (see the
attached). In their latest missive to
Mr. Clinton, these highly
decorated and respected officers offered
“to lend the authority of our
experience as ground combat commanders to
you, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others
in making the case against the clearly
defective landmine treaty now taking
shape in Oslo.”

As of 12:00 p.m. today, the
signatories on this second open letter to
the President (also
attached) are: a former Supreme
Allied Commander, Europe and Secretary of
State (General Alexander M. Haig,
Jr.); four former Commandants of
the Marine Corps (Generals Louis
H. Wilson, Robert H. Barrow, P.X. Kelley and
Carl E. Mundy); two
former Assistant Commandants of the
Marine Corps (Generals Raymond G.
Davis and Joseph J. Went);
two former Commanders-in-Chief, U.S.
Army, Europe (Generals Michael S.
Davison and David M.
Maddox); and a former Commanding
General, Army Materiel Command (General
Louis C. Wagner, Jr.)

The four-stars’ second letter is
particularly important given the contempt
being expressed by those running the Oslo
negotiations for the United States — and
the critical “red lines” that
it has announced would, if breached, make
a landmine ban unacceptable. Just today,
the chairman of the landmine conference,
an African diplomat by the name of Selabi
who makes no secret of his anti-American
biases, gavelled through draft treaty
language limiting a party’s right to
withdraw from the treaty. He did so as
though neither the U.S. representatives
nor the Australian delegation had
expressed strong opposition to such a
restricted “supreme national
interest” clause.

As the end-game looms on the Oslo
negotiations, it seems clear that the
Clinton Administration will shortly be
confronted with: 1) a treaty banning
landmines that has been expressly crafted
in defiance of recommendations reflecting
the best professional military judgment
of the U.S. armed forces; or 2) a treaty
that contains a few cosmetic adjustments
(for example, lengthening the duration of
a “transition” to a so-called
“landmine-free” world) that
amounts to basically the same thing. Either
way, the result will be a ban on
anti-personnel landmines with which
America’s troops literally
cannot live.

Those who formerly commanded such
troops are to be commended for
demonstrating — in communicating to the
Commander-in-Chief and Joint Chiefs of
Staff their readiness to help oppose a
defective APL ban — the extraordinary
courage and leadership abilities for
which they have been and will always
be renowned. It behooves the
executive and legislative branches to
heed their counsel and refuse to subject
the U.S. military and national security
to a landmine ban whose
unverifiability, unenforceability and
ineffectuality ensures that only
American and friendly forces will be
denied the contribution that appropriate
use of APLs can make to our forces’
survival and success on future
battlefields.