Land Mines Ahead, Tread Lightly

The United States of America is getting closer to eliminating the use of land mines in war. While land mines can be very helpful in disposing of the enemy, they pose a large threat to the civilian population of whichever country is plagued by war.

 Long after a war is over, the ground in which the war is fought is often left covered with land mines. This is a great danger to all animals or civilians that have the unfortunate luck to discover a land mine by placing their foot on top of it.

The United States of America was one out a small group of countries that did not sign a treaty in 1997, which banned the use of land mines. This week, the Obama Administration agreed to destroy most of the United States' three million stockpiled land mines. This agreement supplemented a white house decision earlier this year to halt production and acquiring of land mines.

The land mine is a helpful tool during the war but after the war they become a major hazard to civilian population. The action that the Obama administration has taken to eliminate this threat to civilian life is excellent, but the action itself has come to late. In the time between 1997 and the present, the situation in the middle east has escalated dramatically and it is impossible to determine the extent to which land mines have devastated the populations of these countries.

All in all, it is should come as a relief that American land mines will no longer threaten the lives of civilians.