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Cluster Bombs and Doing The Right Thing

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Guest post by Ron Chusid

The conventional wisdom in this campaign has been that Obama and Clinton agree on most issues. While there are certainly areas of agreement, I’ve noted many significant differences in the past which have affected my decision as to who to support. One of these areas of difference is the topic of an international conference with representatives from 122 countries Wellington, New Zealand. The conference aims to draft text for a treaty to ban cluster bombs.

During the conference it was noted that four out of every ten people killed or injured by cluster bombs are children. It takes a village, or in this case an international consensus, to ban cluster bombs. From a report on the conference via AfterDowningStreet:

Opening the conference, Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said a strong declaration on cluster bombs at the conference would mark a pivotal step in getting the weapons banned.

More than half of the 76 states in the world that stockpile cluster munitions are taking part in the negotiations, along with a majority of the weapon producers.

However, major producers such as the US, Russia, China and Pakistan have not joined the process and have no observers at the conference.

Cluster bombs are built to explode above the ground, releasing thousands of bomblets primed to detonate on impact. But combat statistics show between 10 percent and 40 percent fail to go off and lie primed in the target area to kill and injure civilians.

UNICEF deputy executive director Hilde Frafjord Johnson, speaking on behalf of 14 United Nations entities that form the United Nations Mine Action Team, said the UN wanted cluster bombs banned.

She said the weapons had a horrendous humanitarian, development and human rights impact.

As I suggested at the start, this report relates to one of the differences between Obama and Clinton. Earlier in the month David Rees wrote the following at The Huffington Post:

Cluster bombs and landmines are particularly terrifying weapons that wreak havoc on communities trying to recover from war. They are fatal impediments to reconstruction and rehabilitation of agricultural land; they destroy valuable livestock; they disable otherwise productive members of society; they maim or kill children trying to salvage them for scrap metal.

Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.

Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.

Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing “soft on terror,” as it would have harmed her electibility.

I’m not a single-issue voter. But as Obama and Clinton share many policy positions, this vote was revelatory for me. After all, Amendment No. 4882 was an easy one to vote against: Who’d want to risk accusation of “tying the hands of the Pentagon” during a never-ending, global War on Terror? As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.

But Senator Obama did the right thing.

This is just one more issue, but it is also part of a pattern I’ve noted in comparing the views of Obama and Clinton. Just as on this issue, Clinton frequently favors the status quo, while Obama has done the right thing in supporting change.

Cross posted from Liberal Values

Comments

  • Steve

    says:

    Apparently, Clinton believes that the terrorists are pathetically stupid enough to walk up to an undetonated bomblet lying on the ground—and just pick it up. She apparently thinks that the jihadists—some of whom join the armed effort against the United States because their villages have been the victims of such horrendous weapons—have not seen, fist-hand, the after-effects of merely coming into close-contact proximity with one of these things.

    If I can launch a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone—using nothing but OTH computerized technology—and hit the license plate of a car, then WTF do I need a cluster-bomb for? Knowledge that the bomblets have such a high incidence of delayed contact detonation suggests a weapon that clearly violates the Geneva Conventions as regards the waging of aggressive war against civilian populations.

  • Bernard HP Gilroy

    says:

    Look, certainly not to take Sen. Clinton’s side here, but the intent of a cluster bomb is not to have the enemy walk over and pick it up. Cluster bombs are multiple bomblets — high dispersion for greater effect. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bomb). Their area of effect is larger so their effectiveness is increased. They’re also really good for destroying extended targets like runways or railroad beds.

    The major threat to civilians comes from the fact that a noticeable fraction (I have no source on how high a fraction) of the bomblets fails to explode but remain dangerous. Even years after the conflict, these little bomblets can be found and accidentally detonated — by, most poignantly, a kid thinking it’s a soccer ball or whatnot.

    I don’t really see how cluster bombers are useful for anti-terror operation, but despite attempts to paint them as Just Evil, there is (or was) a legitimate military use for them. Of course, now that we’re reasonably sure the Red Army isn’t going to roll across the plains of Germany, there might well be no reason to keep using them. I don’t know — but please don’t just assume that anyone voting against the treaty automatically had to be selfish, weak, or stupid.

