We Don't Need no Stinking Cluster Bombs.

by Justin Smith

The Dublin international conference banning certain cluster bombs was signed Friday by 111 countries is an encouraging step for basic human decency. Though there were some no shows and no signatures by none other than the US, China, Israel, Russia, India, and Pakistan.

The same countries refused to sign the anti land mine treaty in 1997 as well.

There are no international repercussions should these countries use cluster bombs, and the theory goes that they will be disinclined and castigated internationally if used. International outrage and a UN resolution condemning attacks still won't deter the use of such weapons, because what is the UN really going to do to Israel if they use more cluster bombs on Lebanon?

The most infamous example of why cluster bombs shouldn't be used is Israel's littering of south Lebanon. South of Lebanon has been plagued with cluster bombs since the end of the July war in 2006. During the last three days of the war, Israel dropped between three and four million bomblets, a million of them went unexploded, and littered the entire south, including schools, roads, and farmlands.

Israel claims to have dropped 3 million bomblets which puts the failure rate at approximately 33 percent. The UN estimates that Israel dropped 4 million bomblets, which puts the failure rate at 25 percent, in general. In more specific areas discovered to have cluster bombs, there was a failure rate of up to 80 percent.

Speaking with a resident in Saida, Lebanon Rania Chamy, “Kids find them and play with them like footballs.”

There have been 30 deaths and over 200 casualties related to these bomblets after the war ended. Since January 2008 data shows that 961 locations, and 38 million square meters affected by cluster bombs. The kind of Cluster bombs used according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) use 5 gram titanium pellets making them incendiary and useful against flammable targets. Israel has refused inquiries as to where there they dropped these cluster boombs.

Population Control or War on Terror?

The reason Israel uses cluster bombs according to many people here in Lebanon is because these bombs can and will continue to kill Lebanese people, mainly Shia in the south of Lebanon without waging another war. This is a win win situation for Israel, still being able to kill and starve a population without being at war for years to come

The unexploded bomblets serve Israel's interest in the the bombs kill people, but also prevent Lebanese to grow crops or be able to let the livestock graze. The farm land it has been estimated that a quarter of all farmland riddled with these bomblets prevents farmers from being able to grow crops, which means no food, and the farmer can't eat or sell his goods starving the farmer both financially and physically.

The Shia in the south are typically poorer and given the lower socioeconomic background, poor people tend to have more kids ( this is standard everywhere), like farmers. Due to various things like birth control sex education, or religious necessity. It has been noted by several people who live here that it is a sort of population control and a way to prevent terrorism in the future. Killing a kid today means one less terrorist tomorrow.

In some strange US State department statement, is not without humor and irony, “U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the elimination of cluster bombs from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of U.S. soldiers and those of their allies at risk.”