Obama’s Grotesque Hypocrisy over Cluster Munitions
TEHRAN
(FNA)- Syrian civilians and children should count themselves lucky that
mass opposition in the US, the UK and much of the rest of the world to
the idea of a US bombing blitz aimed at punishing the Syrian government
for allegedly using Sarin gas in an attack on a Damascus neighborhood
forced the US to back off and accept a Russian deal to get rid of
Syria’s chemical weapons.
Had the US attacked, primarily with a two- or three-day barrage of
Tomahawk missiles, many of those rockets would likely have carried
warheads containing BLU-97 cluster munitions, according to the United
States Campaign to Ban Cluster Munitions — cluster bombs that would have
assuredly killed or maimed many Syrian children.
This news should come as no surprise. The US made heavy use of deadly
body-shredding cluster munitions in its invasion of Iraq in 2003 and
during the subsequent bloody war and occupation there, as well as in its
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Some 30 tons of cluster bombs were
dropped or fired into urban neighborhoods of Iraq during the first few
weeks alone of the 2003 US invasion of that country. Another 250,000
antipersonnel bomblets were dropped or fired into Afghani neighborhoods
during the 2001-2002 US invasion of that country.
The US Campaign to Ban Cluster Munitions notes that the last
documented US use of cluster munitions was in 2009. The organization
writes that was:
"…in Yemen, when one or more Tomahawk cruise missiles loaded with
BLU-97 bomblets struck the hamlet of al-Majala in the southern Abyan
province. The strike killed at least 41 civilians and at least four more
civilians were killed and 13 wounded by unexploded bomblets after the
attack. Four years later, the site of the attack remains contaminated by
cluster munition remnants."
In fact, cluster weapons, whether bombs dropped from planes, warheads
fired by missiles, or shells fired by cannons or tanks, are among the
deadliest and most untargetable weapons devised by man, holding the
distinction of being particularly lethal to civilians and children. They
work by having a larger bomb, warhead or shell deliver a payload of
smaller "bomblets" to a target (each Tomahawk cluster warhead contains
166 of the lethal bomblets). These casings burst open, releasing the
small devices, either on the ground, or lowered by little parachutes.
Many burst on impact, sending small deadly spinning flechettes out in
all directions to tear the flesh off of bones, maiming and killing
anyone in the vicinity, while others routinely fail to explode, and then
lie around, sometimes for years, until someone steps on one, or a child
picks it up to see what it is. (Unexploded BLU-97s look like cardboard
drink containers and are bright orange.)"'
I remember a visit to Laos in 1995. It had been over two decades since
the US had been relentlessly bombing that small peasant country day and
night, primarily with anti-personnel bombs, and the country seemed to
have returned to its tranquil past. But walking around the sleepy
capital city of Vientiane, I was puzzled at seeing a surprising number
of young children of varying ages hobbling around on crutches with one
and sometimes parts of two legs missing, or arms missing, often with
faces disfigured. I asked a Lao official why there were so many such
kids, and he explained they were victims of the "bombis" - small
fragmentation bomblets dropped by US forces in the secret war on Laos
that had not exploded, and that remained buried in farmers' fields until
found or inadvertently disturbed by peasants or, more often, children
working or playing. (The US has refused to help locate and clear these
relics of war, claiming, ridiculously, that the Communist Laotian
government is still secretly holding captured US soldiers-a position
that the then US ambassador shamefacedly admitted to me was nonsense,
but that was dictated by right-wingers holding onto the myth of
long-suffering MIAs "abandoned" in Southeast Asia.)
When President Obama went on national television on Tuesday, Sept. 10,
and passionately evoked images of suffering Syrian children dying on
hospital floors from a Sarin attack in Damascus, he might have looked
sincere to some, but most of those US viewers probably didn't realize
that as commander in chief, he was asking them to support a bombardment
of Syria which would have likely included thousands of similar bomblets
that he surely knows would inevitably end up, over time, killing far
more children in far more horrible ways than the Sarin attack that was
his casus belli.
According to experts, 98% of the victims of cluster bombs are
civilians, not soldiers (as horrible as the deaths or maiming of even
soldier-targets are from these insidious weapons). And 40% of the
victims are children.
Since 2008, there has been a UN Convention against the use of cluster
weapons. It has been signed by 112 nations, 83 of which have ratified
it. The US is a key holdout, along with China, Israel, Pakistan and
Russia. The US in fact, not content to simply not sign the convention,
is arguing strenuously against the treaty, claiming that its bomblets,
at least by 2018, will boast a 1% failure rate, and thus supposedly
would not pose the danger of leaving unexploded, attractive or
interesting-looking bomblets scattered around the landscape for months
or years, waiting to be picked up by curious children. It's an absurdly
low failure rate the government is claiming, and is also wholly
unprovable. (At least the US is consistent; it also refuses to sign a
Convention banning landmines, which kill many civilians in the same way
as antipersonnel bomblets.) Critics of the cluster munitions, like the
US Campaign to Ban Cluster Weapons, say the failure rate of current US
weapons like the BLU-97, the most common cluster anti-personnel device
used by US forces, is closer to 30%. Besides, as demonstrated by the
Yemen Tomahawk attack, a lot of the killing and maiming of civilians and
children by cluster weapons happens when the bomblets explode as
planned and "on target."
Talk about brazen hypocrisy! A child killed or injured by Sarin gas is
an atrocity, to be sure. But so is a child whose body is turned into
chopped meat, or who is painfully rendered limbless by an exploding
BLU-97 weapon. Worse yet, the US has had the audacity to accuse the
Syrian government of an atrocity for allegedly using cluster weapons,
voting earlier this year in the UN to condemn Syria for use of a weapon
which the US used liberally in its wars against Iraq and Afghanistan,
and in massive amounts in Indochina, and which it stockpiles and
continues to design for more lethality and destructiveness for future
use by American forces, including in Syria. (The US also sells these
horrific weapons of child destruction to its "allies," including
countries ruled by dictators, like Saudi Arabia, which notably is known
to be supplying arms to Syrian rebels.)
Of course, Americans themselves can be hypocritical about this stuff.
Much horror was expressed after the Boston Marathon bombing over the use
of BB pellets in the home-made pressure cooker bombs alleged to have
been used, which killed several and lacerated the bodies of others. "How
could people be so evil," many asked. And yet the US provides its
military with weapons that are far more efficient at shredding bodies,
using taxpayer money, and has done so for decades, with few Americans
expressing outrage, even at the carnage the weapons cause among
children. Some 270 million cluster bombs were dropped on Indochina
between 1964-73, 80 million of which failed to explode and remain to
pose a threat to civilians today.
Textron Defense Systems, the maker of the most widely used cluster
bomb in the US arsenal, which contains the BLU-97 bomblets, and which is
being sold by the US to Saudi Arabia and other "allies," offers this
marketing motto for its deadly product: "Clear victory, Clear
battlefield." Given that most of the "battlefields" these days are urban
areas, not classic battle fronts, the "clear battlefield" concept bodes
ill for civilians and children.
Obama would be standing on stronger ground in demanding that Syria's
government eliminate its stocks of poison gas, if the US would sign onto
the UN's 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. His call for Americans
to stand against the use of poison gas weapons by the Syrian government
would not ring so hollow if he ordered the US military to destroy its
massive stockpiles of cluster weapons, and vowed never to use them
again.
By Dave Lindorff
This commentary originally appeared on the weekend edition of Counterpunch on September 20-22.
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