electricland

I missed Friday -- International Day of Disabled Persons -- but never mind.

Press release on the end of the Nairobi conference

International Campaign to Ban Landmines

United States Campaign to Ban Landmines (since the U.S. -- in company with 40-some other countries including India, Pakistan, China, and Russia -- isn't a signatory to the Ottawa Convention)

"The issue is not the Ottawa Convention," [U.S. State Department spokesman Richard] Boucher said. "The issue is mines," he said. "The issue is the mines around the world that kill people, that harm people, that blow up children who are trying to play soccer, that blow up cars of people trying to get to their jobs.

"The issue, therefore, is one that we have to address not within the confines of a particular treaty, but in terms of what's going on in the real world," Boucher said.

"What's going on in the real world is that there are mines that have been sown in the past that are still out there in battlefields that's why the United States is the leader in demining and demining programmes around the world," he said.

That's a very fine and moving rhetorical flight, Mr. Boucher... so explain to me again, why does this mean you shouldn't sign the treaty?

*sigh*