George W(armonger) Bush and his Republican jingos have just told the Pope to stuff it! America intends to Leave No Child Behind.

I believe that Mark Twain would agree that, in its God-given mission to confer the Blessings of Civilization upon Those Sitting in Darkness, the great and glorious government of the United States of America can afford to leave no cluster bomb undropped!

There's only one reason the US government is opposed to cluster bombs, and that's the same reason why it likes war in general: the military/industrial complex rules, and cluster bombs, along with other forms of weapons of mass destruction, sell for a lot of money.

Please help pressure Congress to join the sane people of the world to stop the cruel insanity of cluster bombs.

Here's a link to accompany our appeals:

http://www.addictedtowar.com/atw1a.html

Among the most contentious is a proposed clause that would prevent those who sign onto the treaty from engaging in joint operations with forces still employing cluster munitions.
WOW! I really like that one. Let's isolate the child murderers completely. Better be sure to include a "no override" clause or else the U.S. will immediately start extorting bi-lateral agreements to exempt themselves just as they've done with the international court treaties. They didn't accept the treaty banning land mines either. Those are also great for blasting the legs and arms off kids for decades after their deployment.

Cluster bombs are a big seller. Even countries with limited budgets can afford them. They can also be used as promotional gifts to buyers of higher quality bombs. So I don't see the empire restricting sales of cluster bombs. Maybe they will put a warning label on them.
Hoa binh

Should it come as any surprise, that the three most powerful nations should decide to oppose this treaty?
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is human nature at it's very worst, and a clear indication, that the Geneva Convention, the UN, and other agreements such as Kyoto, will never succeed whilst the main players try to dismantle them.

In a world with sophisticated weaponry it is stunning that there exists no system for finding and destroying these. Between laser and sonar technology there must be a way to search and destroy these in a thorough and systematic way.

There exists support telemetry for identifying oil and minerals deep within the earth and means for decoding and 'shooting' microscopic golden vehicles effecting genome modification in the game of playing gods. Just as no one can identify the long term effects of altering a floral/faunal gene to bear a pesticide characteristic, the cluster bombs and other arms cannot tell you the quality of a soul altered by its insertion into a given life.

The mythology of arms-dependent powers that peace can be sought through armed conflict and people who design, fund, deploy and leave these are projecting a twisted soul of the living dead.

The barbaric mindset that is the architect of these killing fields is creating terrorism through assertion of its own mirror world, a vision of power that requires that the earth 'serve' through a truncated paradigm by which the earth itself is ever more rapidly destroyed. How long will it take for the monism mindset perveyors to realize that diversity is necessary for life without which it is planning its own eventual self destruction. The inability to extrapolate beyond business statistics needs some help.

Perhaps it is time for the private mercenary companies to consider shifting their mission to undoing what centuries of their craft has enabled. No doubt market analysis would reveal it to be a more cost effective business venture with a more approachable 'bottom line'.. The next question being how to re-tool the ex-military employees who are hired to prevent the practices that they currently employ.

The U.S. needs some cluster bombs seeded on its soil. Then, its attitude toward them would change.

It is not power that corrupts, but autonomy. Autonomy: the ability to make decisions you wont have to pay for.

Cluster bombs work for the U.S., as long as our children aren't at risk of stepping on them.

Change the risk, change the attitude.

The goal of banning certain weapons is short of banning war altogether (which might be done incrementally). The goal is to reluctantly allow the immediate mass killing of war, but not to take out civilians and their descendants for several generations, nor to leave cancer-laden hulks of old soldiers if possible.

Cluster bombs could be deliberately built so that if they don't go off immediately, they would rust out in a month. So could all land mines be built with a deadline. Currently every nation keeps its ordnance dry before use. We currently design throwaway plastic cups to biodegrade in 60 days. Right now the complaints about cluster bombs are that they keep going off decades after the war. Would built-in deliberate rusting satisfy the treaty writers?

I would ban uranium dust from the battlefield, as it kills for decades. Nerve gas often leaves soldiers sick forever, and microscopic doses make civilians permanently sick far from the battle site. Agent Orange has done ghastly things to the descendants of the farmers now in Vietnam's former "demilitarized zone". Those would be higher on my list than cluster bomblets if the bomblets deliberately rusted out after use.

