Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Canada Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Enemy Use of IED Article by Dr. Jack L. Granatstein
Griffin    5/21/2007 10:13:23 PM
The following is re-posted with permission from CCS21. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Why No Outcry Against IEDs? Jack Granatstein, May 11, 2007 Improvised Explosive Devices have killed hundreds of NATO soldiers—including many Canadians—in Afghanistan. IEDs have also been employed with devastating effect against American and Coalition forces in Iraq. As IEDs are, for all practical purposes, anti-personnel land mines, banned by most nations since the Ottawa Convention of 1997, how is it that there has been no outcry from the Non-Governmental Organizations that spearheaded the 1997 Convention against their recent use? Landmines are a traditional military weapon designed to deny the use of ground to the enemy or to harass soldiers by forcing them to engage in mine clearance exercises which are by definition dangerous, slow, and labour intensive. In Western armies, landmines traditionally (and sometimes theoretically) were carefully mapped and removed once the battle had passed them by and their usefulness had ended, but non-western armies have not been so careful. In Afghanistan, for example, after the decade-long war against the Soviet Union, estimates are that from nine to ten million mines remained in the ground, almost all laid by Soviet forces and of Warsaw Pact manufacture. Other more modern varieties of anti-personnel mines include some that are dispersed as bomblets that can saturate an area and remain hazardous to civilians (and children) for long periods. (Some of these devices are designed to look like toys.) The Israelis reportedly used anti-personnel bomblets in their war with Hamas in South Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Improvised Explosive Devices can be fashioned from virtually any explosive, ranging from old (or new) anti-tank and anti-personnel mines to artillery shells. They are ordinarily buried on or alongside a road or path and they can be “victim-activated” by an individual or a vehicle putting pressure on the IED’s detonator. As a minimum, the resulting explosion will blow off a foot or a leg. They can also be “command-activated,” exploded by an electric charge, a radio signal, or some other means by a guerilla hidden nearby. Frequently such command-activated IEDs are supplemented by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, taking advantage of the shock effect of the explosion to increase casualties among disoriented troops or those trying to assist the wounded. IEDs can also be coupled together, magnifying their killing zone, or they can be stacked, again increasing their explosive force. But IEDs, particularly victim-activated devices, can be exploded by anyone—a child, a pregnant women, a donkey, or a soldier. They do not discriminate, and many of the estimated 26,000 civilians killed worldwide each year by mine strikes are in fact killed by IEDs. So where are the Non-Governmental Organizations now? It was the NGOs, notably the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, that mobilized public support for the Ottawa Convention. It was politicians like Canada’s foreign minister under Jean Chrétien, Lloyd Axworthy, who used the pressure created by a very large coalition of NGOs to secure the ban on anti-personnel mines. This was a major achievement, one that has bound 155 nations not to employ, stockpile, produce, or transfer landmines and, indeed, to destroy their stockpiles. When Pakistan suggested earlier this year that it might mine its border with Afghanistan to prevent (or slow) infiltration of Taliban insurgents into Afghanistan, there were quick protests from NGOs and from nations like Canada. That these border measures could have taken some pressure off Canadian troops in Kandahar did not appear to matter—to the Department of foreign Affairs mines are worse than dead Canadians, or so it seemed. No one, however, is speaking out against the use of IEDs by terrorists in Afghanistan or Iraq. That’s not wholly correct. In 1999, a coalition of NGOs did call for Non-State Actors—insurgent groups such as today’s Taliban or Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers—to stop using landmines. There was scant response for obvious reasons, not least that rebel or guerilla organizations are both hard to contact, not easy to control, and very difficult to regulate. They will ordinarily use what they have at hand against their enemies, and most guerilla organizations have easy access to mines, explosives, and can readily build IEDs. But it is worth noting that in 1998 the Taliban, then in power in Afghanistan, denounced the use of anti-personnel landmines and in fact pronounced their use to be against the precepts of Islam. There is a very large opening there should NGOs choose to use it against IEDs. And they should do so. IEDs are so similar to land mines in their use and effects that only those who split hairs can argue they ought not to be banned. The Taliban insurgents who have wreaked havoc in Kandahar province might not be embarrass
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics