The Obama Administration is often at odds with Russia and China, but it has found one area upon which they agree: cluster bombs. With Israel, the United States has joined China and Russia to fight an international effort to ban cluster bombs which maim and kill thousands of innocent civilians, particularly children. They were banned under a 2008 convention signed by over 100 countries but not the United States. England finds itself in the odd position to fighting the United States in its effort to rid the world of these weapons.
Britain was successful in maintaining a coalition to defeat an attempt by the US, Russia, China and Israel to get an international agreement approving the continued use of cluster bombs. The leading cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan — were the only major allies that the Obama Administration could muster for the cluster.
Not our proudest moment and yet another incongruous position from our resident Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Source: Guardian
The United States of Armaments
The US is the arms dealer to the world. Here is just one of many examples why the US should be quarantined by the international community until we disarm: “Published on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Ahram Online
Suez Port Employees Reveal 21-Ton US Tear Gas Order for Interior Ministry
Port workers in Suez refuse to receive initial seven ton shipment as the interior ministry looks to restock after firing tear gas at protesters in Egypt for six days last week
A group of customs employees at the Suez seaport have revealed that the Egyptian Ministry of Interior is in the process of receiving 21 tons of tear gas from the US. [ Jonathan Rashad)] Port workers in Suez refuse to receive initial seven ton shipment as the interior ministry looks to restock after firing tear gas at protesters in Egypt for six days last week (photo: Jonathan Rashad)
The claim was supported by Medhat Eissa, an activist in the coastal city of Suez, who provided documents he says he obtained from a group of employees at the Suez Canal customs. The employees have been subjected to questioning for their refusal to allow an initial seven ton shipment of the US-made tear gas canisters enter the port.
A group of employees at the Adabiya Seaport in Suez have confirmed, with the documents to prove it, that a three-stage shipment of in total 21 tons of tear gas canisters is on course for the port from the American port of Wilmington. ..” find at Common Dreams
TY Raff…
Great quote AY.
As FDR is quoted as saying…We usually end up doing the right thing…sometimes its after we have exhausted all the other options….I think that was FDR…
It would seem than nations can suffer amnesia, forgetting who they are, eh?
I cluster bombs actually all went off and never left any unexploded CBUs, it would be one thing. It is an effective weapon for both anti-personnel and for taking out groups of vehicles. It is an excellent weapon for use on airfields for denial of use by taking out a whole parking hardstand or ruining a runway so it is no longer operational. Now, having said that, it appears there is no way to make a CBU so reliable that all of them explode when dropped. Furthermore, there is no excuse for making delayed action CBUs that may lay there for years until some farmer hits it with a plow or a child picks it up.
According to some experts, such as the illustration in the video below, some bombs (these were Russian made) leave as many as 25% of their CBUs unexploded when deployed.
While I am in general agreement with Berliner, I caution that history can find no nation that equated is jus civilie with jus gentium. To a large extent, international law is a faulty successor to the old “might makes right” code and that old predecessor rears it’s ugly head occasionally even today.
Frankly, so terrible.
I watched this process through the banclusterbombs movement.
The Obama Administration was essentially saying they wanted to “regulate” this weapon and they spent millions of dollars each year cleaning up unexploded clusterbomb ordinance, so it would give them a chance to ban all the clusterbombs manufactured before a certain date, because they were the worst, blah blah blah.
I just thought, why don’t the manufacturers have to clean up these bombs? Why should the taxpayers pay for this?
And why not just prosecute nations who use this weapon instead of trying to ‘regulate’ their use?
Our government is captured by these munitions manufacturers, no doubt in my mind about that.
A lot of kids have lost their lives and limbs picking up these hideous weapons.
Berliner,
Very well put.
I worked for a major manufacturer of cluster munitions years ago. These are particularly nasty anti-personnel weapons. They will take out armored vehicles & so were conveniently labeled as not anti-personnel for years.
In addition to the damage they do on purpose some number of the bomblets do not go off when they are supposed to but remain, waiting for someone to accidentally bump into or pick it up. Imagine a softball sized wad of shotgun slugs going off in your hands – or where your hands used to be that is.
Dunno.
Non-signatories of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court?
Non-signatories of the Ottawa Treaty aka Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines?
Incarceration rates? Execution rates?
Basically the usual subjects of the might-makes-right club.