Front-page story in today's New York Post: U.S. WARNS IRAQ: WE'LL NUKE YOU

Front-page story in today's USA Today: U.S. set to use [land]mines in Iraq

Gosh, it's going to be such a splendid little war. What could us handwringing liberal appeasers be worried about?

In an odd way, the landmines piss me off more than the nukes. I'll give Bush the benefit of the doubt -- the standard use of the nuclear threat by U.S. presidents since the end of World War II has been to warn other countries off the use of their own military might. But landmines have no similar deterrent effect -- no one holds fire out of fear that the other side will use landmines. And we do use them -- we don't merely brandish them, as we do nukes. This, in the world's eyes, puts us in the category of war criminals, not without reason.

If we're the good guys on the planet, as we regularly insist, we shouldn't use weapons that kill (or blow the legs off) noncombatants, especially children, far more often than they do the same to soldiers, and often long after the end of hostilities. And if we're by far the world's dominant power, we shouldn't need to.