US pushing UN to lift ban on cluster bombs, say campaigners

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Jack Napier, Nov 24, 2011.

  1. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    The use of cluster bombs will be given backing under plans being drawn up at an international treaty conference, according to opponents of the weapons which maim and kill civilians, notably children, long after they have been dropped.

    The bombs are banned under the 2008 convention on cluster munitions, which was adopted by the UK and more than 100 other countries. But the US refused to sign and is pressing for a protocol to be added to the UN convention on certain conventional weapons (CCW) to provide legal cover for the use of cluster munitions.

    The US is being supported by other cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan – at negotiations due to end in Geneva on Friday. The move is also backed by a number of signatories to the 2008 convention, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Australia, conference observers said.

    Amnesty International, Oxfam and Article 36, a group which co-ordinates opposition to such weapons systems, said humanitarian concerns were being ignored at the UN-sponsored talks and that they will on Wednesday call on Britain to resist US attempts to sanction what they described as a "licence to kill" with cluster bombs.

    The Foreign Office said Britain was committed to the cluster bomb convention and would not accept the proposed protocol unless it provided clear humanitarian benefits, an official said. "The current draft protocol text does not do this."

    The US and its supporters argue that the proposed CCW protocol would permit the use of cluster bombs manufactured after 1980 and that these had a less than 1% failure rate. Opponents say that cut-off point is arbitrary, that most bombs produced before 1980 are unusable and that modern cluster munitions have failure rates much higher than the manufacturers claim.

    Thomas Nash, director of Article 36, said the draft protocol gave legal cover for the use of cluster bombs and described any move towards that as "mind boggling".

    "It will allow some of the worst cluster bombs ever made to be used," he added, referring to the BLU-97 combined effects bomb which contains bomblets that, as they fall, fragment and can turn into an incendiary weapon.

    The weapon has been widely used by US forces with a reported failure rate of more than 30%. The unexploded bomblets have the appearance of yellow drink containers and are attractive, but lethal, when handled by civilians.

    "We need the UK to speak up," said Nash, adding that the British delegation in Geneva had so far said nothing during the negotiations.

    Anna Macdonald, of Oxfam International, said: "We will need more leadership from ministers this week to resist US pressure."

    Amnesty's Oliver Sprague said: "The UK has quite rightly championed the total ban on cluster munitions. It must not now support cynical attempts by the US to undermine efforts to eradicate these deadly and indiscriminate weapons by agreeing to a new legal standard."

    Other weapons, including white phosphorus, are on the agenda in Geneva.

    A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The UK is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions … We will take a view on the protocol at the end of these negotiations. We have been clear that we will not sign up to anything which would undermine [the convention on cluster munitions] or dilute our obligations under it."

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/22/us-pushing-un-cluster-bombs
     
  2. spiellgood

    spiellgood Banned

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    Let's hope the ban is lifted, so that the hezbollah terorrists and the iranian and syrian terrorists can be destroyed as soon as possible.
     
  3. Courtney203

    Courtney203 New Member

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    I really don't understand why they are banned. If the argument is that they kill civilians long after they have been droped then why not ban all bombs? Seems to me they all would be dangerous.
     
  4. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    I think the first problem we have is that new terminology is created, in this case 'cluster bomb', a phrase with no real meaning, unless you look into them, a little more. They are made to sound almost harmless, cluster bomb, sounds like something you may order for pudding, at a cafe!

    So, since none of us are presumably experts on bombs, and why certain types are banned, let us examine precisely what said 'cluster bombs' are.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzPST8gElYo"]CLUSTER BOMBS FUNDED BY LARGEST BANKERS !!! PAYING FOR MASS MURDER !!! - YouTube[/ame]

    There.

    The answer should be apparent around about 26secs.
     
  5. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    New terminology?

    Hardly. Cluster munitions have been around for decades even as early as WWII and the meaning of the weapon is crystal clear.

    It is absolutely ridiculous that the U.S. would ever sign on to an ridiculous agreement that would ban such an effective weapon.

    Due to the amazing technological advantage these days, there is a tendency now days for some who support those without a modern military or without technology to whine that "disproportionate force" is being used. We saw it in the first Iraq war, we saw it in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we was it in Gaza when Israel devastated Hamas.

    The reality however is that war isn't supposed to be nice. There is no gentlemanly methods to kill the enemy. The object is to destroy in as shocking and as violent fashion possible to force an end to hostilities.

    Cluster bombs are like using a shotgun as they can kill in large areas. Rather than one large explosion, they also have specialized bomblets. Some being mine layers, some anti-tank penatrators, and of course anti-personnel.

    An excellent use against armor was in 1991 as Iraq was defeated in Kuwait they fled back to Iraq...... U.S. planes mined the highway back and front of the mechanized column and then effectively devastated the column with cluster munitions. The results earned the mile long section the name "Highway of Death" and was so devastating, it ended the conflict.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziMXVDRIKVY"]Why would we ban this?[/ame]

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Flag

    Flag New Member

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    The lift should be banned and a plane carrying them should crash in the most populated conservative areas. :date:
     
  7. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Sir, please, do not be so literal.

    I made it clear what I thought of the phrase 'cluster bomb'.

    We see language changed, to make things sound sanatised.

    There are many examples of this, and those carefully worded terms are used for a reason. 'Colleteral damage' - large scale civilian casualties. 'Friendly Fire' (Questionable soldering from one force to another), and so on.

    Yet, when it is the other way around, an interesting thing happens.

    The language changes again.

    No fluffy name for weapons of terror, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION screamed at us, remember?