The delayed effects are certainly a major part of the issue, but only one element of the indiscriminate nature of 'modern warfare' that got its primary impetus in the aerial bombardment of entire cities beginning in WW2. Prior to that, war was generally, although not entirely, confined to combat between the armed forces and even involved certain "codes of honor", wrongheaded as they may have been. The mentality of "supporting the troops" regardless of behavior or consequences has become a necessary adjustment to brands of militarism where even the concept of honor has almost no place at all.

I often prefer to take the simplistic approach. Has anyone ever cared to ask these nations WHY they will not consider a ban on this atrocious, diabolical weaponry? What could possibly be their answer? War is sickening and EVIL to begin with, but the nature of this weaponry adds a level to it that may only be described as EVIL FOR THE SAKE OF EVIL. Please, NEVER think that EVIL as such does not exist! We are all in the grip of its forces.

ubrew12, are these this nations unborn terrorists? since we fail not to have any that we own. This should be taken up with the State Dept. they know how to deal with terrorists.

In a world with sophisticated weaponry it is stunning that there exists no system for finding and destroying these.
__________________________

Stunning, deplorable, reprehensible indeed.

However, I woefully submit that this circumstance supports my assertion that warfare is metastatic by nature. One can rummage through the medical lexicon for metaphors: warfare is a ravaging infection, an inexorable flesh-eating virus, a tumor.

The ambiguous military actions sloppily characterized as "war" are branches and blossoms with roots in a vast and ever-expanding money pit. As General Smedley Butler so eloquently informed us, an opportunistic pack of predators gather around the money pit-- from buzzards, jackals, and hyenas down to the very maggots and putrefying bacteria. Each with the biggest ladle, siphon, or pump it can acquire.

I submit that the conscientious and dedicated war merchants focus exclusively on how to sell and service the broadest, most innovative, and perforce most expensive product line possible.

The Warlord-in-Chief and his generals aren't coming to armaments manufacturers with Quality Control issues, e.g. can you guarantee that this depleted uranium won't produce any adverse side effects? Do you have a state-of-the-art ClusterVac to mop up undetonated bomblets, so our hosts won't think we were rude and inconsiderate guests?

Indulging the War Fever means acquiescing to a permanent delirium in which mitigating the effects of unilateral violence and picking up the pieces is some other money pit. :mad:

ubrew12: your definition of autonomy isn't quite correct, but otherwise you are right on the money. The U.S. feels omnipotent. It never crosses the dim-witted minds that run this country that we will ever have these obscenities on our soil, and we don't give a damn if we dump them on the soil of brown or black or golden or red or polka-dotted people. Of course no one would dare dump them on us, or so we think. I don't even want to think what we'd do if someone dumped a plane full on, say, D.C. Probably nuke the offender without a second thought.

A person with autonomy (just because I am a nit-picker, nothing personal) acts on his/her own responsibility. You could say, I suppose, that Bush is acting on his own responsibility in refusing to ban the munitions, but a country can't really have autonomy, only people. And I would argue that Bush is too brain-damaged to have true responsibility. Cheney is another matter; some have argued that he is the true power in the government and I admit those arguments make sense.

I've often thought about that "power corrupts" thing. I think you might be right that it isn't what really corrupts a person. Maybe it can further degrade someone who is already corrupt, but I think a person who isn't corrupt can stay that way even if given power. Not sure. I do think corrupt people are attracted to power, though.

The dominance relationship players together play out certain contradictions. The US says NATO will be weakened. But Russia is opposed as well, and surely weakening NATO would be welcomed by Russia. Germany wants to go and find a replacement that kills and maims civilians including children for years after the initial bomb release. Some kind of more humane death perhaps?

It all sounds horrific, and most of the ban naysayers are surely supported by the opinions of their major arms manufacturers who profit from the sales. Go and picket the CEOs of these companies, paint them as the mass murderers that they are. The worst thing is that if the ban is effective, then something else that is even more horrific might be invented and deployed, as desired by Germany. Just remember, the effects of cluster bombs are by human design, and their sellers, buyers and generals that deploy them must find them entirely satisfactory, being the weapon of choice. Every CEO and general must feel a certain warm gratification every time another bomb blows flesh apart many years after. It is a deliberate choice of punishment of civil society. It succeeds in the growth of hatred and killing down through the generations, and breeds all sorts of brutal retaliation by any means. What will be the next technological escalation?