  • libra

    says:

    Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon, in July of ’06. There’s no way Hillary Clinton — the junior Senator from New York — would have voted to ban them a few short weeks later, since, at that time, with the events still fresh in everyone’s memory, it would have been considered a condemnation of Israel’s actions.

  • Lex

    says:

    The cluster bomb amendment doesn’t even attempt to ban the ordinance, only to ban the use of them in civilian areas. With all our “smart” weaponry and our honorable attempts to limit “collateral damage”, you’d think that voting for the ban would be a no brainer. Of course, i expect Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to be big fans of cluster bombs any time, anywhere…but it is disheartening to think that a Democratic presidential nominee is in favor of them.

    I’m more upset about the landmine ban vote. I’ve lived in a country that hasn’t managed to rid itself of landmines more than 50 years after the cessation of hostilities. I can tell you that nothing ruins a walk in the woods like a big red sign warning you that there are certainly mines around, but exactly how many and exactly where beyond the sign is unknown.

    When i add votes like these to the big picture, i find it hard to believe that the AUMF in Iraq vote was about being misled or any other excuse. I see a pattern, and i really don’t like it

  • bobb

    says:

    Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing “soft on terror,” as it would have harmed her electibility.

    Great. Taking the definition of “soft on terror” straight from the right-wing fear machine.

    Presumably that’s why she voted to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq, too.

    Presumably that’s why she expressed a desire to make torture legal in some circumstances.

    Presumably that’s why she voted for Kyl-Lieberman.

    Presumably that’s why she said last August that the surge is “working”.

    So here’s the question for any Hillary supporters. If she’s so concerned about not appearing “soft on terror,” what’s she going to do if she’s elected? Is she going to continue to toe the line on what the right-wing fear machine defines to be “not soft on terror”?

  • petorado

    says:

    Clusterbombs, landmines, chemical and biological weapons and tactical nuclear weapons are all in the category of “Jack Bauer and the ticking time bomb scenario” weapons. Sure you can dream up with a situation where they would be used in good conscience, but those scenarios have no reflection on how they are used these days. The wars we are fighting anymore do not have regular armies separate from civilian populations and easy to target. We are increasingly fighting wars against irregulars, insurgents and other forces hiding among civilians and blending back into the local population. To truly win today’s wars, winning the hearts and minds of the local population is essential, hence our effed-up Iraq occupation, and these weapons won’t do that for us. These weapons all leave the lasting damage for civilians to face long after all the troops have left and even after the war recedes from memory.

    Congratulations for Barack to take the humane road, while Hillary’s position reflects that sort of middle of the road political pragmatism that sure looks an awful like moral spinelessness to me.

  • libra

    says:

    Mr Furious, @9

    It would have been the *moral* thing to have done. “Right”? For a junior senator from New York? “Politically suicidal” is more like it.

  • Steve

    says:

    libra, play the scenario out a little bit more. “Doing the right thing” vs. “doing what’s best for me.”

    Is it any wonder as to why Clinton keeps getting her butt kicked in the primaries? The gods themselves do not want her in the WH—and thankfully, the same fate awaits the little troll from Arizona. I think we’re on the cusp of seeing a new dawn of a new era upon the Republic….

  • President PNACcio

    says:

    libra said:
    Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon, in July of ‘06. There’s no way Hillary Clinton — the junior Senator from New York — would have voted to ban them a few short weeks later, since, at that time, with the events still fresh in everyone’s memory, it would have been considered a condemnation of Israel’s actions.

    This bears repeating-

    Hillary has acknowleged that she recieves a lot of Jewish support from the State of New York. She has become beholden to the Israel Lobby and has to factor this into her decisionmaking. But it didn’t begin when she ran for Senate in New York. Let’s not forget who they picked to run with Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.

    When the world sees the greatest threats to peace as Israel and the United States, we can not allow another administration that is so heavily influenced by Israel, or Saudi Arabia, or any other foreign interest, for that matter.

  • NB

    says:

    To be fair, despite doing the “right thing” and trying to shift our foreign policy to different MO, Senator Obama is still all about increasing the size of the military…

    and his justification seems to be partially based in the need to “defend the homeland,” a sentiment based in popular pro-war logic