Your video, Heroic and cute, landmine-detecting super rats!, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Big assumption. Many Hitler youth made the choice to fight for Germany, and joined on their own before children were being drafted.

As for those that were conscripted, is it your position that draftees are somehow immune from responsibility for murdering their neighbors, women, children, rapes, burning towns, or planting millions of landmines on foreign soil, etc? How convenient for them. I don't believe that's a popular or legal position.

I take responsibility for my actions. If their fate was mine, I would be eternally grateful I was treated so much better than I would have treated them if the tables were turned. I would be part of an invading Nazi army, trying to undo just a tiny bit of the damage we had caused, doing so at the direction of my superiors just like when I caused the situation. I would deserve execution, not release. This assumes I wouldn't have the spine to refuse to be a Nazi and be imprisoned or executed.

If the majority of Germans weren't complicit, the Nazis would have never come to power. You give them far too much credit. From the holocaust encyclopedia- "Opposition to the Nazi regime also arose among a very small number of German youth, some of whom resented mandatory membership in the Hitler Youth." Same with adults, the opposition was a minority by far, not the majority of Germans. Who told you that?

"Survived the fighting"? "Here"? "They"? Please finish your thoughts so they have meaning. You seem to be equating Nazi soldiers with the Jews they tried to eradicate. What?!?

The Geneva convention we know today was ratified in 1949. The accords of 1929 were found to be totally insufficient to protect POWs, civilians, infrastructure, etc. Yes, Germany did appear violate it's vague provisions....so did the allies. That's why it was strengthened in 49.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

What provision of the 1929 version do you claim this violates?

Articles 20, 21, 22, and 23 states that officers and persons of equivalent status who are prisoners of war shall be treated with the regard due their rank and age and provide more details on what that treatment should be.
Or
Articles 27 to 34 covers labour by prisoners of war. Work must fit the rank and health of the prisoners. The work must not be war-related and must be safe work. ("Safe" and "war related" being intentionally vague and unenforceable).
Please explain the specific violation that makes mine removal a "war crime". It's not war related, the war was over, and it's "safe" if done properly.
Since this was done at the direction of German officers, the convention as written then doesn't apply.

Death camp!!! LOL. Now I know you aren't serious.
"The removal was part of a controversial agreement between the German Commander General Georg Lindemann, the Danish Government and the British Armed Forces, under which German soldiers with experience in defusing mines would be in charge of clearing the mine fields.
This makes it a case of German soldiers under German officers and NCOs clearing mines under the agreement of the German commander in Denmark who remained at his post for a month after the surrender - this means Germany accepted that they had responsibility to remove the mines - they just had far too few experienced mine clearance experts and far too many “drafted” mine clearers with no real experience in doing so." So, if it's a war crime, it's one the Germans committed against themselves.

I'm happy to say that anything done to a Nazi soldier is ethical, age notwithstanding. Many Nazi youth were more zealous and violent than their adult counterparts. Removing their DNA from the gene pool would have been ethical, but illegal. Taking their country to create Israel would have been ethical, but didn't happen.

At the time, there were few mechanical means of mine removal, they didn't work on wet ground, they required a tank and that the area be pre-cleared of anti tank mines, they often get stuck on beaches, and had just over a 50% clearance rate, cost $300-$1000 per mine removed, and they were in extremely short supply after the war. The Germans volunteered in this instance. Now, the Mine Ban Treaty gives each state the primary responsibility to clear its own mines, just like this agreement did.

So you know, the film is fiction, not history. Maybe read up on the real history before attacking countries over a fictional story. History isn't nearly as cut and dry as it's presented, neither are war crimes.

Or make the dead spots little landmines. The ball wouldn't trigger it but a player stepping on it would.

@bareboards2
pure and utter sophistry.

and i resent the fact that you slyly attempt to imply that i will just sit back and remain silent to injustice.

when i feel quite confident my records on this site prove the exact opposite.i have vociferously and aggressively taken on those who would bully,berate and belittle anyone who would voice their opinion.

i believe i have come to YOUR defense on more than one occasion.

what i found disturbing in your comment and maybe i should clarify is this "As Homeland Security says, if you see something, say something."

this is LITERALLY what was posted on almost every open venue in east germany.

and for you to tacitly excuse this statement by dismissively stating that "the stasi operated in secret".as somehow being evidence of your own righteousness belies an ignorance of just how oppressive and fearful those people were living in those conditions.

so you are morally superior because you openly called to out,and i quote "benevolent dictator with a light touch",and did not do so in private?
THIS is your justification?
THIS is the evidence you present to me to...what? exactly?

if you truly feel that you have somehow struck a blow for justice and taken a stand for moral integrity,then i submit that you have no clue what free speech really entales,nor do you understand the implications when we,as a community,start calling in the big daddy in the sky every time someone writes an offensive potty/racist or bigoted word.

and just LOOK how you consumed @gorillaman 's comment.
you made no reference to his salient point,but rather focused on ONE thing:nigger prince.

now was this appropriate?
taken singularly i would have to agree with you.
no..it is not appropriate.

but when we take our understandings of @gorillaman,who has been a contributing sifter for over 10 years,and consider his humor..which is dark and incredibly dry (like sahara dry),then with this context added to the mix,we can conclude that he was probably making a joke...you are certainly within your rights to find that joke in poor taste,and with this community,you are also within your rights (and even encouraged) to take @gorillaman to task for his poor taste.

but instead you called for big daddy in the sky to bring the hammer of justice down,and punish this dirt potty mouthed racist.his crime?
racist verbiage.

