What do US citizens think about their own country being one of the worlds largest manufacturer of landmines?

I find myself perplexed at the issue of landmines still being used today. They are indiscriminate killers and remain dangerous decades after being deployed, and long after the wars have ended, still killing people to this day, many of which were not even born when the war was is progress.

Each year in Vietnam to this day, as many as 1000 civilians are maimed or killed by US deployed mines or unexploded ordinance. Mines being the most common cause of death or dismemberment.

Tragically, this is almost 40 years since the US left Vietnam.

More alarming to me, is that the United States is credited as being the largest producer of land mines second only to Russia.

http://www.colby.edu/par/Fall 98/LandMines.html

From 1969 to 1992 the United States exported nearly four and a half million antipersonnel landmines to at least thirty-four different countries (including Afghanistan, Angola, Vietnam and Iraq). For these landmines America received on average one hundred twenty-five million dollars per year. Over forty-seven American companies manufacture APL, their components or delivery systems. Landmine production contracts in the late 1980s and early 1990s have earned companies upwards of three hundred thirty-six million dollars (Alliant technologies; 1985-95). While currently American corporations are adhering to the American moratorium on landmine production (America's stockpiles are full), the American defense industry is no doubt reluctant to lose such lucrative business relationships with the Pentagon and the foreign countries who also purchase these landmines.

In the Television Documentary "The world according to Bush", it was quoted that former President George W. Bush is the largest individual shareholder in the US companies that produce landmines.

They being... Raytheon, Honeywell, Rockwell, Texas Instruments and Lockeed-Martin.

http://www.icbl.org/index.php

120 Countries sign a treaty to ban land mines - but not the US.

The US remains the only western country not to sign the current treaty, and has refused to sign all previous invitations to do so.

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/mines/background-aper...

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) says 13 countries have not banned anti-personnel landmine production: Burma, China, Cuba, India, Iran, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, United States and Vietnam. Some of these countries have not actually made AP mines in recent years, but refuse to ban production officially.

http://www.icbl.org/index.php/icbl/Library/News-Ar...

By refusing to join the Mine Ban Treaty, Obama shows disregard for international humanitarian law

Last Tuesday, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly revealed that President Obama would follow in President George W. Bush's footsteps and not sign the international Mine Ban Treaty. Many of us had hoped he would embrace President Clinton's pledge that the U.S. would join.

The United States produced a policy in 2004, but they are yet to commence following their own policy...

http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c11735.htm

See also....

http://www.banminesusa.org/

US based campaign to have the US Government ban landmines.

I have traveled South East Asia extensively and have met so many people, predominately young people in Vietnam and Cambodia missing arms and legs as a result of US landmines. I was in the South Vietnam town of Vung Tau in 2007 when the discovery was made. As workers were digging the ground for a new fence around a school, a US made anti tank mine was uncovered only 18 inches below the surface of the ground, and directly under a well worn path that children walked on daily. It was a tragedy waiting to happen.

I learned also while in Vietnam, that volunteers from Australia, New Zealand, United Kindom and Thailand were working together for over 20 years to remove or detonate the unexploded ordinances and mines left behind by the United States, but it was only in very recent years that the US Government provided funding to do it. I turned to read some books and credible references to learn that the majority of landmines deployed by the US were dropped from aircraft and their locations are unknown, but the other allied countries that deployed land mines during that war, deployed them by hand and map the location of each one, thereby removing all of their mines within 2 years of the end of the Vietnam war.

I visited a small town in Southern Vietnam near the Mekong River. Near the middle of the town, surrounded by housing was a piece of land measuring around 8 acres in size. Signs about the heavily grassed area warn to stay out. The block was a former US base. I was told that straying dogs and cows once or twice a year set off the unexploded ordinance left behind by the US. I was also told that to this day, no work has been done by the US to clear the