Seventy countries have called for a ban on cluster bombs. The USA, Soviet Union and China are not among them. Why?
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John Baker’s Blog
Reflections of a working writer and reader
Reflections of a working writer and reader
Seventy countries have called for a ban on cluster bombs. The USA, Soviet Union and China are not among them. Why?
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Jun 7th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Because they’re run by tyrannical assholes.
jb says: Hi Andrew. The question was rhetorical. But you’re not a long way off the mark.
Jun 7th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
No truer word, John.
Jun 8th, 2007 at 7:41 am
John, I’d qualify with the word ‘hypocrisy’ too, I bet.
jb says: Sham virtue. Yes, Susan, that cluster bombs seem to make so many people happy passes a strange comment on our time. There are also, of course, several states which are involved in the process simply because they don’t want others to decide for them.
Jun 9th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Andrew, how dare you call Americans tyrannical assholes! Don’t you know America saved the free world during World War II and then nothing else ever happened and this one historical event justifies all American actions since then, forever and ever, Amen?
Charlie Baker
Jun 9th, 2007 at 11:36 am
There seems to be some sort of competition going on about which horrible,inhumane,ect.weapons system is to be singled out for all sorts emotional hand-wringing and empty noise.
It varies periodically,going from napalm to land mines to white phosphorus to shooting people with shotgun or.50cal. Machine gun rounds or whatever is the really current bad thing that needs to outlawed for humanity’s sake.
I remember a class I went to in Infantry Training School,while in the Marine Corps,about white phosphorus.The instructor made it very clear that WP was only to be used to destroy equipment and that it was “unlawful”(whatever the hell that meant) to directly target enemy personnel.
He then went on to define equipment as small arms,ammo,helmets,web gear,packs,uniforms,boots,radios,ect. and that just because they happened to be attached to/worn by individuals that would be hit by WP,since we were targeting their gear,it was perfectly alright that we’d fry them when we destroyed it.
Jun 9th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I forgot about that, Charlie. Though it’s a bit interesting to know what he grandfathers of GWB were during WW2. The answer involves what would generally be described as treason.
And the kind of reasoning the ugly regimes try to use typically involves finding the present US regime loathsome makes one anti-American; the same as not being especially enthused by the gulags made one anti-Russian, or not very admiring of the Nazis anti-German.