photo from Amnesty International.
Most people would probably agree that cluster bombs are hideous weapons–deadly, indiscriminate, and likely to kill or injure civilians.
So it was no surprise to see this headline on the front page of the New York Times (12/21/12):
Syria Unleashes Cluster Bombs on Town, Punishing Civilians
As the headline indicates, cluster bombs are especially dangerous to noncombatants. And the Times story by C.J. Chivers is a moving account of what it is like to live in such a warzone. It begins:
The plane came in from the southeast late in the afternoon, releasing its weapons in a single pass. Within seconds, scores of finned bomblets struck and exploded on the homes and narrow streets of this small Syrian town.
After the screams and the desperate gathering of the victims, the staff at the local Freedom Hospital counted four dead and 23 wounded. All were civilians, doctors and residents said.
The war in Syria is horrific, and this evidence is especially disturbing. As Chivers notes:
The Syrian government’s attack here on December 12 pointed to one of the war’s irrefutable patterns: the deliberate targeting of civilians by President Bashar al-Assad’s military, in this case with a weapon that is impossible to use precisely.
What kind of government would deploy such weapons, a reader might wonder? The Times gives one answer, if you’re reading carefully:
The use of cluster munitions is banned by much of the world, although Syria, like the United States, is not party to that international convention.
But there’s more to it than that.
On December 17, 2009, Barack Obama ordered a cluster bomb attack in Yemen that reportedly killed dozens of civilians. The attack was not widely reported; the Times weighed in on it months later, in the midst of a piece (8/15/10) about Obama’s shadow war against Al-Qaeda:
As word of the December 17 attack filtered out, a very mixed picture emerged. The Yemeni press quickly identified the United States as responsible for the strike. Qaeda members seized on video of dead children and joined a protest rally a few days later, broadcast by Al Jazeera, in which a speaker shouldering an AK-47 rifle appealed to Yemeni counterterrorism troops.
The Times account is more restrained than its reporting on the attack in Syria:
A Navy ship offshore had fired the weapon in the attack, a cruise missile loaded with cluster bombs, according to a report by Amnesty International. Unlike conventional bombs, cluster bombs disperse small munitions, some of which do not immediately explode, increasing the likelihood of civilian causalities. The use of cluster munitions, later documented by Amnesty, was condemned by human rights groups.
An inquiry by the Yemeni Parliament found that the strike had killed at least 41 members of two families living near the makeshift Qaeda camp. Three more civilians were killed and nine were wounded four days later when they stepped on unexploded munitions from the strike, the inquiry found.
The lesson to be drawn is that, at the very least, the use of cluster bombs against civilians is newsworthy depending on who is using them. If it’s an enemy state, like Syria or Qaddafi’s Libya, you can expect to read about it, and in clear language on the front page. “Qaddafi Is Using Cluster Bombs in Civilian Area”–that’s the page 1 headline in the New York Times (4/16/11). As FAIR’s Jim Naureckas noted at the time, the destruction was described in vivid terms: “Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.”
And an article like this will mention, almost in passing, that our own government does the same:
At the same time, the United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.
Of course, it is much more difficult to report on the United States’ secret drone war in a remote part of Yemen. But one Yemeni journalist did that. Abdulelah Haider Shaye provided an indispensable link to the carnage on the ground. (See Jeremy Scahill’s excellent piece in the Nation—3/13/12.)
Where is he now? In prison in Yemen, doing time on a dubious terrorism charge. Efforts to secure him a pardon progressed over the past several years, and it looked like Yemeni authorities were willing to free him. That is, until Barack Obama made a phone call to Yemen to express his concern–that the reporter might be released.
If honest reporting is inimicable to US interests
The hopeful dictum that “The truth will make you free”
Holds a bitter irony
I am trying to picture the munitions workers assembling these devices in a factory somewhere. If we were to take a poll of the employees there, how would they rate the work environment, job satisfaction, and benefits?