The nature of landmines (and deliberately unexploded cluster bomblets) is to be made as undetectable and unremoveable as possible. For example, when electromagnets were first used to detect iron landmines, the U.S. switched to nonmagnetic magnesium landmines. Similarly, U.S. leaf mines were produced in many colors so that some of them would be well-camouflaged on any terrain. That's part of the reason why few anti-landmine systems have been developed.

The other reason tears at the heart of capitalism. Victims and their relatives spent all their money on surgery.

Nor has any organization really risen to a good level of research and development. The Vietnam government developed a cheap system where a worker stands behind straw bales and taps every square inch of ground with a 10 foot pole. Don't miss a spot! The AFSC once built a heavy duty bomblet-digging rototiller. That's the extent of the world's R&D so far.

Hi all - Here's a little poem I wrote way back about my job during the Korean War. Unfortunately, it still applies today. (It's also a confession of sorts).
.............

Arsenal

Yes
I worked there too making
bombs shells rockets all
those things
paid well.
I worked there awhile
and the place was full of new engineers
designing all this stuff
laughing exciting young men
bought my coffee in the mornings
took me out
we had a ball
but finally
I quit.
But some of them are there yet.
.............

See - each person has to decide for him or herself. But we who have decided have to raise our kids well and work at getting others to change their minds too. Hopefully CD is one way to do that -

I am ashamed to admit that I pay taxes that pay for cluster bombs and land mines.

willybill raised a good point above: Ask people why they will not support the ban, and make them answer with something that is at least plausible.

The only reason I can see -- and it is not solely the money, all arms are very profitable -- is to let their enemies know that they will do anything to win, even kill and maim as yet unborn children long after the dispute is over.

Maybe it is not possible to make them agree or, having agreed, put it into action, but at least make the scumbags say why. Let's see what we are dealing with.

.
IMPEACH both BUSH and CHENEY.........NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

I find it to be so very strange that we hear so much about cluster bombs, which I agree should be outlawed. Yet few ever complain about the depeted uranium ammunition and 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs our military uses every day, both in Iraq and Afganastan and here in the States on military bombing ranges.

DU is so very much worse and more deadly than cluster bombs over the long run and it's almost a non issue.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_blowinginthewind.htm

Using DU as a weapon of war already contravenes existing rules and principles of binding humanitarian (armed conflict) law. See http://www.nukewatch.com/du/20030930bthm.html Unfortunately, the U.S. simply ignores its constitutional "supreme law" obligations and would no doubt do likewise even if cluster bombs were also banned.

I can't believe that people will argue over this. Humanity should be banning all bombs and land mines, period, but I guess that would be too much against our self-destructive tendencies and our general idiocy.
As far as politics goes, Obama voted to ban cluster bombs and his opponent, apparently trying to show her testosterone is equal to that of morons like Bush and McCain, voted against it. I'm glad I voted for Obama. At least he doesn't always vote with the fools.

He most usually does.

In terms of the nukewatch article, WP would not get a good review either.

I heard that HRC is to undergo some surgery (medical terminology is, I believe, a strappacochtomy.)

This news further demonstrates how sick America is.

Then blowing up women and kids is of no consequence to 'Christian' America or Judaic Israel. But then using Depleted Uranium and phosphorous bombs is no big deal to them either.

What can I say that hasn't been said a million times before? The problem is with humans generally.

P.S. Israel Relocated? Check my blog!

KEM PATRICK May 18th, 2008 6:35 pm
I find it to be so very strange that we hear so much about cluster bombs, which I agree should be outlawed. Yet few ever complain about the depeted uranium ammunition and 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs our military uses every day. DU is so very much worse and more deadly than cluster bombs over the long run and it's almost a non issue.

People haven't heard of DU yet like it took us a decade to learn about Agent Orange. But we have the internet now...you say... BUT the corporate bought MSM isn't going to reveal squat about DU or Cluster Bombs.

