The cluster bomb thread doesn't appear to be a very popular one for the Hillary supporters

[sidwill]

I guess cluster bombs sorta trump having a couple of ex lobbyists on your staff especially when your opponent takes far more in lobbyist money to boot.

[Avalux]

1. Hmmmm

[cbayer]

2. Reject. nt

[papau]

5. Does Obama not care about the lives of our servicemen? (well the OP post was snark too)

[sidwill]

6. A. How do cluster bombs help our servicemen?

B. Thats a rather freepersih take on the issue isn't it?

[Jai4WKC08]

19. I take it you've never been in the military?

n/t

[sidwill]

20. No I haven't but, although I can see the utilty of CBs against

massed formations like we might encounter in Eastern Europe vs. the old USSR I fail to see how CBs in in Iraq serve any purpose except to make defense companies richer and civilians more err umm holey? (or whatever you call it when your kid gets blown up by a bomblet)

[tabasco]

21. I've been in the military. Ten years in the infantry.

Airborne Ranger. CIB.

Cluster bombs in a civilian area is a WAR CRIME and it disgusts me that there is even a debate.

[sfam]

28. Great post! Cluster bombs should be as illegal as chemical weapons. nt

[tabasco]

22. Cluster bombs in a civilian area is a war crime and endangers troops.

Infantry has to go in and clear that area and the time fuzes on cluster munitions has a high failure rate.

As a former planner at the brigade level, I see no reason for cluster munitions in any built-up area, ESPECIALLY in an area inhabited by civilians. There is no debate. It is unnecessary and WRONG.

Just another example of Hillary's pandering out of stupidity and lust for power.

[Jai4WKC08]

27. Nothing I replied to said anything about cluster bombs against civilians

Where do you see that Hillary advocates the use of cluster bombs against civilians?

[BeatleBoot]

3. But Voting for Dick Cheney's Energy Bill That Gave Away $ 25 Billion to Big Oil....

Trumps everything.

Game. Set. Match.

Remember Barack the next time you fill up your tank.

$ 25 Billion freebie to Big Oil - all at your expense.


Kennedy: NO

Kerry: NO

Edwards: NO

Clinton: NO

Obama: YES

[sidwill]

4. Your point is highly dubious yet even if granted.....

It is trumped by Hillary voting yes on the IWR.

Game

set

match

Scoreboard

[BeatleBoot]

7. Scoreboard

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html


Clinton: 978

Obama: 897

Oh, and that scoreboard does include Super Delegates. Excludes Michigan and Florida.

[sidwill]

9. Are those Super Delegates pledged?

Or are we counting our chickens before they are hatched?

Methinks the latter.

[BeatleBoot]

12. Here's a List

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html

Here's a list of SuperDelegates who have formally announced who they will endorse.

You can ignore Florida and Michigan, doesn't matter either way.

For Clinton:

