U.S. Shipping Thousands of Cluster Bombs to Saudis, Despite Global Ban

[Catherina]

U.S. Shipping Thousands of Cluster Bombs to Saudis, Despite Global Ban

By John Reed, Noah Shachtman Friday, August 23, 2013



Cluster bombs are banned by 83 nations. The world recoiled in horror when it learned that Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad's forces have killed children with such weapons.

But that isn't stopping the U.S. military from selling $640 million worth of American-made cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, despite the near-universal revulsion at such weapons, and despite the fact that relations between the two countries haven't been entirely copacetic of late.

...

The irony of the U.S. selling one authoritarian Middle East country 1,300 cluster bombs while criticising the use of indiscriminate weapons by another isn't lost on the Cluster Munition Coalition, an international group dedicated to ending the use of such weapons.

"This transfer announcement comes at a time when Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have joined international condemnations of Syria's cluster bomb use," said Sarah Blakemore, director of the Cluster Munition Coalition, in a statement about the sale.

These weapons are loathed because in addition to killing enemy combatants, their fairly indiscriminate nature means they can kill plenty of civilians. And not just in the heat of battle. The little ball-shaped bomblets dispersed by cluster munitions don't always detonate on first impact. Often, they will just sit there on the ground until someone, often a child, picks them up and causes them to explode.

...

Read more: http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/22/us_shipping_thousands_of_cluster_bombs_to_saudi_arabia_despite_international_ban

[Mnemosyne]

1. Crime against humanity,imho. nt

[Judi Lynn]

5. Yep. It's true. n/t

[Catherina]

6. I just saw this crime was already reported in LBN

US plan to sell cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia draws condemnation

but it was locked as not being from a reputable source. Pretty soon we'll be reduced to only sanitized, complicit, US-government approved mainstream sources. And this during an age of massive surveillance and press intimidation when we're involved in another government propaganda effort to get another war on. It's disturbing that these things aren't properly reported in our press and that there's a war going on to shout out discussion based on facts reported by other news sources.

[LongTomH]

2. My God! What are we doing?

Selling outlawed weapons to a cruel, despotic regime! Dear God, will we ever learn?

[warrant46]

4. Just more business as usual

Nothing to see----move along boy

[CanSocDem]

3. That's because...

...the USA doesn't belong to the global community and is therefore exempt from its laws. They're in the sales department. Making a profit is required...by god.


.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Gas kills. Cluster bombs may produce changes in the body with some side effects.

Death by dismemberment and burns may occur.

[cali]

8. the laws that Senator Leahy introduced that he is passionate about

on cluster bombs and about withholding aid from regimes that perpetrate coups against democratically elected governments, this admin has nothing but contempt for.

Wonder how he feels about that.


Since coming to the Senate, Senator Leahy has been active in the international effort to ban the production, export and use of anti-personnel landmines. In 1992, Senator Leahy wrote the first law enacted by any government to prohibit the export of these weapons. He has worked in Congress to develop programs to assist mine victims, including establishing a special fund in the foreign aid budget. The Leahy War Victims Fund provides $10 million annually to address the needs of disabled victims of conflict, particularly mine victims. Senator Leahy has also worked to establish programs at the State and Defense Departments to support humanitarian de-mining.

[Catherina]

9. We've got to wrest control back from the Executive because Congress isn't even allowed to represent

We've got to wrest control back from the Executive because Congress isn't even allowed to represent us anymore. They're locked out, shut out and derided unless the Executive thinks it can get a rubber stamp from them. That's not how it's supposed to work.

Thank you Senator Leahy, it's a good start but I just saw that Feinstein is the co-sponsor and that it's a curb not a ban. Feinstein? I want a total ban. I wish he'd dump Feinstein so he can put some teeth in it.

How can Congress possibly represent us when they never consult us? If it were up to Democratic voters, someone like Leahy would have had all the support he needed to put a ban in place long ago. I'm sorry for mindlessly ranting Cali. This rinse-lather-repeat charade of the Iraq war crime is thoroughly depressing. Thanks for the information on Leahy.

[indepat]

10. The US is the decider in all things international and it doesn't matter a diddle-dy shit how many

people die or are maimed by banned weaponry the U.S. supplies friendly foreign dictatorships: as long as no 'Murikan is harmed or killed on 'Murikan soil by the evil brown-colored foreign terraist, everything else is cool and hunky-dory.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. the dastardly thing about these...

is that you can make them to where some of the clusters are set on delay. The first set go off on impact, which brings in first responders, then the next bunch go off.

[dipsydoodle]

12. K & R

.