Dr. Evil resides in the WH AND has a penthouse in the Devil's playground - the pentagon - where everything evil originates. Why would anyone in their right mind approve of any war tool that comes from that cesspool?
Oh, I forgot! The Bush crime family makes a shitload of money off weapons sales, damn the public...

God help us all...

Bush is pure evil. The more power he has the more death he inflicts. No one has yet stood up to him. Why?

"No US support for cluster bomb ban" is not surprsing. In October 2006 the United Nations has proposed a resolution on the Arms Trade Treaty , which is aimed at curbing arms transfers to major human rights abusers and areas of conflict. 139 countries voted in favor of the resolution, while 24 countries (including many major weapons suppliers) abstained and the United States was the only country voted against the resolution. Frida Berrigan comments that without the active participation of the world's largest weapons producer and exporter, this important resolution "will not be strong enough to counter the perfect storm of profiting from war."

A 2005 report by the World Policy Institute found that of the largest U.S. arms recipients in the developing world, over 70 percent were undemocratic regimes, major human rights abusers or both. According to an analysis done by the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center, the United States provided countries in the developing world with more than $12.6 billions in arms in Fiscal year 2005. According to the Congressional Research Service's "Conventional Weapons Transfers to Developing Nations" report, the United States led in global arms deliveries for the eighth year in a row.

Therefore, a country that lives by selling weapons to dictators or totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, and to countries like Israel to create destruction and chaos in other countries, so that the US and its allies can benefit not only from the sale of weapons but also from destruction and chaos for which the weapons are sold(this will help to control markets and natural resources in these countries), opposition to ban on any weapons is "writing on the wall".

It's not just Bush. Bill Clinton refused to sign the Landmines Treaty, despite many retired generals and admirals recommending he do so. Hillary Clinton voted against a bill restricting export of cluster munitions to nations that guarantee not to use them in civilian areas, while Obama voted for it. Even the conservative Just War theory bars attacks on civilians, and no plausible reading of Judeo-Christian ethics permits intentional "collateral damage." Our refusal to sign and ratify both the of these conventions is the moral equivalent of filing chapter 7.

It provides evidence that what Obama's former pastor, the reverend Jeremiah Wright said about the US, is true.

Hi ~DOOM AND GLOOM~. One reason no one has stood up to Bush is, he's a born again "Christian" and all of those are right with God. So how could he possibly be wrong?

After all, he's a tough nut, ex USAF fighter pilot, with his "bring it on" and "dead or alive" bar room jargon. Bet he wishes he was a member of the Mongol motorcycle gang. He'd fit right in.

"Great men's vices are esteemed as virtues".
~Shakerley Marmion~

The cluster bomb campaign competes with so many others. And yet cluster bombs should have been banned by now. Something's wrong here. The left needs to organize its energy much more effectively. There's no reason why all the members of worldwide labor unions, political parties, NGOs and other organizations cannot unite to rotate systematically through the various issues. It should be easy to get 100 million signatures on a petition in this way. But when you have 10,000 organizations each with 10,000 members, doing 10,000 different things, well it's easy for any one media outlet to ignore 9999 out of 10,000 of them. Issue-oriented activism doesn't seem effective by itself. Collective actions are the key. When is the left going to get organized?

GKL: I am ashamed to admit that I pay taxes that pay for cluster bombs and land mines.

That's very unfortunate. Try decreasing your taxable income and enjoy your increased peace of mind.

If US bans them Israel would have to as well since the US supplies Israel with everything but air to breath. They kill children that is the next generation and that is why Israel will never ban the weapon.

Here's my pledge:

I ban cluster bombs.
I ban arms merchandising
I ban hate and war speech.

Now then, only 6.8 billion (and then some) more of us need to take the pledge to ban what can't bring happiness and peace.

