The Cluster Bomb Legacy

As if there weren't enough destructive weapons in a standard army's arsenal, the use of cluster bombs as so-called legitimate munitions can only be seen as an act of cowardly desperation and inhumanity.

There will now be an investigation into the use of these bombs during the Israel/Lebanon war this past summer:

The top echelons of the Israel Defense Forces ordered cluster bombs be used during the war in Lebanon and authorized every target north of the Litani River, including those in densely populated areas, a commander in the IDF's Multiple Launch Rocket System unit said on Monday.

The commander said that his unit, which was responsible for all cluster bombs fired at the Litani, had fired numerous rockets north of the river. He said all targets were authorized by the IDF's general staff.
[...]
IDF artillery, MLRS and aircraft are thought to have delivered thousands of cluster bombs, containing a total of some 4 million bomblets, during the war.
[...]
Each rocket or shell can contain as many as several hundred bomblets, which are meant to disperse over an area of hundreds of square meters, exploding as they hit the ground.

Since the cease-fire went into effect on August 14, at least 22 civilians, including many children, have been killed and 134 others injured by unexploded bomblets.

To date, roughly 58,000 unexploded bomblets have been discovered at about 800 different sites in southern Lebanon. Most are near populated areas.

The United Nations demining unit believes that as much as 30 to 40 percent of bomblets may be duds. This translates into hundreds of thousands of unexploded bomblets throughout southern Lebanon, which endanger the lives of residents and block farmers from working their land.

According to testimony of an MLRS battery commander published in Haaretz, MLRS rockets were heavily used, even though they are known to be very inaccurate - the rockets may deviate up to 1,200 meters from their target - and a substantial percentage of the bomblets are known not to explode, thus becoming mines. In light of this, most experts view cluster ammunitions to be "non-discerning" weapons prohibited for use in a civilian environment.

According to the officer, in order to compensate for the rockets' lack of precision, they were told to "flood" the area with them. "We have no option of striking an isolated target, and the commanders know this very well," he said.

Wars don't end when the sides stop shooting at each other. These cluster bombs promise to kill and maim as long as they remain on the ground. There is no international treaty banning cluster bombs and that ought to be a global issue of concern.

You'll recall the fiasco that ensued when the used cluster bombs in Afghanistan and then dropped food packages that were the same colour.

They have also been used in Iraq with the expected, dark consequences.

According to information received by Human Rights Watch, the U.S. inventory alone contains more than one billion individual submunitions. The United States has more than forty different types of air and surface-delivered cluster bombs and submunitions. It is thought that at least eighteen nations produce cluster munitions and more than four dozen have stockpiles of the weapons.

You would think that the fact that these bombs indiscriminately kill civilians and those charged with cleaning them up would finally prompt governments to ban their use. But, the fact that the US won't even sign the treaty that banned landmines speaks volumes. They simply don't care who is really injured or killed no matter how much they apologize or assert that 'mistakes' have been made when civilians die needlessly. After all, there's big money to be made by military contractors who produce these weapons of mass destruction. That is the legacy of this military-industrial complex that Eisenhower expressed caution about in 1961.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

How prescient he was. Unfortunately.

All is not fair in love and war, contrary to the popular cliche. Wars will continue as long as those in power have their way and there is no such thing as a humane war but is it to much to ask that civilians are protected as much as possible in conflicts perpetrated by major military behemoths like the US and Israel? Apparently so. Their indifference to civilian deaths weakens their assertions that they hold the moral high ground - a place they should never have been exalted to in the first place.