Regrettably, U.S. Provided Cluster Munitions To Ukraine

One third of all recorded cluster munitions casualties are children.

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA.) - I served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After the war, I returned to Vietnam with my wife as a tourist. We visited North and South Vietnam and then went on to Cambodia and Laos. It was a fascinating but sobering visit.

While in both Cambodia and Laos, we saw many limbless villagers on crude artificial legs whose limbs had been lost by unexploded, U.S.-sourced ordinance.

Regrettably, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. has provided cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite concerns from human rights groups and some U.S. allies that their use will lead to more civilian casualties. Ukraine has already fired U.S.-provided cluster munitions at Russian forces.

A cluster munition, or cluster bomb, is a weapon containing multiple explosive submunitions.

They are dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground or sea, opening up in mid-air to release tens or hundreds of submunitions, which can saturate an area up to the size of several football fields.

Anybody within the strike area of the cluster munition is very likely to be killed or seriously injured. Up to 40% fail to explode on impact.

In the 1960s-1970s, US forces made extensive use of cluster munitions in bombing campaigns in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. T

he International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that in Laos alone, 9 to 27 million unexploded submunitions remain thus becoming land mines, and some 11,000 people have been killed or injured, more than 30% of them children. It is estimated that 9,500 sorties in Cambodia delivered up to 87,000 air-dropped cluster munitions.

Human rights groups say that the use of cluster bombs in populated areas is a violation of international humanitarian law because they cause indiscriminate destruction. Sixty percent of cluster bomb casualties are people injured while undertaking everyday activities, according to Reuters. One third of all recorded cluster munitions casualties are children.

On May 30, 2008, the Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of a Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted by 123 nations on 3 December the same year. The Convention became binding international law on 1 August 2010. The Convention of Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions.

Shamefully, the U.S., Russia and Ukraine have not signed the treaty although U.S. did not use them in its military operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. The U.S. did not sign because it wants to retain such munitions in combat emergencies.

In a year and a half of conflict, land mines, unexploded bombs, artillery shells and other deadly byproducts of war have contaminated a swath of Ukraine about the size of Florida. It is now the world’s most mined country.

The United Nations has recorded 298 civilian deaths from explosive remnants of war, 22 of them children, and 632 civilian injuries. Adding Cluster munitions poses an added risk by leaving remnants that fail to explode upon impact becoming landmines.

Cluster bombs should never be used. By sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, the U.S. risks losing any "moral leadership” it may have.

What’s next: Using chemical weapons again? Remember the U.S. use of “Agent Orange" in Vietnam when the U.S. military dumped 80 million litres of agent orange/dioxins in Vietnam.

At least 2.1 million were victims of the toxins while another 4.8 million were indirectly affected. Or maybe, the U.S. can start the widespread use of torture again.