troung

Tory defence critic blasts use of grenades in Afghanistan

Tue Oct 18 2005

By David Pugliese
OTTAWA -- Canada's commando force is violating the spirit of the landmine treaty brokered years ago by the Liberal government by using specialized explosives that could maim and kill innocent people on the battlefield, says the Conservatives' defence critic.

Conservative MP Gordon O'Connor said Joint Task Force 2 has purchased a new grenade launcher designed to offer the similar sort of protection once afforded by the now banned anti-personnel landmines. The 40-millimetre launcher is able to hurl grenades at a high rate, putting up a wall of shrapnel and explosives against approaching enemy troops.

However, O'Connor said the unit did not buy the kind of grenades that later self-destruct if they fail to explode on the battlefield -- a mistake that puts civilians at risk.

"Unexploded grenades can maim and kill innocent people just like mines," O'Connor, a retired brigadier general, said in the Commons yesterday.

O'Connor, who supports the purchase of the grenade launchers, blamed what he calls the government's poorly planned decision to commit troops to Kandahar, Afghanistan, next year to fight the Taliban.

"This is a pattern of rush, rush, rush and damn the consequences," he said of a series of emergency military equipment purchases approved by the Liberals.
"They're damn fine weapons," he said of the new grenade launchers bought by JTF2. "It's just they're going to be firing these grenades, all of them won't be going off, so they're going to be leaving these grenades around on the battlefield, which to me are the equivalent of anti-personnel landmines."

O'Connor also said the government has ordered additional protection for the army's light-armoured vehicles but those protection kits are older technology. He questioned why the latest armour-protection kits were not bought, again linking it to the government's quick decision to take on the riskier Kandahar mission next year.

The Defence Department has launched an emergency purchase program to buy everything from armoured-patrol vehicles to howitzers in preparation for the February mission. The estimated price tag is $170 million.

Defence officials did not respond to a request for comment on the JTF2 equipment.

-- CanWest News Service

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Well that means no Mk-19/CIS-40/whatever for the CF...

Idiots... outlaw bullets as well as the lead you know can run off into the water...

Hell just ban guns because they can hurt people... no pencils either... don't want someone to lose an eye...

ZFBoxcar

Damn partisan politics. If the tories had been in power in 2003, Canada would have sent as many soldiers as possible to Iraq and probably would have bought double the number of grenades mentioned in this article. But the tories are so freakin focused on bad mouthing the Liberals that they are willing to insult policies that they would not only have employed, but celebrated (ie sending troops to Kandahar). I am a tory, but I know that the Conservative Party has no chance in hell of winning with this negative approach to everything, and Harper is already too tainted. Not to mention the fact that he looks evil ...Martin looks like a prune, but at least prunes don't scare people. The Tories have a lot of good MP candidates lined up (my riding's candidate, Peter Kent, seems awesome) but until one of them (preferably someone who actually lives in Ontario where all the votes are) replaces Harper, the Tories will always be known as the "annoying opposition" that always tries to "obstruct the functioning of the government" and the NDP (even though they are tax-looting socialist scum) will be known as the "cooperative opposition" that wants to "get things done". The fact that the Tories keep joining forces with the separatists to bring down the government doesn't really improve their image on that front either.

Officer of Engineers

Disarming the JTF II was not BGen O'Connor's intentions. The reliability of the grenades is. This has been taken out of context that the Canadian MSM focused on the wrong thing. BGen O'Connor wants the CF to purchase (and more expensive) grenades that would detonate when fired on target instead of leaving dangerous duds around.

__________________
Chimo

smilingassassin

I have to agree with the guy....it would be hypocritical to sign a land mine ban and leave grenades in the ground and in a round about inocent way breaking the ban we signed in good faith.

As for the tories always badmouthing the Liberals it goes both ways, just look at the liberal scare mongering last election.....

Officer of Engineers

You don't understand. The dud grenades are not landmines. We lob them at the enemy expecting them to detonate to kill the enemy. Not laying around when the enemy runs over them to charge at us.

However, the fact that they act like mines after the fact do go against the Ottawa Treaty.

ZFBoxcar

I have no problem with using different ammunition, but whether it is his fault or the MSM's fault, it sounds like he is badmouthing the decision to send the army into Kandahar at all.

Officer of Engineers

BGen O'Connor is right in one sense. We're a mech force assigned to do a COIN job.

dalem

Haha! You guys signed the land mine ban treaty thingie!

Haha!

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

-dale

smilingassassin

Sir I was indeed aware of that however the dud's if left behind still pose a similar threat as mines. I certainly wouldn't want the enemy lobing the duds back at our guys to give the grenades a second chance to go off. Grenades like bullets don't discriminate against who they are killing.

Officer of Engineers

It is called the Ottawa Treaty.

TopHatter

I assume you are referring to "area denial munitions"?

__________________
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~John Quincy Adams

Officer of Engineers

The Ottawa Treaty only bans AP munitions, not AT. There are ways around it since IEDs are not defined in the Treaty.

TopHatter

Which is OK I guess since your average 8 year old is not likely to set off a buried AT mine.

It's only when the 8 year old starts digging it up and trying to disassemble it that there are problems

Famed MiG-25 Foxbat defector Victor Belenko was nearly killed by a old landmine (not sure if it was AT or AP) when he and his schoolchums started to take it apart.
When it detonated, he was wounded but his chums were not quite so lucky

There are also parts of the world where children salvage mines in exchange for cash...and end up missing body parts like hands.

Damn the aftermath of war!