Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

In a place like the DMZ, are mines really immoral? Are land mines universally immoral? Anymore than any other weapon of war? Does this immorality extend to naval as opposed to land mines?

No one is walking freely in the DMZ. Certainly not children. If land mines are effective (US generals say no, but they don't win too many wars.) they raise the cost of attack almost for free.

This stabilizes the situation avoiding what would be a devastating war.

Some object that a war that gets rid of the North Korean regime is necessary and not to be avoided. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but point out that I chose the DMZ merely as a widely known dangerous example. The example can be changed to any border dispute between two "dangerous" countries (say India and Pakistan).

Nor can the "indiscriminate nature" save the argument. A cluster bomb thrown into a city is indiscriminate and a terrible thing. But the immoral act is deploying the weapon where it acts without discretion. This is no different from carpet bombing city a la WW2.

So the question remains: why are land mines malum in se? And how are the uniquely evil compared to any other weapon of war? [1]

[1] Im not being facetious. I believe there are inherently evil weapons, chemical or biological ones come to mind, while other weapons have, if not a nobility to them, are not inherently evil: the rifle.

This is obviously NOT how it really works in practice.

But this is why carpet bombing, phosphor, mines and so on are not precise and deliberate but indiscriminate. Mines particularly persist long after wars, killing people who have presumably made peace or people who were not even involved in the war.

So immoral? Definitely if a mine kills you or someone you know while on a relaxing vacation 40 years after it was planted -- it feels immoral. So immoral? I think so.

Your example of the DMZ is not well chosen. Lots of innocent civilians try to defect across it to South Korea. Killing them with randomly planted mines seems immoral, unless you would like immediate execution of all defectors. Which I find immoral, personally.

For starters, if we assume humans have the ability to solve conflicts like the DMZ we should be able to put a structure in place to prohibit people from going to old mine fields. That is, fundamentally, the basis of nuclear waste storage: the belief that society can create a future political structure to keep humans out of a dangerous place. (I doubt that we can, so Im opposed to nuclear power, and I'll grant that it follows that this is an argument against mines.)

Im not arguing that land mines should be used liberally over large swaths of land. The DMZ is a narrow strip of land. If the Korean dispute ever ends (I have my doubts), it can be made into a nature preserve. Or it can be carefully de-mined over centuries like Europe has been since the wars. Continental Europeans have lived and worked around unstable explosives for over 100 years.

And, as long lasting as land mines are, its not obvious to me that our conflicts can not outlast them (!! I do have faith in our obstinacy). The Korean war is 70 years old, the DMZ is not a dry desert (some border regions are, however). Eventually the materials will crumble and nature will take over.

Finally, the basic question remains unanswered: are the (relatively rare) loss of life and limbs of innocents over decades or centuries worse that a war like the one that would break out between the Koreas? That's not obvious to me.

I literally said the complete opposite of that by saying the mines have to self-destruct. They still need to explode. Try another read of the original post.

I worked with an EOD group in OIF. Where do you think IEDs come from? You think farmers and merchants are mixing ANFO in their huts? No, it's all seconardy explosives they we "donate".

Tell me more.