Chamblee54

This content was published February 26, 2008. … This item was in kikoshouse today: “Barack Obama wants to ban the use of cluster bombs while Hillary Clinton and John McCain don’t. What makes the use of these submunitions, which are miniature bombs nested inside a mother bomb, so insidious is that they drop beneath tissue parachutes and are magnets for unsuspecting Iraqi children. Some 82 countries have signed the Wellington Declaration to ban cluster bombs, but don’t expect the U.S. to join them anytime soon.”
Cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched munitions that eject a number of smaller submunitions (“bomblets”).When they are dropped on enemy territory, many of the bomblets fail to explode, and form a land mine like hazard. They are often dropped with tissue like parachutes.
They have been called “Lethal Pinatas.” They are often a bright yellow. This is similar to food packages, and can confuse someone who does not speak english.
They remain on the ground, waiting to explode, when civilian populations return home after the war. According to Handicap International: “Ninety-eight percent of cluster submunitions casualties are civilians killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive.”
ADDENDUM – A 2008 article takes a familiar rhetorical turn. “But isn’t the campaign against cluster bombs just a cover for those opposed to Israel? While we’re at it, why does Israel always get singled out for using them against Lebanon? … Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, a minister in Angela Merkel’s German government, was one who felt the sting of being labeled an anti-Semite. After referring to the cluster bomb as “a sort of lethal piñata,” she asked the United Nations to investigate its use by Israel in civilian areas of Lebanon.”
“On June 7, 2023, the US Department of Defense announced that President Joe Biden had signed a “determination” that the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine was necessary for the national security interests of the United States. He authorized the transfer of an unspecified number of cluster munitions that have a greater than 1% unexploded ordnance rate to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
“The Ukrainian conflict has recorded the highest confirmed death and injury toll from cluster munitions for the third year running, UN-backed researchers said on Monday. According to the latest Cluster Munitions Monitor, more than 1,200 people are known to have been killed or maimed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The true figure is likely much higher, but it could be years before an accurate number is known, said Loren Persi, team lead for the Cluster Munition Monitor report.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in November 1940. “ Having a beer in “Art’s Sportsman’s Tavern” on a rainy day in Colchester, Connecticut” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah