Worried About “Stigmatizing” Cluster Bombs, House Approves More Sales to Saudi Arabia

[cali]

Disgusting. Despicable. Indefensible.

The House on Thursday narrowly defeated a measure that would have banned the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, but the closeness of the vote was an indication of growing congressional opposition to the conduct of the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing coalition in Yemen.

The vote was mostly along party lines, with 200 Republicans – and only 16 Democrats – heeding the Obama administration’s urging to vote against the measure. The vote was 204-216.

“The Department of Defense strongly opposes this amendment,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the House Committee on Defense Appropriations, during floor debate. “They advise us that it would stigmatize cluster munitions, which are legitimate weapons with clear military utility.”

Cluster munitions are large shell casings that scatter hundreds or thousands of miniature explosives over large areas – often the size of several football fields. Some of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, leaving mine-like explosives that kill civilians and destroy farmland decades after a conflict ends.

Cluster bombs are banned by an international treaty signed by 119 countries not including the United States. The United States opposed the treaty, and instead of signing it, adopted a policy that cluster bombs should never be used in concentrated, civilian areas.

Speaking in support of the amendment, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Saudi Arabia has deliberately targeted civilians with cluster bombs. “Earlier this year, the Saudi-led coalition dropped cluster bombs in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, specifically targeting known civilian neighborhoods,” he said. “One of the buildings hit was the al Noor Center for Care and Rehabilitation for the Blind, which also has a school for blind children. The destruction of the school and the injuries sustained by the children was unbearably gruesome.”

<snip>

read:https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs-house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/

[Scootaloo]

1. These are the Democrats who joined the no vote

Aguilar
Bishop (GA)
Cooper
Cuellar
Davis (CA)
Delaney
Engel
Gallego
Green
Maloney
Peters
Ruppersberger
Sherman
Sires
Smith (WA)
Vela

And the non-votes
Brown (FL)
Doyle, Michael F.
Fattah
Schakowsky
Scott
Takai
Wilson (FL)

[MH1]

11. Fattah's busy working on his criminal defense

So you won't see him at too many votes.

He's always been reliably liberal so he wouldn't have been in the top list if he voted, I'm sure. Unfortunately he either did something incredibly stupid, or incredibly corrupt, or is getting railroaded. (I honestly can't decipher which it is, but from what I've heard, it sounds like a combination of all three, with emphasis on the first two. Huge disappointment for this former supporter.)

[gratuitous]

2. Cowardly motherfuckers

And that's all I have to say about that; otherwise I might want to see some cluster bombs dropped in the district of certain House members so they can see up close and personal what they inflict on the rest of the world, and two wrongs don't make a right.

[cali]

3. It's very dispiriting.

[cali]

4. kick for an actual issue worthy of discussion

[CanonRay]

5. And a nice campaign contribution

From whoever makes the dawn things.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. Cluster bombs should be taken out of our arsenal...

a popular way of fusing these things is setting some to explode on contact, and some a few minutes later- just in time to kill the people who are coming to help out the injured. That is barbaric.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. So much for "White House Blocks Transfer of Cluster Bombs to Saudi Arabia"

It got them a nice headline in Foreign Policy and Mother Jones a few weeks ago, but now, it's "the Department of Defense strongly opposes this amendment", and the Obama administration's "block" disappears in a puff of smoke and civilian bodyparts. The Military Industrial Complex asserts its control again.

That's a shameful act by Obama.

[Arazi]

8. Hillary Clinton stands with Obama on this. Shameful

[cali]

9. it's disappointing as hell. I hate those motherfucking things

[cali]

10. kick- con brio