Nonetheless

Michael Slackman wrote in The New York Times recently about the cluster bombs that were dropped by Israel on Southern Lebanon in the last days of the conflict and how the area is now littered with 1 million unexploded bomblets.

I found some of Slackman's wording a bit interesting, for example in the snippet below:

"Cluster bombs are legal if aimed at military targets and very effective, military experts say. Nonetheless, Israel has been heavily criticized, by UN officials, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.".

So unless my English sucks, I believe nonetheless means "in spite of that". So what is being subtly implied is that the effectiveness of the weapons & choice of victims justifies the grotesque end result. And we're supposed to take Israel at it's word that it targeted only military personnel.

Slackman also frames his words very very carefully making sure that full blame for starting the conflict rests fully with anyone except Israel.

"a conflict that began when Hezbollah lobbed rockets into northern Israel and sent fighters across the border to capture Israeli soldiers"

This is a very myopic view of the entire situation ignoring past history of the conflict. No mention is made of events prior to the conflict. So we're supposed to believe that Israel has never abducted anyone, never repressed anyone, never committed any atrocities, never tried to annex land, never abducted any civilians (mind you, civilians not soldiers were abducted by Israel on June 24th before the conflict supposedly was started by the Hezbollah). And I guess we're also supposed to forget that Israel never invaded Lebanon in 1982.

Now back to those cluster bombs:

Cluster bombs are deadly for 3 main reasons (even if supposedly targeted against military personnel):

• Each bomb is composed of hundreds of bomblets that are packed with razor-sharp shrapnel dispersed at super-high speed over an area of 22 football fields (called footprint) ripping into human bodies
• Bomblets are colored yellow and shaped like a can of soft drink and therefore attractive to children.
• "Unexploded Ordinance" which is what is being referred to in this post. Typically, 5 to 30% fail to explode initially.

It is no secret that a lot of weapons used by Israel (including cluster bombs) have been supplied by the United States. Now at least, the US State Department has certain agreements with Israel on how its weapons can be used (small consolation). In response to the use of cluster bombs, the State Department has unofficially launched an inquiry into whether the bombs where used exclusively against military targets.

According to this article, "The investigation has not been publicly announced; but the State Department confirmed it in response to questions."

Also, the fact that the weapons are supplied by the United States poses very fundamental question. Weapons used by client states of America (such as Israel) are heavily subsidized by US tax-payer money. So, you, innocent reader, are fully complicit in any war by the Unites States or any of its client states.

Textron, Inc. is one of the defense contractors that manufactures cluster bombs.

Look here for the specification of a cluster bomb which has the following snippet ... "A Pre-Planned Product Improvement (P3I) Program will take the existing design and make modifications to the projectile sensor, incorporating a dual mode (active/passive IR) for better target detection; modify the warhead to enhance soft target lethality; and increase the system footprint for better target coverage"

Cluster bombs are just another example of humanity at it's finest.


Latest Update:

According to UN estimates, "Up to a million cluster bomblets discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded in southern Lebanon. About 40% of the cluster bombs fired or dropped by Israel failed to detonate - three times the UN's previous estimate. The problem could delay the return home of about 200,000 displaced people by up to two years." Talk about collective punishment!

To compound matters, Israel also admits to using phosphorus bombs during the conflict.

References:

1) The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex, Revised and Updated Edition (Paperback)
by Helen Caldicott
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bombs
3) Israel captures pair in Gaza raid