DNC Patti Higgins (AK)
DNC Joe Reed (AL)
Gov. Tagiola Tulafono (AS)
DNC Fagafaga Langkilde (AS)
DNC Deanna Fuimaono (AS)
DNC Nathaniel Savali (AS)
Rep. Ed Pastor (AZ)
DNC Joe Rios (AZ)
DNC Janice C. Brunson (AZ)
Hon. Carolyn Warner (AZ)
Gov. Mike Beebe (AR)
Sen. Mark Pryor (AR)
Rep. Marion Berry (AR)
Rep. Mike Ross (AR)
Rep. Vic Snyder (AR)
DNC Don Beavers (AR)
DNC Martha Dixon (AR)
DNC Karla Bradley (AR)
Sen. Diane Feinstein (CA)
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA)
Rep. Joe Baca (CA)
Rep. Doris Matsui (CA)
Rep. Mike Thompson (CA)
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA)
Rep. John Lewis (GA)
Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA)
Rep. Jane Harman (CA)
Rep. Tom Lantos (CA)
Rep. Grace Napolitano (CA)
Rep. Laura Richardson (CA)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA)
Rep. Brad Sherman (CA)
Rep. Hilda Solis (CA)
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA)
Rep. Diane Watson (CA)
DNC Alice Huffman (CA)
DNC Alicia Wang (CA)
DNC Rosalind Wyman (CA)
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (CA)
DNC Charles Manatt (CA)
DNC Kamil Hasan (CA)
DNC Mona Pasquil (CA)
DNC Mirian Saez (CA)
DNC Hon. Maria Echaveste (CA)
Rep. Diane DeGette (CO)
DNC Manny Rodriguez (CO)
DNC Maria Handley (CO)
DNC Ramona Martinez (CO)
DNC Ellen Camhi (CT)
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (DE)
DNC Rhett Ruggerio (DE)
DNC Karen Valentine (DE)
DNC Mary Eva Candon (DC)
DNC Yolanda Caraway (DC)
DNC Hartina Flournoy (DC)
DNC Harold Ickes (DC)
DNC Ben Johnson (DC)
DNC Eric Kleinfeld (DC)
DNC Minyon Moore (DC)
DNC Elizabeth Smith (DC)
DNC Marilyn Tyler Brown (DC)
DNC Gerald McEntee (DC)
DNC Carol Pensky (DC)
Sen. Bill Nelson (FL)
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)
Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL)
Rep. Corrine Brown (FL)
Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL)
DNC Raul Martinez (FL)
Rep. David Scott (GA)
Michael Thurmond (GA)
Sen. Daniel Inouye (HI)
DNC John Rednour (IL)
Sen. Evan Bayh (IN)
DNC Joe Andrew (IN)
DNC Dan Parker (IN)
DNC Phoebe Crane (IN)
DNC Bob Pastrick (IN)
Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA)
DNC Sandy Opstvedt (IA)
DNC Teresa Krusor (KS)
Gov. John Balducci (ME)
DNC Ken Curtis (ME)
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (MD)
Gov. Martin O'Malley (MD)
Rep. CA Dutch Ruppersberger (MD)
DNC Nancy Kopp (MD)
Rep. Richard Neal (MA)
Rep. Jim McGovern (MA)
Rep. Barney Frank (MA)
Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA)
DNC Steven Grossman (MA)
Dr. Elaine Kamarck (MA)
DNC Diane Saxe (MA)
Gov. Jennifer Granholm (MI)
Hon. John Cherry (MI)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI)
Rep. Sander Levin (MI)
DNC Joel Ferguson (MI)
DNC Debbie Dingell (MI)
Rep. Dale Kildee (MI)
Rep. John Dingell (MI)
VP Walter Mondale (MN)
DNC Jackie Stevenson (MN)
DNC Rick Stafford (MN)
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (MO)
Fmr. Rep. Dick Gephardt (MO)
DNC Doug Brooks (MO)
DNC Sandy Querry (MO)
Rep. Shelley Berkley (NV)
DNC Dina Titus (NV)
DNC Gaeten DiGangi (NH)
DNC Anita Freedman (NH)
Gov. Jon Corzine (NJ)
Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ)
Rep. Robert Andrews (NJ)
Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ)
Rep. Bill Pascrell (NJ)
Rep. Albio Sires (NJ)
DNC Joseph DeCotiis (NJ)
DNC Dana Redd (NJ)
Rep. Donald Payne (NJ)
DNC Joe Cryan (NJ)
DNC Tonio Burgos (NJ)
DNC June Fisher (NJ)
Hon. Diane Denish (NM)
DNC Hon. Martin Chavez (NM)
DNC Mary Gail Gwaltney (NM)
Gov. Eliot Spitzer (NY)
President Bill Clinton (NY)
Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY)
Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY)
Rep. Gary Ackerman (NY)
Rep. Michael Arcuri (NY)
Rep. Timothy Bishop (NY)
Rep. Joseph Crowley (NY)
Rep. Eliot Engel (NY)
Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
Rep. John Hall (NY)
Rep. Brian Higgins (NY)
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY)
Rep. Steve Israel (NY)
Rep. Nita Lowey (NY)
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY)
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (NY)
Rep. Michael McNulty (NY)
Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY)
Rep. Charles Rangel (NY)
Richard Schaffer (NY)
Rep. Jose Serrano (NY)
Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY)
Rep. Edolphus Towns (NY)
Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY)
Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY)
Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (NY)
DNC June O'Neill (NY)
DNC Dave Pollak (NY)
DNC Randi Weingarten (NY)
DNC Vivian Cook (NY)
DNC Emily Giske (NY)
DNC Judith Hope (NY)
DNC Maria Luna (NY)
DNC Sheldon Silver (NY)
DNC Robert Zimmerman (NY)
DNC Hon. David Paterson (NY)
DNC Susan Burgess (NC)
Gov. Ted Strickland (OH)
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (OH)
DNC Betty McElderry (OK)
Gov. Ted Kulongoski (OR)
Rep. Darlene Hooley (OR)
Gov. Ed Rendell (PA)
DNC Hon. TJ Rooney (PA)
Rep. Joe Sestak (PA)
Rep. Allyson Schwartz (PA)
Rep. Paul Kanjorsky (PA)
DNC Rena Baumgartner (PA)
DNC Jean Milko (PA)
DNC Roberto Prats Palerm (PR)
DNC Kenneth McClintock (PR)
DNC Francisco Domenec (PR)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Rep. Jim Langevin (RI)
DNC David Cicilline (RI)
DNC William Lynch (RI)
DNC Mark Weiner (RI)
DNC Don Fowler (SC)
DNC Marva Smalls (SC)
DNC Bill Owen (TN)
DNC Elisa Parker (TN)
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX)
DNC Sue Lovell (TX)
DNC Senfronia Thompson (TX)
DNC Denise Johnson (TX)
Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (TX)
Rep. Gene Green (TX)
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (TX)
DNC Hon. Karen Hale (UT)
DNC Helen Langan (UT)
DNC Terry McAuliffe (VA)
DNC Jennifer McClellan (VA)
DNC Mame Reiley (VA)
DNC Lionel Spruill Sr. (VA)
DNC Susan Swecker (VA)
Del. Donna M Christensen (VI)
Sen. Maria Cantwell (WA)
Sen. Patty Murray (WA)
Rep. Jay Inslee (WA)
Former Speaker Tom Foley (WA)
DNC Ron Sims (WA)
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI)
DNC Tim Sullivan (WI)

