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Unfriendly Fire: Cluster Bombs Keep Killing
Jesus Suarez del Solar died instantly. The Lance Corporal was an early casualty of the U.S. war in Iraq, but he was not killed by enemy fire.
The 20-year-old stepped on our own unexploded ordnance on March 27, 2003. It is likely that the bomblet that killed Jesus was just one of thousands that the United States scattered in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Air Force dropped cluster bombs where he was patrolling just days before, and these deadly weapons leave behind tens or hundreds of thousands of unexploded bomblets which can be detonated days or even years later.
During 2003, the U.S. dropped or fired nearly 11,000 cluster bombs. These may have accounted for well over 200,000 individual bomblets. Although varied in size and configuration, a cluster munition is essentially a large canister-as long as 13 feet and weighing up to 1,000 pounds-packed with little exlosives. Designed to break open in mid-air, Its bomblets disperse over areas as large as two or three football fields. The bomblets-a single canister holds hundreds- range in size from the equivalent of a soda can down to a flashlight battery, and each is filledwith shrapnel and an explosive charge.
Cluster bombs are intended to explode on impact. But, according to independent and military analyses, failure rates range from 5 to 15 percent. In the field, the rate can climb as high as 40 percent when the submunition is buffeted by wind or rain, falls on uneven or soft terrain or encounters other environmental factors. This means that every cluster bomb attack leaves large numbers of dangerous unexploded bomblets.
A 2006 Handicap International report estimated that nearly 3,000 Iraqis have been victims of cluster bombs since 2003. The report goes on to fault U.S. and Iraqi officials for failing to adequately track unexploded ordnance casualties.
Even without that tracking, one thing is clear-- the number of cluster bomb-related deaths will continue to rise. The United States' use of them in Iraq exposes civilians to decades of danger.
A closer look at Cambodia-where the U.S. dropped cluster bombs extensively between 1969 and 1973-- forecasts a grim future. That war is long over, but the weapons still kill. In 2005, three Cambodian boys were playing with steel balls. The balls were thirty year old BLU-63s, some of tens of thousands dropped on their country long before they were born. The bomblets exploded. One boy died of massive abdominal injuries, and the two other boys were seriously injured. Handicap International asserts that over the last 40 years, in former warzones throughout the world, civilians have accounted for 98% of cluster bomb casualties.
But, civilians are not the only ones in danger. Like Jesus, U.S. service men and women are threatened. A USA Today report estimated at the end of 2003 that at least eight U.S. soldiers had been killed by unexploded bomblets. But, the Pentagon does not track cluster bomb casualties among U.S. soldiers, making it almost impossible to update or confirm these figures.
As one of the world's top manufacturers of cluster weapons, the United States should be leading the efforts to protect its own soldiers and civilians from these deadly little weapons. Eighty-two countries are now working together on an international agreement to ban cluster munitions, and the United States should be at the table.
The Bush Administration has so far refused to join the negotiations; but, there is some good news. The Senate passed a one-year de facto moratorium on the export of cluster bombs in September. This crucial first step must be followed with more concrete action-like the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act which is now gathering co-sponsors.
Passage of this bill would be a fitting tribute to Lance Corporal Jesus Suarez del Solar and other servicemen and women killed by our own bombs, and would help ensure that forty years from now children can safely play where war once raged.
Frida Berrigan is a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Project.
Distributed by MinutemanMedia.org
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Show All"Passage of this bill would be a fitting tribute to Lance Corporal Jesus Suarez del Solar and other servicemen and women killed by our own bombs, and would help ensure that forty years from now children can safely play where war once raged."
Don't mention Depleted (Now there's a misnomer) Uranium!!! Actually....Yes. Do mention it. And add up the thousands of tons of nuclear waste that the U.S. is responsible for dumping on foreign soils.
Then reflect, how inept the U.S. is at counting its own cluster bomb dead and returned forces with strange internal injuries, cancers or subsequent birth defects. And the cry ..."Support our troops"...is that just the healthy ones?
"And the cry …"Support our troops"…is that just the healthy ones?"
...no, don't forget all the pro-war ones too.
As indescriminate killers, cluster bombs are a violation of Geneva Conventions.
Gordon Sturrock
VeteransAgainstTorture.com
Sometimes it seems we just forget about cluster bombs and land mines. That innocent people are wounded and killed by these weapons often years later.
There is no hot scoop media glory or glamour in speaking up for those maimed and killed playing tag in a field. Nor are these children important in the geopolitical scheme of things. THESE wounded lying bloody by the roadside as the world walks by and ignores their suffering. These the most forgotten and ignored casualties of war, which follow the fighting after the fighting is gone. The casualties of playing tag or hide and seek where cluster bombs or mines were left. One can only hope some passing good samaritan will aid some wounded child lying by a roadside in places where we've left these things.
Like the Good Samaritan of the parable, Frida stops by the roadside and renders aid to those children and innocents by reminding the world that their deaths and terrible wounds do MATTER! The often unspoken point of the parable being that every human being's life matters to other human beings. Or should!
"God requires mercy...". For these ignored and forgotten by the roadside, it is the only chance (mercy) they have, that people like Frida show and remind us that their lives matter.
Do most of us ever think about cluster bombs continuing to kill for years? Those who drop them (and make and sell them) should be made to remember that these things are STILL killing and wounding even in places where all fighting has stopped.
There is no glory in doing that task... only the heart to stop and render aid and mercy to a wounded or dying child. Thanks to people like Frida who remind us that there will be MORE dying over years to come.
Wait a short time ...there will soon be another casualty of playing tag in a field in a few days. There will be these added deaths for long years when the fighting is done. Long after hostilities cease will it matter that that person lying bloody by the roadside is a child?
Who remembers the legacy deaths caused by cluster bombs and mines? Who stops by the roadside and renders them merciful aid in our cluster bomb making and using culture?
As always to people like Frida and all the others who battle the unmerciful silence and forgetting... thanks. Lest we forget that we are the ones who are still doing the killing years afterwards and are just walking by the roadside not stopping.
Lest we forget and ignore just how long these... our... weapons continue to kill. Have mercy! Don't forget them.
"As one of the world's top manufacturers of cluster weapons, the United States should be leading the efforts to protect its own soldiers..."
We certainly-ARE making those efforts, already. US Soldiers are trained to identify and stay-away from those bomblets (intended to kill 'enemy-civilians' and their children/livestock on an on-going basis -- NOT our valuable&trained Troops). Those who nonetheless 'screw-up' and become thereby-useless as our Agents for directly-killing yet-more civilians/children/livestock are, thankfully, now being appropriately-punished by means of the forced-repayment of their enlistment-bonuses (and, soon, should be billed for the-entirety of their medical-care [along with their-meals when cared-for] and perhaps&hopefully soon forced to repay our government for ALL of the expenses involved in their pay-until-disability and fine-Training -- that they obviously must have slept-through, or they'd not have damaged the government-property of 'themselves' in first-place).
Thank you, author, but 'we are all-over this'...