Cluster Bombs

Pepe Escobar, The Real News Network

Cluster bombs are literally hell from above. Anyone who has
seen the effects of cluster carpet bombing on innocent civilians - in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Lebanon, and in the 60s and
70s in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam - cannot help to be
horrified. A cluster bomb is a canister that opens in mid-air and eject
hundreds of "bomblets" across an area of more or less two football
fields. These bomblets are little metal balls - as powerful as a hand grenade.
When these bomblets explode, there’s a rain of jagged shrapnel. When they
explode on the ground with a time delay they kill or maim anyone on a radius of
10 to 15 meters. But as many as 1 in 4 of these bomblets never explode. The
place where they fall becomes a minefield. And the victims, afterwards,
stepping over them, are in most cases, children. Diplomats from 111 nations,
meeting in Dublin,
have just agreed on a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs. Ban Ki-moon, the
UN secretary-general, urged everyone to sign the treaty, I quote, “without
delay”. It goes into effect by mid-2009. Who did not agree – and who won’t
sign? The biggest producers – and users – of cluster bombs. Israel, Russia,
China, India, Pakistan
and the number one producer and user, the United States. The US did not even attend the meeting in Dublin.