[sidwill]

16. Haven't followed politics for long have you?

Well, enjoy the cold comfort of your super delegates for now.

[BeatleBoot]

25. Worked my first campaign when I was in First Grade

That was 4 decades ago.

Been following it a mighty long time.

[grantcart]

24. fact check says your lying

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/youve_got_mailers_1.html

When you don't have money use fear.

1)Hillary Clinton is now using a mailer that terrifies tax payers that Obama

"wants to raise Social Security taxes by a trillion dollars."

FactCheck dismisses the reckless charge, "That's an awful distortion. Nothing Obama has proposed or supported would affect Social

Security taxes paid by the overwhelming majority of workers."

As everyone in DU is certainly aware Obama has the audacity to detail how he will fix Social Security by lifting the cap on taxing incomes of $ 97,000.

" . . .lifting the cap was "probably going to be the best option" and "much preferable to the other options that are available." But he came just short of promising to do so.

Clinton's Plan for fixing Social Security: Undisclosed - so as to not alienate anyone, another great profile in courage.


2)They also detail to other major distortions in the mailer

"The Clinton mailer says Obama has "no plan" for a moratorium on foreclosures such as the one Clinton has proposed. That’s true, but Obama has his own plan for homeowner relief. The mailer leaves the impression that Obama has "no plan" at all, which is false."

and

"It says Obama "voted for Dick Cheney's energy bill that gives huge tax breaks to oil companies," another distortion. By the time Congress passed the 2005 energy bill, it raised taxes on the oil industry more than it decreased them and also contained billions for alternative fuels research and subsidies for energy-efficient buildings and vehicles."


Now what other recent American political leader frequently used cheap fear tactics to try and get an electoral advantage? Anyone?

[BeatleBoot]

26. Sorry, But Your Link Says nothing Factual About The Vote - It's a Google of An Opinion - Not Fact

Here's the link:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012953.php

1. Cheney energy bill: Obama for, Clinton against.


Nice try, though. Karl Rove would be proud.

