We can't stop the powerful from lying about what they're doing. We can only potentially detect the lies after the fact. We can decide that since we can't stop

We can't stop the powerful from lying about what they're doing. We can only potentially detect the lies after the fact. We can decide that since we can't stop the powerful from lying, we won't hand them the tools to further incentivize that lying. It's perfectly reasonable for a polity to decide that no member should build land-mines, even if the most blame lies with the users of land-mines. This is not a public / private, left / right issue.