Can we use PETA members to disarm the land mines instead then?
AHunter3, please don’t even suggest that my take on this situation is in any way analogous with PETA or anything they stand for.
Cerri, if you asked nicely, there actually may be people at PETA who would sacrifice their life to save 2000 monkeys. Maybe its a place to start. 
Sounds fine by me, I say, sign em up!
I would suppose a single-use monkey is too expensive (heck in the Faulklands a single-use sheep is too expensive!).
A trained monkey would have a ton of training costs.
By the way, I meant to type “deminer.”
In any case, I am willing to consider almost any means to remove mines that is cheaper than it is to plant them. I haven’t seen anything that would work yet.
Sadly, I am pretty certain they aren’t sending out monkeys in tool belts and hard hats.
Instead of monkeys, send GWB and all his hawks. Wasn’t for them, all this would be academic.
The monkeys work cheap, but you would have to spank them a lot to keep them in line.
From the linked article:
Huh? Well-known where? On the Planet of the Apes?
I’m sorry, there is just so much wrong with this story that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. If nothing else, has anyone considered what would be involved in transporting and caring for 2,000 monkeys in a fucking war zone? :rolleyes:
The “well-known military tactic” might refer to the practice of driving herds of domestic cattle, sheep, horses, etc. through a mine field/army/town - sensible, if inhumane. And I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone had rounded up civilians and force-marched them through mine fields.
2,000 (trained or untrained) monkeys? <snort> Ridiculous!
Hey, Paul in Saudi, I’ve got a solution for you - long-handled lawn rollers! Just have the troops push them along in front of them to detonate the mines. 
Well, hell, it makes more sense than monkeys, doesn’t it?
Coming up next, the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
The Daily Show reported that the monkeys are riding on tactical death koalas.
Then skip buying them dinner first…
i just read today that scientists are cloning an alcoholic monkey to see if the clone will also become alcoholic
hmm… sounds like fun 
i am dead serious, i read this in a scientific american article on cloning
Monkeys are way better as butlers.
Long-handled rollers won’t work. We designed a prototype for use in Central America. The operator has to wear a fairly-expensive armored outfit (which is a minor problem).
The show stopper is hills. Going downhill is easy, but just try pushing that sucker uphill. With you feeties flat on the ground and the roller at about shoulder level about three meters away. It can’t be done.
Not only is expense an issue, so id completeness of the job. 99% will not do. We are talking about one in a million being missed. That would be MARGINALLY OK.
Now also figure that the bad guys plant them so they are hard to find. Add to that he plants them in populated areas. BLowing them bad boys up is not an option when it is next to the only water tower in the district.
All in all ya gotta manhandle them one by one.
No fun at all.
Now military breaching of minefields can be done, you use exploives and stuff. Trying to clear a village of mines is a horse of an entirely different color.
Yeah, I figured they’d be some serious drawbacks to the lawn-roller thing . . . but hey! - it couldn’t have been too bad of an idea cause somebody already tried it, huh?
Seriously, I’ve never really thought about it before, but that’s a hell of a problem. Are metal detectors any use in at least locating them? I guess digging them up to defuse them isn’t any picnic, either. 
I wish I did have some kind of bright idea to make it safer/easier.
On that note, weren’t some scientists attempting to train bees to seek out land mines a few years back? Whatever happened to that project?
Yes! Release the Laser Monkeys of Death!
The problem gets worse the more you noodle it out. I have spent years on the issue.
Modern mines contain very little metal. They are made of plastic and will not rust or rot. Ever.
There are lots of ways to demine rich areas. Can you name a rich country with a mine problem? If we stretch we can find the Falklands, remote corners of Egypt and the Balkans.
Much worse is the situation in the Third World. Here we have mines spread over huge areas long ago. In Cambodia trees have grown over landmines. We are not talking about clearing a flat empty tennis court.
Bees? Linacs? Sharks with Lasers on their freaken’ heads? They would all work in some times and some places, but what can we give to a village of Cambodians, Salvadorans or Africans who have to lift several tons of the nasty buggers to clear their land?
These folks are dirt-poor. All I can come up with is to train them and then pay a bounty for each one they bring in. People are going to die, but not so many as die now.
Like I said, a nasty business.
Kind of a hijack… but didn’t some kind of treaty or pact or something require that a metal washer be installed on those plastic mines? That way they aren’t totally undetectible? I vaguely remember reading something about that.