[CompSciStudent]

8. Cluster bombs distortion of facts

It’s true, that the old models left quite a few unexploded ordinance left on the battlefield, but the new generation types have fail mechanisms build in, to self destruct if not exploding when it hits the target. And when used right, it’s an awesome weapon that plays a vital role in us military strike capability.

Also; all our enemies are using it, the biggest ones China, Russia, and Iran. It would be stupid politics of greate proportions, to ban it because of these facts.

Having said that, if the President(Obama or Clinton if elected) could negotiate a world wide ban of these weapons, that pledge the Security Council members to be on the fore front, it might be a different matter But for now...A sound decision by Hillary

[sidwill]

10. Weapons are so coooollll

Especially when we can drop them on some backwater country that we easily dominate.

[John Q. Citizen]

11. Do you have a link about the fail safe mechanisms? Thanks

[CompSciStudent]

14. While US munitions manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s are the majority found and destroyed

here is one...

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9049.shtml

"
So far the clearance teams working under the MACC have destroyed over 131,000 cluster bombs. While US munitions manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s are the majority found and destroyed, Israeli M85 cluster munition strikes have been discovered mostly in fields and towns like Blida along the Blue Line, the UN demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon"

[John Q. Citizen]

17. The article you provided says the failure rate is between 6 and 10%

This is pure terrorism. It targets civilians.

From your link....

What a "safe" cluster bomb did
Rebecca Murray, The Electronic Intifada, 17 October 2007

TYRE, Lebanon, 15 October (IPS) - The explosion ripped through the tiny garden in rural south Lebanon, hurling Naemah Ghazi to the ground. The shrapnel from the bomb sliced through her legs, and she rapidly lost consciousness. "There was a lot of blood," her mother Khadija recalls. "All her body was bleeding."

Naemah, 48, lived quietly with her mother in the border town Blida since her father passed away nearly 30 years ago. She was still a teenager when she gave up a future of marriage and kids to take care of her mother full time.

On the morning of 11 September, Naemah was out picking vegetables for the evening meal when the bomb -- an Israeli-made M85 cluster munition with a "self-destruct" mechanism, buried a mere ten metres from her back door -- exploded under her feet.

Naemah was rushed to Sidon's Labib Medical Centre two hours drive away. The doctors amputated her right leg just below the knee, but saved the other within a construct of metal rods.

more...http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9049.shtml

[CompSciStudent]

23. yes but what do you expect from technology thats 30 ++ years old ?

Sure we can ban use of OLD ordnance that has proven to have a high failure rate. But that alone should not be the argument of choice to ban a weapon system:

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,145298,00.html

"When most bombs go off, they release a spray of deadly shards of steel. Now, imagine that those shards were themselves explosive, detonating in a massive chain reaction. It's for real: Defense contractors are harnessing the strange alchemy of reactive materials (RMs) — in which two or more inert materials are mixed to create an explosion — to develop smaller, more lethal warheads, as well as new ways to protect troops against mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades. "

[Maat]

13. Perhaps you'd like to enlist in the vaulted military ...

I'm sure you wouldn't mind having one of those "new and improved" weapons dropped ON you or NEAR you.

The Amendment addressed our supplying, selling and distributing these weapons to those who would not agree to avoid using them in civilian areas.

Interesting how little you care about the welfare of innocent civilians.

Oh, and, long ago, I worked for a well-known defense contractor, and I'm well aware of the difference between the reported safety and accuracy of weapons ... and reality.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. Why don't you take a trip to southern Lebanon and handle some of those

1 million cluster bombs that didn't detonate on impact in the 2006 war? At least twenty-six Lebanese civilian villagers were killed by those fail-safe cluster bombs when they returned to their villages.

Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed by dud cluster bombs that didn't detonate on impact but were still "live". And at least 8 U.S. soldiers have either been killed or seriously injured by stepping on undetonated cluster bombs in Iraq. The fact is, even with better fuses, they are using those fuses in old bombs with a high failure rate. We still have over 700 million of the old style cluster bombs in our military stockpiles. And the new fuses are not fail-safe. The failure rate is not as great as before, but even the U.S. military admits that at least 1% of the new-style bomblets are still "live" and can kill. That's one live bomb out of every hundred dropped with the brand new ones.

[FrenchieCat]

18. keep sinking, hey?