[sbaiddn]

War has many generational effects.

Russia still has periodic fertility gaps from WW2. In Paraguay blond, blue eyed, natives who only speak Guarani are witnesses of the Triple Alliance's widespread rape (150 years ago?). Europe is littered with unexploded ordinance

A landmime is not a pleasant thing to leave behind. But if deployed strategically (not scattered everywhere as a terror weapon), and if it can avoid a war its not obvious to me that the generational effects aren't the least evil.

[jai_]

This may be a poor analogy:

Imagine, during a war, a missile that has been set to target a city. The casualties will be many, and random, and innocent, but this is wartime and horrible things happen.

Now, imagine that this missile is set to target the city, but will launch at a random time in the future. The missile may launch during the war, or many years after.

Now it's obvious to me that the missile that lauches at the random point in the future is more evil than the one fired immediately.

It's a poor analogy, but the random missile is how I view landmines.

[sbaiddn]

Cant reply to jai's missile comment:

Targeting cities is already a war crime regardless the weapon.

Nor am I arguing that laying landmines everywhere is not immoral. Certainly not landmines in a city.

Im arguing that a concentrated land mine field across a small strategic piece of land (say a mountain passage, the DMZ) can be militarily effective and therefore help avoid war.

Does this then change the moral calculus of land mines?