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TechnoratiCluster Bombs: It's Still Not OK
Surprise, surprise: After a year investigating itself, the Israeli military (OK, its prosecutors) concluded that it was justified in using cluster bomblets -- millions of them -- in its war with Lebanon last year. The reports tell us that, "the matter is now closed." Well, that depends on whom you ask. Entities such as human rights groups and the United Nations beg to differ with the Israeli military.
The United Nations called the use of the devastating bombs in the final three days of the fight, when the end of the conflict was clearly in sight, "shocking and immoral." The bombs, which were dropped in populated areas, farms, etc., have a 30 percent failure rate, meaning that they explode later, and many have been doing so over the past year.
Just last week, a 35-year-old man collecting firewood died instantly when one of the Israeli bombs went off. In fact, more than 30 people have died in a similar fashion since the end of Israel's war with Hezbollah. The Daily Star of Lebanon reports that an additional 200 have been wounded by the bombs, most of which were dropped in the final 72 hours of the war. For these victims, the matter is far from closed.
Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a ban on cluster bombs at a conference in Vienna, Austria (which the U.S. declined to attend), where 130 nations gathered to consider a ban.
This isn't a morally ambiguous issue. The use of these bombs, which in effect linger on as landmines and continue killing long after wars are over, is wrong, and Israel was wrong to use them when the end of the war was imminent. Its military might not be able to see that, but the rest of the world can.
© 2007 The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
17 Comments so far
Show Allsung425 and seventhfire:
Thanks for the specifics, as sickening as they are.
All is well, we can sleep better now because the FY 2008 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill says:
"Specifically, the Leahy-Feinstein legislation requires that no military funds will be used for the sale or transfer or cluster bombs, unless:
* The cluster bombs have a failure rate of 1 percent or less; and
* The sale or transfer agreement specifies that the cluster bombs will be used only against clearly defined military targets and not where civilians are known to be present.
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200706/062907a.html
What a joke
Here's a map of US manufacture cluster bombs exports to foreign nations.
http://www.fcnl.org/weapons/cluster_use_exports.html
Who is shipping the cluster bombs to Israel? Who is making the cluster bombs? Who is paying for making and shipping the cluster bombs? Those are all Americans, and not just a few Americans. If the use of cluster bombs is immoral, then identify and blame the source of the problem and solve the problem at its source. There is something lacking in logic to write an editorial lamenting cluster bombs and calling Israel immoral for using them, without concluding, "Therefore, we Americans should stop paying for, manufacturing, and shipping cluster bombs to aggressive nations who use them against their neighbors as weapons of terror and mass destruction."
COMarc,
Don't tar all members of a minority group with the same brush. When there is power to be had, the shit usually rises to the top. Most feminists are ordinary women who seek a level playing field in terms of rights, salary and so on, but a small minority of men-hating feminazis are now in control of the movement. I have no doubt that most Holocaust survivors would recoil in horror at what is being done in Palestine.
As I grow older, I'm now amazed at the tendency of any oppressed group that gains some rights and freedoms to then turn around and deny the same to others. Like someone said, one would thing that Israel would be the last group to do this after what the Jews went through. But we see the same thing in the US. Take a look at the way the black community reacts to the struggle of homosexuals for the end of bigotry towards gays as another example.
When the powerless gain power, it seems they are more likely to then use the power in exactly the same way it was used against them, instead of gaining any wisdom from the experience of having been the victim.
War is hell. But that doesn't mean we should make it even more hellish.
We also dropped lots of cluster bombs during our initial attack on Iraq.
Anyone seen Charlie Wilson's War? It tells the story of the effects of cluster bombs on kids. Even when they aren't the same color as the food packs, they still tend to look like shiny little toys laying on the ground. Of course, that was the evil empire of the Soviets dropping cluster bombs then that this movie makes a point about. Its left to the audience to know that we've been doing the same thing. But there were several points in that movie where I wondered how many of the people watching the movie had enough knowledge to get little points of irony like that.
Bigotry and injustice is not limited to a particular tribe or belief, but is a product of money-power concentration.
If anybody on earth should be sympathetic toward the oppressed, you would think it would be the Israelis, wouldn't you?
Take off the kid gloves. Israel is a zionist imperialist state, guilty of massive human rights violations, aparthied, genocide and in consistant border conflicts with everyone. Damn, bombs away on that pathetic county. The world will rejoice and peace will reign supreme. Then we can deal with the christian fundamentalist later.
The U.S.A. and Israel are both illegal, mafia contolled countries which are condemned to death. Grieve not for them, for they are deserved of their demise. The world will rejoice at their passing.
Meanwhile has Israel finally given the Lebanese the oft requested maps of where the cluster bombs were dropped ? If so, I haven't seen any news about it.
Imagine if an Israeli man went out to gather firewood and got blown up by a Hezbollah cluster bomb. It would be all over CNN over and over again every 5 minutes!
War is HELL, and always will be. That is why we should stay the HELL out of it unless it the only possible way to protect our country, and it should never be pre-emptive as once started, it is very hard to bring to a close. At one time in history, the leaders were out in front of the soldiers, not in some palace taking it easy, so they knew what they were getting into, unlike our modern "leaders".
1) The US supplied the Israelis with the cluster bombs/bomblets -- in addition to billions of dollars of other weapons. Most of this weaponry is free (i.e. paid for by US taxpayers under military credit programs).
2) According to US law, the Israelis could not use these horrible weapons in civilian areas or against civilian populations (as if it is possible for the bombs to somehow discriminate between civilians and combatants).
3) According to US law, the US is supposed to punish the Israelis and suspend the sale of these and other weapons because of their use against civilians.
4) The Israelis have seldom obeyed a single UN resolution or agreement with the US concerning the use of weapons -- or anything else for that matter. In addition to being an apartheid nation, Israel is, in fact -- like its big brother-- an international outlaw.
5) Both of these nations violate their own laws, international laws and commit crimes against humanity and war crimes (which fits the use of cluster weapons) with impunity.
6) Until the big brother in Washington forces Israel to change its behavior and stop using cluster bombs and other weapons of mass destruction (including chemical and biological weapons) and abandon its huge nuclear arsenal, it will continue to act with impunity.
7) The first step in that process is that US citizens must band together to expose the Pro-Israel lobby for what it is, and force the US Congress and President to uphold their Constitutional oaths and free themselves from the lobby.
That process will take generations, but by failing to act now as strongly as we are able, we are condemning many future generations of Lebanese, Palestinians and other Mid Easterners to lives of poverty and terror.
I wonder if Hitler's Nazis thought their 'final solution' was justified also.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. dropped yellow packet cluster bombs in addition to yellow packets of food aid. So when kids saw a yellow packet on their soccer fields, they didn't know if it was a bomb or peanut butter.
The attack itself was wrong. It was not a response to soldiers being captured. That simply was the trigger mechanism and the excuse used to justify the pre-planned attack.
Once wars begin, all sorts of bad ideas are put into motion (cluster bombs, torture, mass detentions, official lies, chemical weapons, etc...)
We need to focus on stopping war before it happens because the tools of war are too easily justified once everyone is convinced that war is necessary.