Once again, Hillary voted AGAINST ban on cluster bombs and Obama FOR the ban. That's all I need to know.

erm
I am revolted by the Bush admin just as much as anyone else, but they're not the only ones that revel in making a whopping load of cash by selling anti-cilivian weaponry like clusterbombs.......

the "christian conservative" government we have at the moment in the Netherlands is just as bad.
and yes, they too boycott a ban on clusterbomb weapons.
they were one of the first that joined in on the Iraki killing spree and the pipeline-war in Afghanistan, they are staunch supporters of the Likud government (nevermind the Palestine situation in Gaza), they try to turn back the current laws we have on same-sex marriages and abortion (both legal over here) and in short: the looooooooove death.
they love war and destruction. they glory in being a hypocrite inconsistent bunch of liers and suck up to any evil blackhearted Dark Lord residing in the White House. a mouthfull of "Jezus" and at the same time millions spend on warfare. heck, we even have bankers and coorporations who pay the pensions of teachers and other government workers and these stockbrokers specifically earn money made on childlabour, lindmines, illegal weaponry, you name it.

we're the 53'rd state of Neocon Amerika (Israel and the UK being 51 and 52).
I'm very very ashamed to be Dutch. we're in as deep shite as any progressive peacelovin' American and I definitely feel for you people.

"Among the most contentious is a proposed clause that would prevent those who sign onto the treaty from engaging in joint operations with forces still employing cluster munitions."

This is the key clause that must stand and not in any way be watered down regardless of who disagrees. That would have a very important effect where national governments would have to answer to their own populations. Any sane populace will react in favour of its armed forces complying with this ban.

I'd like to try an analogy:
"Aggressively invading another country is the supreme war crime that generates all the sub-crimes"---misquote of Robert Jackson, but I got the sense of meaning right, I think.
The existence of weapons of mass destruction enables the existence and use of sub-munitions . As long as the elite countries can build bigger and better nukes and illegally invade using a shock-and-awe strategy to terrorize the populace, then they will use cluster bombs and land mines.
How about holding everybody to the NPT for a change? (instead of picking on Iran) Even people like George Schulz have publicly stated the need to abolish nuclear weapons. There must be a wealth of political will to do so. Maybe this is one issue where a President Obama can reach across the aisle to accomplish something meaningful.

I will offer a guess as to why there not the same focus on DU Munitions , and that is people can hide behind the "Science" and claim the radiation left behind has not proven to be harmful.

I spent some months linking to article after article, by scientists and even linking to a Pentagon released video on the dangers of exposure to such and met a wall of denials. "Those websites are biased. The Government assures us they are safe." and "Our Government whould never use such weapons if they posed a hazard to our own troops". (I speak of DU Munitions here)

The impact of Cluster Bombs and all the children they harm is much harder for that group to ignore. They can always blaim birth defects and health issues that were due to DU Munitions on something else. It much harder to do this with a missing limb due to an explosion of a cluster munition.

It seems to me there groups of people always at the forefront here wanting to rid the world of such things, but they can get little traction until they somehow get through to that much larger other group who prefer to live in constant denial of what their given country is capable of in the name of "freedom" or "Liberty".

Cluster bombs are easy to understand and argue against. How can anyone be for cluster bombs whose main victims are farmers or children playing in fields long after the conflict is over? Even a Machiavellian pragmatist would have to see they are useless for military goals. It must be the profit motive.

Hi Kem Patrick - The depleted uranium is not so easy to visualize. I read the one article in your link. It did not fill in all of the blanks for me.

Do you know of a longer article that would provide more details: What exactly is supposed to have happened? Did the US or someone take waste from nuclear power plants and drop it on areas of the world, or what? In what form? Does it persist where it originally was? What was the ostensible purpose? Who were the intended targets? Has anyone tested the ground, air, dust? Can those exposed be tested in some way to see if there is trace radiation in their bodies? Is the medical community taking part in understanding and treating the radiation sickness? If not, is it because of lack of funding for such a project? Is it radiation sickness at all or am I misunderstanding? Thanks.

To jclientelle - Google for "depleted uranium" and you'll find many articles about the stuff. It's everywhere - a couple of months ago a storage building here in a small town in NY state (Colonie)had some spillage and they're still trying to clean it up. But since it "blows in the wind" you can't really clean it up. Ever.

I got a database error trying to thank grandma and presence. Will try again.

There is a lot of credible evidence out there about depleted uranium weapons. How can so much cold creativity exist? Thanks to Cynthia McKinney for trying to introduce legislation this issue in Congress.

I will read the book, presence.

This one about DU is lengthy, but tells all anyone needs to know about DU ammunition and it's devastating use and over four billion year deathly longevity.

http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm