YOUR SAY

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Is the new treaty to ban cluster bombs flawed?

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  • JOHN FROM COUNTRY VICTORIA SAYS:

    09:27:44 PM Wednesday, 2nd July, 2008

    Unfortunately, from a military perspective, CBUs (cluster bomb units) are an effective weapon against a variety of targets on the battlefield. Equally distressing, however is the fact that Western nations seem to have no issue in the deployment of these weapons regardless of the long-term consequences and yet they will complain about the use of land-mines. The real joke is that the Laws of Armed Combat (LOAC) actually try and rationalise something that is inherently irrational (ie: Warfare in general). To say that one weapon is immoral or cruel whilst another is acceptable is the true joke. It seems quite acceptable to many that an enemy combatant can be blown apart by a tumbling, high-velocity rifle round, but if the same combatant is killed by a mine, CBU, napalm or flamethrower it is considered barbaric. The chances of these weapons being banned is remote, given the US military's ingrained tactical doctrine.

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  • MIROM FROM MELBOURNE SAYS:

    11:25:58 PM Wednesday, 18th June, 2008

    Great coverage of impassioned Australian cluster bomb activist and the conference, revealing Australia's ambivalent stance. However no mention that in 2007 democrat senator Lyn Allison introduced a Bill to the senate to ban cluster bombs. She then discovered Australia's intention to acquire them, and thereafter the government made all efforts to thwart an international treaty. Her Bill was not passed in parliament. Late 2007, former defence minister, Brendan Nelson, purchased $14 million of cluster bombs. The recent treaty is weak - reducing the number of bomblets to 10 does not ban these lethal weapons. More bombs could be dropped instead. Children and innocents lives will still be maimed. Unexploded bomblets will remain a hidden danger. Massive amounts of cluster bombs were deliberately dropped on millions of innocent Japanese and German civilians in world war 2, causing horrific violent fire storms to rage through cities like Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, relentlessly destroying hundreds of thousands of lives in blazing infernos. Manufacturers of cluster bombs are financed by international banking institutions, including the ANZ bank. It is utterly disgraceful that Australia now possesses these criminal incediary weapons.

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