no consideration of who was writing it.
no consideration of his history on this site,which you openly admitted is a community.
you just..focused..on..the..word.

and then you preen like a peacock thinking somehow you have struck a blow of righteousness?

please sister.....you accomplished nothing except to put dag in an awkward position,and came across as a self righteous moralizer.

when you simply could have done what other sifters here actually DID.
you downvote his comment.
and if you felt so inclined,and it appears you ARE so inclined,directly call @gorillaman out for his poor choice of verbiage.

look BB,
i actually find you to be a sweetheart,with a huuuuge propensity for empathy and compassion,but every time i engage with you my sphincter tightens up like it is preparing for a colonoscopy.there is this ever-present apprehension that my words will not be taken with humanity that they are written,or the open honesty i am trying to convey.

i am sure that if we were actually sitting in a cafe,sipping that delicious coffee you guys are so proud of, i would not experience this anxiety when engaging with you,but it seems EVERY time i disagree with something you post,or an opinion i may take issue with,i offend you in some manner.

you ..and i am sure this is not done on purpose..make it incredibly difficult to disagree with something you post,because i always feel i have hurt your feelings somehow.

real or imagined...i am just being honest here.i always approach any interaction with you as if i am walking on eggshells,underlined with landmines.

i am simply disagreeing with you here.
calling for a ban on gorillaman because of a joke made in poor taste,while simultaneously disregarding his contributions to this site,and taking his personality into consideration,is simply an over-zealous reaction and in no way deserves the attention of dag.

because if gorillaman deserves to be banned for an offensive phrase,than i should be banned as well.

free speech is just that...free.
of course we are free to ridicule that speech.
yaaay free speech!

Oddly enough, I just started a new job working in landmine clearance (I'm not doing the clearing, I just manage the process) and they asked me what I wanted as far as professional development, and I said I wanted to see the rats in action at some point since we aren't using them in my country. Guess I can cross that off the list - so much for my free trip to Africa.

Your video, Rats Save Humans From Landmines - Extraordinary Animals, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

One thing I will say. Tard asks where the mines were when the reporter was on the beach...obviously he has no fucking clue what landmines do/when they do it. You could walk the same path over and over and nothing. Then your friend can get blown off a humvee in front of your very eyes...I should know...

I admit, that was the first plausible use case I could imagine for it (aside from just being a cool thing). It could also be a good decoy. Or, if you could connect a bunch up with a mesh network, it might be useful for clearing landmine fields (that one gets you humanitarian points *and* DOD funding).

If all else fails, maybe it could herd sheep.

The piece was written by a pick comb. Maybe parody is the wrong word?

But really, I didn't mean to be insulting. I just noticed the themes matching -- and how difficult this whole subject is -- and how well-meaning folks get all balled up by this topic.

The topic is a landmine -- and me upsetting you unintentionally is proof of that, I think.

My point was that those who uses in celebrations or hunting, are not firing the gun in order to kill another human being. i know this is my personal value and not shared by all (there are tons of examples where my logic fails..) but those who take the gun to kill another human, have to accept the fact that it might kill them. It's my upbringing, being third generation conscious objectors (grandfather, during the continuation war and my father went to jail because of it, law was changed, i didn't have to) but picking up that gun in that pretext is next to murder (it's a murder when you succeed in your quest of killing someone, anyone that happens to be wearing different clothes than your side)

So getting killed from spiked up bullet is much harder to "justify", but with grenades and mortar etc the issue is more clear. I'm not saying this is RIGHT as spiking the ammo is an act of war too. With ammo it can easily spread and wreak havoc years and years from now, just like landmines, spreading the casualities of war well outside that particular conflict.

I think some parts of the EM spectrum would go right through the dirt and be reflected off of a metal or plastic landmine. So flying over with a helicopter with a scanner and stitching together the panorama with the right software and GPS tagging could work.

@notarobot "If it costs 1200 Euros (on average) to clear one mine, releasing 24 of these things to detonate ONE mine is still cheaper than other option."

Your math is based on some flawed assumptions. These things might detonate some landmines, that's it, and that's all. Mine clearance is about making safe zones where people can walk again with relative assurance that it's clear of mines.

Apples and oranges, but your apples are rotten, because they simply don't provide much practical use. Maybe it's possible one of these things might save a limb or a life, but as I pointed out earlier, it's equally possible they could cost a limb or a life. Without a dedicated research project nobody will ever know for sure whether these things effectively reduce the number of landmine related injuries.

Also, regarding the cost of mine clearance (well below your 1,200 euro spitball) http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/banmines/units/unit1c.asp I'll give the full quote because there are other sobering statistics there.

"A landmine that brings a vendor $3 in revenue, costs the international community between $300 and $1,000 to clear. At a minimum, the 110 million landmines currently buried worldwide will cost approximately $33 billion for clearance alone. In 1994, roughly 100,000 landmines were cleared. However, in that same period 2 million more landmines were laid, leaving the international community with an annual “de-mining deficit” of some 1.9 million mines, adding another $1.4 billion to the cost of clearing the world's landmines."

By the way, one of the big reasons for the wide range in clearance costs is density of the minefield, it takes almost as much work to clear one square metre of space without mines at all as it does to clear one square metre of space with a mine in it, so these doohickys will do little to bring down the cost of clearance in that regard.

@Drachen_Jager thanks for the expertise you've brought to this discussion. Somehow chemical weapons have been outlawed by international law, why haven't landmines been as well? It should be a war-crime.