"Lethal Pinatas": Keeping Cluster Bombs from Kids

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13037

"Lethal Pinatas": Keeping Cluster Bombs from Kids
by Russ Wellen | February 23, 2008

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Do cluster bombs really pose as grave a danger as land mines?

"There is a common misperception that cluster munitions are sophisticated weapons," writes Stephen D. Goose in the recent Arms Control Today. Representing Human Rights Watch and the Cluster Munition Coalition, he was also an organizer of last week's conference (as well as Jody Williams's husband). Neither the bomb nor the submunitions, Goose explains, are precision guided.

In fact, it's not well known, but, besides Lebanon, they caused more civilian casualties than any other weapon during the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and our invasion of Iraq.

Just how widespread is their use and manufacture?

They're stockpiled by 76 countries. "The United States alone," explains Goose, "has an estimated one billion submunitions."

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In the interim, all Americans of conscience owe a debt to Norway, New Zealand, and the 80 other countries which signed the Wellington Declaration for helping to keep the torch of humanity burning during America's dark years.