Common Dreams is sending a petition to all of the Presidential candidates asking them to lead the country away from the use of cluster bombs (damn nasty things).
The United States is the largest producer, stockpiler, and user of cluster bombs in the history of the world. These horrific hybrids between aerial bombs and land mines kill and maim hundreds of innocent civilians all around the world every year—many of them children.
Last month, 111 nations committed to a much needed global ban on cluster bombs, but Bush won't sign it. So far, the leading presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, have been silent on whether they will endorse this important treaty.
We need a President who will do the right thing. Ask all the presidential candidates to commit to sign the global cluster bomb ban.
And here is the rest of it.
1 comment:
The real difficulty is their usefulness against troop concentrations and particularly convoys. The other method would involve more planes and more bigger bombs, which also don't always go off.
Warfare is a horrid thing and trade-offs aren't always obvious. There is no doubt munitions need to be more reliable so as not to become booby traps for the innocent. That's the crux of the matter, these things are intended to break things and it seems so inhuman to advocate that they be good at it.
The extremely rude question is:
if your kid is watching a convoy of enemy armored personel carriers come at him would you prefer they were quickly and efficiently dealt with or engaged him? That is a personal reality for some parents, spouses, and children. It's a crappy question, no doubt.
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