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Monday May 26, 2008 20:57
by Paula Geraghty
mspgeraghty at yahoo dot ie
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The argument put out by opponents to cluster bombs are that post-conflict large numbers of unexploded bomblets are left in the ground or on the surface waiting to explode and people get killed and wounded long after the conflict is over.
That is beyong dispute but the same if true of a host of other weapons.
During the Great War literally millions of shells were fired by both sides along hundreds of miles of front from the Channel coast to the Swiss border and from along the Eastern Front too. A large number of those shells did not explode and are still littering the battlefield.
Individual soldiers are armed with hand grenades and many of those did not explode either.
A British tactic during the war was to dig tunnels under the German trenches and pack them with vast quantities of explosives and blow chasms in the German lines. A number of these underground mines are still lying dormant.
Almost a century later these areas Belgium and France are still full of unexploded ordinance that is still lethally dangerous.
In the Second World War enormous quantities of bombs were dropped across the continent.
The modern centre of London which was built on the ruins of buildings destroyed in the Blitz and the centre of Berlin obiliterated by Allied bombs. Many of these bombs did not exploded and still lie undisturbed buried in the ground and are hazardous to civilians.
During the Cold War, the USSR manufactured hundreds of millions of AK-47 rifles.
After the end of the Cold War stand off, these surplus weapons were sold to Third World armies and rebel groups.
These weapons sells for only a few hundred dollars and an illiterate peasant can learn how to use them in a few minutes.
They are incredibly durable, require little maintanence and can endure punishing climatic and physical conditions.
An AK-47 rifle covered in mud or run over by a truck can still fire.
Modern small calibre military bullets are designed to injure rather than to kill because a wounded soldier requires four or more men to carrying him from the battlefield. This means that far more people who would otherwise have died on the battlefield linger in agony for decades with maimed limbs and bodies putting an enormous strain on their societies.
Would a moratorium on cluster bombs forbid their use?
Absolutely not.
In war the side with the greatest firepower usually wins.
A single pass by a low flying combat aircraft delivering cluster bombs onto a target could wipe out a company of infantry soldiers or a column of tanks which would otherwise require a pitched battle and high number of casualties by ones own infantry and loss of equipment to eliminate.
In peacetime countries have the luxury of banning these weapons but when wars start and there is no reason to assume that the political harmony between Western industrialised nations will continue for ever (oil and gas are running out) we would soon witness these weapons reappearance.
The use of cluster bombs on the battlefields against enemy forces have produced stunning victories for their practitioners.
Why would they give up that advantage?
Cluster bombs are merely one more evil weapon since the advent of cavemen wielding tree limbs and rocks.
There is certainly a lot of sense in the notion of banning bombs full stop rather than focusing on cluster bombs. But ultimately this is an issue of global justice and human nature.
rogy
An average of three children a day are still being killed in Viet-Nam from munitions in a war that was supposed to have finished almost 40 years ago. The problem with clustr bombs is that they are 'designed 'to do exactly what they do. Stay dormant for decades.
Jeff Hoon described cluster bombs as the best offenceive weapon in certain circumstances...I dont think he meant it the way that I took this statement.
In 2004, the fastest seller at the Arms Trade Fair held in London was cluster bombs. During the 'fair' the western world held a three minute silence in remberance of the 1st anniversary of the World Trade Centre collapse....the arms trading went on unhindered and unaware of any such commemoration.
As far as I know a computer software company in Galway actually make the triggers for these WMD cluster bombs.
When confronted by this fact on her electoral trail along with the fact that there are more than 300 military contracts active in Irelands neutral country, Mary Harney as minister of trade and 'enterprise' denied this and said...'they probably make kettles for all I know'.
She shows about as much concern for children being murdered in the Middle-East as minister for trade as she does for children in this country as now minister for health.
Well done to the marchers, diddnt even know it was on, id have been there.
Picures from last sunday demo..with some delay..sorry.
More photos..
I mistakenly uploaded copies of the same photos, sorry! the indy staff can certaily cancel them.
Seems like a load of cash was ploughed into this demo - official and expensive hoardings,trucks driving around town with the poster in giant print on the back and thousands of full coliur fliers.
Can the organisers elaborate a little more on what the aim of the demo was and if it was anti-war and anti-all bombs or just one type of bomb??
Confusing.
Really did seem to come out of nowhere.
Demo was pretty much an NGO effort.
Just got a text from a friend who is now a Dutch MP saying there was a victory at the conference last night.
I heard earlier the Aussies and others were going to be at the conference to water down the statement
on behalf of the absent U.S. (which stores cluster bombs in England and probabhly transports them through Shannon)
Does anyone know what kind of treaty is coming out of this conference.
Is it a strong statement or has it been watered down?
Heres what RTE is saying today anyhow..
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0530/cluster.html
The whole thing seems very hypocritical- cluster bombs - No! bombs that deploy in the tradiitonal way - ok??
Dont know how anything about this is hypocritical. Is it a good thing if clusterbombs get made illegal?? Yes.
I doubt that those campaigning to end the use of cluster bombs are supportive of the use of other bombs. Its was a campaign specifically about cluster bombs, and as such seemed to get somewhere. Not sure anyone doesn't expect that many signatory gov's and manufacturing companies will be seeking to either not implement this, or use 'creative' bomb design of circumnavigate the treaty respectively but doesnt suggest that the organisers are hypocritical. Thats a fairly ungenerous analysis of what happened IMHO
U.S. National Catholic Reporter podcast interview with Sister of Mercy Denise Coghlan -an Australian based in Cambodia - about the conference. She reflects on how the U.S. tried to influence the conference it did not attend. She also reflects on how cluster bombs dropped during the Vietnam War still kill and injure the people of Cambodia. She is interviewed following a demonstration at Dublin's U.S. Embassy...
The link is here: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1842