A world of nuclear giants and ethical infants

Of course this has a lot to do with the fact that the U.S. is one of the main manufacturers of cluster bombs in the world. While Canada did sign the ban, our government's approach remains embarrassingly timid, fearing it may no longer be able to pursue common military operations with our closest ally.

While recent statistics indicate that 5,751 people were killed by cluster bombs in 2007, the numbers are in fact much grimmer for land mines.

There are more than 85 million uncleared land mines scattered in 62 countries around the world today. Inexpensive, easy to install, simple to deploy, and hard to detect, mines are a weapon of choice among government and guerilla armies worldwide, because, to put it crudely, they provide a good bang for their buck.

Since land mines cost as little as $3 to manufacture and can be spread at rates of over 1,000 per minute, even the poorest of Banana Republics can produce and use them as weapons of destruction and terror. Like death, land mines and cluster bombs are great equalizers and indiscriminate killers.

Years after the fighting has ceased and people have forgotten what they were even fighting over, land mines remain hidden, ready to kill or maim innocent children and civilians. Since land mines are unable to distinguish between the footsteps of a soldier (who knowingly goes into harm's way) and those of a child playing in a field, nearly 30-40% of land mine victims are children under the age of 15.

While quick to install, mines are painstakingly slow and extremely expensive to remove, which explains why, decades later, they still litter the countryside of poor countries like Cambodia.

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants"U.S. General Omar N. Bradley once said, and we have been proving him right ever since. We have the technical means to maim, annihilate and kill, but we lack the moral fortitude to resist the temptation to do so.

Despite all the indisputable facts listed above there are still 13 countries worldwide today that continue to produce anti-personnel land mines and refuse to sign an unconditional ban on their production, sale and use, among them India, North Korea, Pakistan, and sadly, the "Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free".

Why aren't we all standing up horrified, screaming from the rooftops that such barbaric means are still being used as legitimate means of warfare? What justification could possibly make them ok?

The likelihood of Canadians stumbling across a land mine or cluster bomb while walking our dog, playing in the park or taking our kids to school is as high as Bush one day winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but that doesn't mean this isn't our problem. Are we going to remain "ethical infants" or rise up to the best part of human nature and eradicate this stain on our collective history? This is our problem; the solution is ours as well.

For information on what you can do, log on to: www.canadianlandmine.org.