    Lest an American or Israeli civilian is killed, the one will do, this is MURDER and TERRORISM. The sickening elites in Congress and Tel Aviv can cause the death of tens of thousands of innocents, and they arrogantly brush it aside, in an act which demonstrates their complete lack of humanity, better than anything else.
     
  8. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    I agree.........in Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah HQ in Lebanon after some bunker buster strikes. But why the plane crash? They are most effective when dropped from the proper height to insure proper maximum effective dispersion and kill radius.
     
  9. Flag

    Flag New Member

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    Nope, in the US.
    In the middle of a hugely populated conservative area.
     
    Jack Napier and (deleted member) like this.
  10. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Wait...that would then be 'an act of brutal terrorism', wouldn't it?

    Amazing how psychopaths work, so full of their own sense of self, while dehumanising large numbers of others.
     
  11. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    Ah...... I admit I misunderstood you to mean new as is new technology. I suppose I don't see the term "cluster" as being sanitized as my first thoughts upon hearing the term is with cluster bombs.

    I agree that some attempt to sanitize language with new lexicon and terms.
    When the Obama first took office, the new administration renamed "terrorism" to the ridiculous "man-caused-disaster" or MCD. I don't know what is more offensive, the lexicon change or the reduction to a harmless sounding acronym?

    I don't see the word games as changing much of anything. Collateral damage, does not necessarily mean large scale civilian casualties. It is always damage to buildings or civilians not actually targeted and can be .......say a Mosque or Church, a school, or a hospital. It can also be one single civilian or 10. Each instance is unique. It is the same term used all the way back to WWII so I don't see it as very sanitizing.

    I don't see it as being a callous disregard for humanity however. War is disgusting. Comparing the collateral damage of say WWII to modern day technology shows that we are improving the art of war. No more leveling or firebombing entire cities. Compared to that period, modern warfare is relatively humane. IMO
     
  12. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    LOL then you should have made yourself more clear.

    Of course we both know that such a strange homicidal and delusional fantasy will never happen......but hey if it makes you feel good.
     
  13. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Maybe they'll throw some at you too; how would that be?
     
  14. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    These things are still killing and maiming people in Vietnam, decades after America lost the war. Secondly the typical cluster bomb contains hundreds of 'bomblets', many of which fail to detonate. It is those which kids are still picking up and playing with. They should be banned, and most civilised nations have done so. That America refuses to doesn't surprise me one bit.
     
  15. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Oddly enough, in saying that, it has done it's job.

    The idea of it is to create a subtle and gradual desensitisation to acts which, let's call them what they are, are avoidable acts of large scale murder and evil.

    That is what those acts are, avoidable, and simply evil and murder.

    It doesn't impress me when people want to stick a national flag on that act of murder, and pass it off as some act of heroism.

    It remains evil, it remains murder.

    And no one murders more innocent people than criminal Western elites.

    There is no denial of that.
     
  16. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Yes, but apart from that, I mean, come on, have they killed any Ashkenazi's, anything really bad?
     
  17. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Nope, only those insignificant and irrelevant Vietnamese.
     
  18. Flag

    Flag New Member

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    People who support the usage and lift of ban of this kind of weapons decerve nothing but feeling how this kind of bombs work.
     
  19. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    Yes it would and of course would require massive, disproportionate response.

    Yes it is amazing how phsychopaths work. So full of their own sense of victimization being wronged...... and yet can't figure out that the simple way to end the pain is to not engage. Pretty simple really.

    If you can't run with the big dogs..stay on the porch. LOL
     
  20. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Yes, but you just know that they won't.

    That is why they can, like psychopaths, so freely talk of their usage on others.

    They are no better than the SS, who drank wine and ate large dinners, while they straved people to death.
     
  21. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Yeah, like I thought, only some gooks.

    And now, NAZI'S like me and you, we are making a fuss over the use of a few such bombs on some ********s?

    It's political correctness gawn mad...

    ;)
     
  22. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    You are going to have to be much more specific or is your hate simply of a general nature aimed generally in the 'Western' direction?

    Military's do not seek out civilian non-combatants to kill and unlike so many others, in particular the M.E., they do not use women and children or other non-combatants as human shields. Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the insurgents of Iraq all cowardly use civilians as a shield.

    The military would much rather set up a situation such as the Iraqi 'Highway of Death' that is so devastating, so violent, and disproportionately decisive as to actually end the conflict.

    A special place in hell is reserved for those who would use unarmed as a shield.
     
  23. Ironball

    Ironball New Member

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    There is still unexploded ordnance in the South Pacific islands being uncovered from WWII....... No doubt it is America's fault also.

    Ah well, cluster munitions cover a wide area from anti-personnel to anti-tank, to anti-electrical that take out power grids. The U.S. will never intentionally handicap ourselves nor will any other super-power.

    It should assuage some of your angst to know that with technology, the cluster munitions of today are far superior to Vietnam era. Comparing munitions of 2011 to 1968 is like comparing a 2011 Lamborghini with a 1968 Ford Fairlane.

    Sorry to be the one to lay out the reality, but it is what it is.
     
  24. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Sorry.

    I do not buy that anymore.

    It is a myth.

    The reasons this myth is perpetuated, is that if it were not, more and more people would question the false ethics and fake morals that elites award to themselves, while dropping bombs onto densely populated civilian areas.
     
  25. Jack Napier

    Jack Napier Banned

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    Will the people that did this be there?




    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY0dpyKiW34&feature=related"]Impact of the white phosphorus on the human body from alleged Israeli attack - YouTube[/ame]
     

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