Israel May Have Violated Arms Pact, U.S. Officials Say

[cynatnite]

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 — The Bush administration will inform Congress on Monday that Israel may have violated agreements with the United States when it fired American-supplied cluster munitions into southern Lebanon during its fight with Hezbollah last summer, the State Department said Saturday.

The finding, though preliminary, has prompted a contentious debate within the administration over whether the United States should penalize Israel for its use of cluster munitions against towns and villages where Hezbollah had placed its rocket launchers.

Cluster munitions are anti-personnel weapons that scatter tiny but deadly bomblets over a wide area. The grenadelike munitions, tens of thousands of which have been found in southern Lebanon, have caused 30 deaths and 180 injuries among civilians since the end of the war, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service.

Midlevel officials at the Pentagon and the State Department have argued that Israel violated American prohibitions on using cluster munitions against populated areas, according to officials who described the deliberations. But other officials in both departments contend that Israel’s use of the weapons was for self-defense and aimed at stopping the Hezbollah rocket attacks that killed 159 Israeli citizens and at worst was only a technical violation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/world/middleeast/28cluster.html?hp&ex=1170046800&en=1d2265a98c2eacf9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[John Q. Citizen]

1. No big thing. Rules are meant to be broken, unless we want the oil. Then it's

an affront to the whole empire.

[Gwerlain]

2. Dammit,

when are:
1. the Israelis going to admit that Muslims are human beings?
2. people going to understand that cluster bombs are weapons that, when used against civilian targets, are indiscriminate, and that their use in that manner should therefore be a war crime, not a "technical violation?"

[MADem]

3. When are we going to stop handing out cluster bombs to our allies?

We made the things. I'd say some of that blood is on our hands.

Here, Israel, take these bombs, OK? But don't USE them! Who wants a cookie? Here's your cookie, but say, you can't EAT it.

Those are vicious weapons, and we don't need to be making them and handing them out like, well, cookies.

[Gwerlain]

4. I don't think you read what I said carefully enough.

I'm not in favor of war, I'm against it. However, weapons are used for defense as well as offense. Now, the question here is, are there weapons that are not in and of themselves wrong, but are wrong IF USED INDISCRIMINATELY AGAINST CIVILIANS? And my answer to that is not only, "yes," but I would place almost ALL military weapons in that category. For example, I see no difference between using cluster bombs indiscriminately against civilians, and using, say, a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a Hummer indiscriminately against civilians. It isn't the weapon, you see; it's the indiscriminate use against civilians. I'd have no objection to using it against a military target.

The big difference between the .50 caliber machine gun and the cluster bomb is that the bullets are relatively harmless once they stop (other than, say, lead poisoning); whereas the bomblets from the cluster bomb are not. So my answer to that is, if you use cluster bombs, then you are responsible for cleaning them up afterward. If you don't wanna clean them up, then don't use 'em. Simple as that.

Another point to keep in mind: cluster bombs are made SPECIFICALLY for use against rocket launchers. They are DESIGNED for that. It is, in fact, tactical doctrine that one uses cluster bombs against rocket launchers, and has been for many years. The Israelis argue so; and they are right. This is not where the problem lies. The problem is, they don't go clean up afterward. And this is ever the problem, and no one acknowledges it. It's the same problem with the environment, the same problem with extracting resources from the Earth, the same problem with flushing your toilet (although that one is handled perhaps a bit better than the others).

I like to cite "Mom's Rules:"

"Sure, honey, go ahead. But don't make a mess."

Or at least, don't leave one.

[provis99]

5. so what's the big deal? We use cluster bombs on the Iraqis

how many civilians have we killed with those things? Anyways, what difference does it make to the dead kid what killed him anyhow?