I’d be particularly interested in the design meetings attended by the engineers. I’m picturing a conference room where various people are suggesting design improvements, how to increase profitability of finished product, and possibly even new “features.” I don’t know; what sorts of people might enjoy designing, improving, and marketing these devices?
And where does this factory recruit its workers from? Colleges and universities? I assume this organization is no different than any other; they no doubt want the very best and brightest engineers, wouldn’t they? I wonder qualities would an interviewer be looking for in job candidates. I guess “team player” would be one of them.
This entire scenario is incomprehensible to me. Sure, building traditional weapons of war might be somewhat of a challenge to the workers who manufacture them, but those were meant mainly for (hopefully) strategic attacks, not tactical ones. All war and all suffering is to be condemned for certain; all weapons of war are equally complicit to that extent. (The bombing of German war-making factories was at least strategic; the bombing of Dresden was no more responsible an act of war than the use of cluster bombs is.)
No war is good. No weapons is good. But somehow, to me, weapons that are designed with the sole, malicious, inhumane intent to kill and maim civilians as opposed to targeting combatants and the means of war production is of an entirely different order.
But I may be very wrong about this.
@no Difference
Your failing to take into consideration the amount of propaganda that has passed for new reporting over the years. Not unlike the people who scream bloody murder about some one hunting an animal to eat, while sitting there with ketchup and mustard dribbling out of their mouths from the ‘juicy 2 lb hamburger’ from FastFoodsInc, many people here in America practice a very distinct “artificial stupidity” by either pretending what they are making will only be used against ‘real combatants’; or from what I have seen in recent times “we all know THEY eat babies for breakfast, and kill indiscriminately” so THEY all deserve to get what they get, because ‘god’ will make it so.
In short, the fools have no more connection to what they are doing as flies to pile of dung have any care other than “their job”, and so using the old doublethink they talk themselves out of concern for anyone but ‘their side’.
@No Difference
“This entire scenario is incomprehensible to me.”
The banality of evil applies here.
Ostensibly ethical behavior resulting in a moral outrage.
the U.S. has always used cluster bombs.WWII for instance.Find the most destructive weapons made by man and we invented them,use them and sell them.Anyone remember the atomic bombs? Japan does.
The “submunitions” in a cluster bomb often fail to explode and remain hanging in trees or laying on the ground with a hair trigger, waiting for some unknown person or animal to brush the bomb or even the tree just enough to set them off. Germany used a cluster bomb with similar results during World War II (the contents of the main case were called “butterfly bombs”). Their use was widely condemned as a war crime.
Having been involved for years in supporting the clearing UXO,s ( cluster bombs ) in Laos left over from the American secrete Indochina war & COPE who make artificial limbs to patch up mostly poor kids who collect scrap metal to try & feed their family,s, i can see we have not learn’t very much at all!
It must be exhausting to be able to focus so hard on the crimes of others without seeing your own faults.
I want you to avoid this kind of discussion that seems to work opposite to what you stand for, namely, justifting the continuous Syrian regime aggression and atrocities , because the US has used the same weapon before . I am even cocerned about a more dangerous effect,namely to creat a sympathetic response to the Tyrant of syria among your readers, when some people may feel defensive about the policies of USA , and if we are doing this , the Assad’s regime may have the right to use it as well .
As an American doctor of a syrian decent I am very familiar with what is going on in Syria, the war there is not only “horrific” , but it is an ongoing genocide of unequal dimension in the current history of mankind , it has been an ongoing massacre after massacre happening daily for almost two years.
Supported by Iran , Hezbollah, China and Russia, Assad’s regime has used every atrocity heard of against humanity, and more : he has tortured poeple to death, used cluster bombs , phsphorus bombs, scudd missiles, helicopters, military planes and even bomber planes , not against an enemy of his country, but all against the poeple of his own country : according to the UN sources he has killed more than 62,000 civilians, and he destoyed more than 2.4 million houses (about 10 million people without shelter in this harsh winter ) but he has done atrocities unheard of in the history of mankind which qualifies him to be named as first in the guinnes book of tyrants of the world and that is : ” torturing children to death ” can you imagine torturing children starting from age 5 months to 14 years to death?! this was done by him and his secret services , and you can search ” torture of children in Syria” and see for yourself .
