![]() Some of this proposed assistance was obviously a non-starter-the U.S. planned to assist 42 countries and to provide another $39 million to global or multi-country efforts. spreads its land mine removal dollars around widely. help, or because the regime is simply incompetent. cannot help, either because there’s a war on, or because the local tyrant doesn’t want U.S. There are lots of places in the world that the U.S. That means checking every metal detector signal-in the knowledge that every beep might be your last.Īs with all foreign aid, the best kind of partners are those who want to help themselves. If you want to be sure that an area’s been cleared of all land mines and shells, you have to remove nearly every piece of scrap metal from it. Agency for International Development gives assistance to victims of conventional weapons.Ĭleaning up conventional weapons is a slow, dangerous business. Defense Department also helps by providing equipment, airlifts, and training, while the U.S. aid is provided by the State Department, which makes grants to civilian deminers. In just five days in August, for example, Azerbaijan found and defused 504 mines and other leftover ammo in a 2-square-mile area. still finds duds left over from the Civil War in Virginia. Virtually every country in the world has unexploded ordnance lying around-even the U.S. gets the opportunity to talk with, and build relationships with, a lot of national leaders and foreign armed forces. But it’s also an inexpensive way of winning goodwill-and for an average of $250 million a year, the U.S. drops bombs or fires shells, it’s supposed to clean up afterward. It’s partly a legal obligation-when the U.S. has spent $4.2 billion on destroying conventional weapons in other countries. provides to foreign countries for removing deployed land mines and destroying unexploded ordnance. Foremost among these is the support the U.S. military personnel and of the civilians our military seeks to protect.īut there are aspects of U.S. Indeed, it will likely cost lives-both of U.S. The recent decision by the Biden administration to drop anti-personnel land mines from the U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |