[tomder55]

111 nations including most NATO allies (US and Turkey are notable exceptions ) have signed a treaty banning cluster bombs. When Russia used them last year they were accused of committing war crimes.

In fact former WH spokesperson Jen Psaki accused Russia of war crimes at the time.

Reporter "; There are reports of illegal cluster bombs and vacuum bombs being used by the Russians," "If that’s true, what is the next step of this administration? And is there a red line for how much violence will be tolerated against civilians in this manner that’s illegal and potentially a war crime?"

Psaki : It is — it would be. I don’t have any confirmation of that. We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime,"

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, February 28, 2022 | The White House

But Quid Pro Joe is sending them to Ukraine anyway.

Biden sending cluster munitions to Ukraine despite humanitarian concerns (nypost.com)

Jake Sullivan says the difference is that Ukraine would be using them on their own territory . So hey ,civilians killed and maimed by unexploded ordinance don't matter .

• History has shown that large numbers of submunitions fail to explode on impact as intended. Credible estimates of the failure rates of these weapons in recent conflicts have varied from 10% to 40%. Large-scale use of these weapons has resulted in countries and regions being infested with tens of thousands, and sometimes millions, of unexploded and highly unstable submunitions.
• Unexploded submunitions often explode when handled or disturbed, posing a serious danger to civilians. The presence of these weapons poses a threat to displaced civilians returning to their homes, obstructs relief and reconstruction efforts and makes vital subsistence activities like farming hazardous for years or even decades after the conflict has ended.
• Because they are " area weapons, " which can release vast numbers of submunitions over an area of up to tens of thousands of square metres, the impact of cluster munitions on civilians during conflicts is also a serious concern, in particular when they are used in populated areas.
• As most submunitions are not precision-guided, their accuracy can be affected by weather and other environmental factors. They may therefore hit areas outside the military objective targeted. When such weapons are used in or near populated areas, they can pose a significant danger to civilians both during the attack and in the immediate post-strike period when people resume their normal activities

Cluster munitions: what are they and what is the problem? - ICRC



Sullivan says unlike Russian bombs ;the US bombs are much more reliable.
"There is a key difference between the type of cluster munition being used by Russia and the type that we will provide: ours have a maximum 2.5%. The dud rate in the Russian conditions is 30 to 40%."

(13) Biden's national security adviser explains US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine (cnn.com)

So why sent them ? The cluster bomb is mostly anti-personnel. Drop them in areas where Russians are dug in and the theory goes the Russian soldier becomes a casualty .

This serves another US purpose. that the compliant press won't report .
We are running out of howitzer rounds having sent more than 2 million rounds to Ukraine since the war began . But we have all these rounds of unused cluster bomb shells left over from the Iraq war just sitting in storage getting old .

As Ukraine prepares for an intense counter offensive this spring, it will likely need to fire 7,000 to 9,000 155 mm shells a day, said Yehor Cherniev, a member of Ukraine's parliament who spoke to reporters at the German Marshall Fund event.


In recent months, the Biden administration has been using presidential drawdown authority to send ammunition directly from U.S. military stockpiles to Ukraine, instead of having to wait and buy rounds from defense firms, so they can get there in time for the anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.
SIGNIFICANT SHELLS (theeagle.com)

So send in the cluster bombs .

[Curlyben]

Well it's one way to get rid of all that useless ordanance...

[tomder55]

And US companies like BlackRock stand to make a fortune cleaning up the mess when the war is over (if Ukraine wins)

BlackRock.pdf (princeton.edu)

BTW The MOST politically correct woke corporate executive on the planet by far is Black Rock CEO Larry Fink . He calls all the shots that other woke companies follow.

Of course he doesn't call it that . He calls it "stakeholder capitalism"

That would be the need to incorporate renewables development, managing natural resource , environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, including sustainability, human rights, justice, diversity ,inclusion ,equity (DIE) into longer-term, a stakeholder goal .

BlackRock's holdings are so immense that they can force many companies to comply to their agenda. Combined BlackRock and Vanguard own stakes in most of the world's biggest businesses. These asset management behemoths have tremendous leverage to set the agenda of the biggest companies in the world . Fink doesn't mind flexing that muscle

[tomder55]

Watching Sky News tonight. There was a lengthy report on the US decision. There was none of any substance on the US compliant press.

[jlisenbe]

I wonder what we're going to do when the monopoly bucks are no longer usable?

[tomder55]

inflate inflate inflate.


It says a lot about our own preparedness that we have to resort to sending munitions that most of the world thinks their use is a war crime,.

Brit PM Rishi Sunak does not agree with this move .

Quid is flying to London today prior to flying to the NATO summit to have a pow wow with Sunak and King Charles . Would love to hear what is said behind closed doors . Charles of course is more interested in discussing climate change.

[tomder55]

2006 NATO nations comitted to spend 2% of their GDP on defense.

How are they doing ?

[jlisenbe]

We are chumps and we’ve been chumps for a long time

[tomder55]

The US made Laos the most heavily bombed neutral country in history between 1964-1973.(a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years )

Among the bombs dropped were 270 million cluster bombs. 80 million un-exploded ordinance (UXO) are still scattered in the nation. It is estimated that this nation of 7 million people has suffered 20,000 civilian casualties(killed and wounded ) from cluster bomb explosions since the end of the war.

The Bombing of Laos: By the Numbers - ABC News

So why do we send them to Ukraine ? Because we have them on the shelf gathering dust .

The U.S. has a stockpile of cluster munitions containing about 1 billion submunitions.
Cluster Munition Coalition U.S. (noclusterbombs.org)

[tomder55]

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that rules based international order is a joke. If not then the international community must update it's rules to change cluster bombs from their use as a war crime to their use as an essential tool to end a war in the name of a rules based international order.

[tomder55]

King Charles needed to temporarily become Clueless Joe's puppet master

King Charles appears to usher Biden on after he loiters talking to soldier - YouTube