Please be sensitive to the suffering of the Syrian people who are being killed in scores (200 people in halfaya were killed when a bomb hit the line waiting to buy bread, next day a bakery in Homs was hit and the third day a third bakery was hit , with many people injured or killed ) for the whole past year MORE THAN 100 innocent civilians are being killed EVERY DAY by the Assad’s regime including children, women and elderly, while many more are injured, disabled or crippled. the major cities in the county including Aleppo,” a city of 4 million poeple” , has no electricity, gas , fuel , food and even water for a prolonged period of time, some people even let to live in CAVES IN THE MOUNTAINS to escape from the indiscriminate bombing.
I agree with you that using a cluster bomb is not right for anyone , but we should not focus on ONE point and forget about the big picture ,
Thank you for your efforts , and I hope you will make an effort to have the big picture in mind and be sensitive to the suffering of the poeple involved when you discuss an extremely complex issue, such as the genocide in Syria , in the future .
No different than comparing a battlefield strike that kills ensconced civilians to a strike that deliberately targets non combatants.The US does not do it.Period!Syria does..This is the horse of a different color so often used in speaking of Israel
Pres. Obama the better of the two rancid choices for president twice in a row. Isnt’ that brilliant of the Plutocrat strategists to take over the two parties and make one more obviously worse than the other? I do. We see that as far as the external empire is concerned Republicans and Democrats are nearly identical. Within the USA Obama seems slightly to the lift of the most foam at the mouth Teabaggers which isn’t far at all. A table could be to the left of them just sitting there.
So night gaunt your spots finally come into view.It is not this or that.Or that or this.Right or left.It is all the same problem………The United States Of America.With of course the tea party leading the way as they are the staunchest protectors of the constitution of this great land.Would you call yourself a patriot of this country?Or just the opposite?
I’m beginning to feel like the guy in The Matrix who just wanted to taste beef steak again, even if it was an illusion.
@asakkal
The big picture? The big picture is that the US, NATO, Israel, Turkey, and Qatar are funding terrorism and using cluster bombs and abetting terrorists to kill innocents in Syria and other countries to terrorize and weaken democratic resistence to any country who remains independent of Imperialism and does not want to open their country, resources, and labor to capital penetration. Assad, his security forces and soldiers are couragously defending the Syrian population against Jihadis terrorism and US/NATO agression and their juggernauts.
Why do you want us to “avoid” such a discussion?
Carol what is your political affiliation?
Carol, your views are not acceptable means of comportment in our great land. What, or who, are you affiliated with? Tell us now, or else.
The day will come when the USA uses cluster bombs against its own citizens. A town will be declared to be a “terrorist-supporting stronghold” and will be decimated with terror weapons. “For their own good,” of course.
It isn’t as if any rational person still believes the USA is a free country. Think about it. No-warrant wire taps, indefinite detention of citizens without charges, approval of rendition of prisoners and torture, stop and frisk without probable cause, search and seizure without a warrant, no-knock entry, confiscation and destruction of cameras that might have been used to film police acting illegally, police brutality, police shootings that go without investigation, managed news, and the civil-rights destroying “Patriot” Act.
Acts of police behaving illegally, with shootings, Tasers, and unwarranted violence now appear almost daily. Rarely are these offenses punished. Most often “an investigation” is claimed, but soon forgotten.
In addition, the USA, with 5% of the world population, has 25% of all of the prisoners in the world. That means the USA has the most people in prison of any nation in history. Even by percentage of residents incarcerated, not just sheer numbers. USA is # 1! Does any of that sound like a free country?
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said about communism, “It’s like slicing sausage. First they out off a small slice. That isn’t worth fighting over. Then they take another small slice that isn’t worth fighting over. Then another and another. Finally, all you have left is the string and that isn’t worth fighting over, either.