I was recently informed by email that Senator Feinstein (D-CA) had proposed S.J. Res. 37, a bill initially introduced to urge President Bush to participate in negotiations concerning the Declaration of the Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions. He declined and that time has passed. The bill now urges the President to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The Convention’s purpose is to stop the use of dangerous cluster munitions throughout the world as they, at times, go undetonated. Civilians -- many times children -- then inadvertently detonate the cluster munitions years after military conflicts have ceased. And don’t disregard the amount of civilians killed by cluster munitions during war, as well.
So I emailed Senator Lieberman like any good American interested in democracy would, only to receive a generic response stating that he was not opposed to the “strategic usage of cluster munitions.”
Enter unsettling paradox. If Senator Lieberman is informed enough to make the decision that banning cluster munitions would not be a good idea for the military, then surely he is aware of the maiming and wrath that cluster munitions unleash on completely innocent individuals – not even civilian casualties of war, but after the fact casualties whose deaths are the results of taking casual strolls to and from shops, and children walking home from schools. The question is then, is Senator Lieberman properly weighing the risk versus the utility of cluster munitions? If the answer is “yes,” then the probability that he simply does not care about the innocent lives being lost is exponentially increased. If the answer is “no,” then he is clearly misinformed. Maybe he is simply trying to find an amenable balance between the two. But we don’t need a balance, we need President Bush to sign the Convention so people can stop dying.
With all of the precision weapons systems that exist, what is the point in using cluster munitions, especially when, according to S.J. Res. 37, they have a 5-15% fail-rate? And for countries that do not have the technology, it is a safe bet to say that we don’t want them to have cluster munitions anymore than we want them to have WMDs or Uranium Enrichment Programs. The President won’t budge because he is stubborn. But Senator Feinstein’s noble Resolution to urge Congress to call upon him to sign the Convention is the perfect way to begin to address this issue. But Senator Lieberman won’t do it. He “support[s] the President's decision not to participate in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which would require signatories to stop producing and using cluster bombs and to eliminate their stockpiles within eight years.”
I know war is a time of desperation, at times attrition, death and loss, victory at any cost, but come on, let’s get real for a minute here, warfare has come a long way from using trebuchets. We have missiles that can pinpoint a building thousands of miles away, do we really need to be dropping tons of tiny bombs that haphazardly fall like giant hail, and then don’t even blow up, leaving them strewed about for civilians to stumble upon and blow themselves to smithereens after a war has ended three decades ago, such as in Vietnam and Laos? It’s ridiculous, irrational, and it is in horrible form as far as humanity is concerned.
In Senator Lieberman’s email he stated that one reason for his opposition to ruling out the usage of cluster bombs was because, “our armed forces use cluster bombs under the most limited circumstances, only in situations where no other munitions would be capable.” but then, not two sentences later, he stated that he does support “develop[ing] more efficient and effective cluster bomb technology designed to limit the danger posed by munitions and submunitions that fail to explode.” His arguments thus lead us to the conclusion that Senator Lieberman is aware of the “limited circumstances” in which cluster bombs are used, but is in favor of developing the technology -- he is in favor of refining outdated technology that we rarely use and kills innocent people years after military conflicts have ceased.
When all is said and done, regardless of strategy or policy, cluster munitions are morally repugnant, and as someone who prides himself on having a conscience within the Senate, Senator Lieberman should know better.
For more information please see the following:
A text of S.J. Res. 37 - http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=sj110-37
Wikipedia entry on Cluster Munitions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bomb
General background and news on the movement to ban cluster bomb practices - http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/ and http://www.clusterconvention.org
