Obama refuses to sign landmine treaty. Continues to strive to be single term president.

Yay! Change I can believe in!.. dying hurts

In a rather unsurprising and disheartening decision, President Obama has decided against signing a land mine treaty that would ban the use, production or trade of the weapon. What is even more disappointing is that he is continuing a Bush era policy and doing his damnedest to become a one term president.

This is not the man I voted for and it’s becoming more and more apparent than Obama is way out of his league and a poor leader. Although, he does lead quite well when it comes to handing out billions to banks and the undeserving. I guess that counts for something.

Statement from the State Department-

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy.

“We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect,” he said.

More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty’s provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Russia.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., criticized the State Department’s review of the land mine policy as “cursory and halfhearted.”

The senator described the decision to stand fast on the current policy as “a lost opportunity …. The United States took some of the earliest and most effective steps to restrict the use of land mines. We should be leading this effort, not sitting on the sidelines.”

Looking at the list of fellow countries who has not signed the ban, I have to say we are keeping great company.

Nearly 19 million mines and explosives have been removed from war torn areas since 1999 and nearly 4,000 people were wounded or killed by them in the last year alone. These weapons are left behind when a country is no longer interested in fighting its wars and they have little plans in place to remove them. Innocent children, villages and animals are often the victims of these explosives, many times leaving their unintended targets missing limbs.

Antipersonnel mines were first used on a wide scale in World War II. Since then they have been used in many conflicts, including in the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the first Gulf War. Precursors of the weapon are said to have first been used in the American Civil War in the 1800s.

I find it very difficult to support any military personnel when they employ such barbaric weapons and it’s even harder to admit that a man who once promised such great change, is turning out to be a slightly more capable leader than the old man and Palin.

It may be that Obama’s continuing failures are begining to wear on me, but as it stands now, I would never have voted for this man and I hope he is a one term president. This is just disgusting.

Read the entire article at The Huffington Post