111 Nations, Minus US, Agree to Ban on Cluster Bombs

[EmilyAnne]

Once again, why would Hillary Clinton be against this ban?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/28/ST2008052803176.html

[Oregone]

1. For starters, from her perspective...

the ones that are duds make good footballs.


Were talking about small poor children here. Don't you care about the kids? Give them some toys.

As for the ones that aren't duds....

[EmilyAnne]

2. Sadly, that's the most reasonable explanation I've heard, yet.

[anigbrowl]

3. Money, possibly

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid56770.aspx

Textron deny (according to the above) that they make cluster bombs, although they seem happy enough to put up press releases on their own website when one of their cluster bombs makes the news (you can't make this shit up).

http://www.textrondefense.com/news/in_the_news/04_02_03.htm

[Youphemism]

4. They're mines, not bombs

"Already, controversy over cluster bombs has led the United States to stop exporting them for now -- a law that went into force this year bars the foreign sale of cluster bombs that have less than a 99 percent detonation or disabling rate, conditions that current versions of the weapons do not meet."

In fact, there have been 7% failure rates quoted for these devices, which were originally hailed as a wonderful way to destroy a runway in a way that was irreparable. Note the change in how we're using them now...

"The U.S. military says that it keeps the weapons in its arsenal as a ***defense against advancing armies***, a strategy closely linked to conventional Cold War approaches to conflict, and that it has not used the bombs since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials argue that technological advances will ensure that future cluster bombs reliably explode or quickly disable themselves, so they will not be a hazard to civilians later."

A 7% failure rate, combined with the fact that we're now using them to stop advancing armies, indicates pretty clearly that these bombs are being used as landmines. Also not mentioned in this article is the fact that the explosive packets in the cluster bombs are a bright yellow color -- the same color as some food packages we drop as foreign aid programs.

It's reprehensible to drop any weapon that has such a high "failure" rate. But it isn't a failed explosion at all. It's a successful method of dropping cheap landmines.

[cliffordu]

5. They are, in their current state, murder.

In their current state I mean the fact that they exist at all.


They should be called what they are. Premeditated Murder.

[Youphemism]

6. Just a clarification..

Well, war is the process of large-scale, premeditated murder. That's the world we live in. We live in freedom only because we're able to kill those who would take it away from us.

The problem with these bombs is that they don't detonate to kill a specific target. And a bomb that sits in place, waiting to explode indiscriminately is no longer a weapon targeted at an enemy. Once it fails to detonate, it becomes an indiscriminate weapon, capable of killing civilians as well as military targets, without the ability to distinguish between them.

It effectively becomes a weapon of terror, rather than a military weapon. That's what makes it wrong to use this type of weapon.

[cliffordu]

7. Mines of any sort should be a war crime.

These things become mines, as you said, if they don't immediately go off.

We rely too much on the technology of war instead of soldiers to "fight the ter'ists."

We made the same stupid fucking mistake in Vietnam.


Hindsight:

The 10th mountain division and the 101st, all along the Pakistan/Afghan border right after 9/11 could have killed Bin Laden and eliminated most of the Al Qaeda before Halloween 2002.

The Taliban would have had nowhere to run at that point, and they would have died in place.

Instead....Instead we have the clusterfuck we have now and a good 10 years of insta-mines laying around....