🇺🇸 Biden's Cluster Bombs

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WAR

Biden’s Cluster Bombs

Recently, President Joe Biden approved the decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine. There are questions about why the US would do this because these bombs have a track record for causing many civilian casualties. Somewhere between 10% to 40% of the munitions fail, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The unexploded munitions can then be detonated by civilian activity years or even decades later.

Reporting from the Right: US to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, $800 million military aid package, officials say Sarah Rumpf-Whitten & Liz Friden, Fox News

Reporting from the Left: Ukrainian General says American cluster bombs have arrived in Kyiv CNN

From The Flag: "It took me a while to be convinced to do it," Biden said of the controversial decision, which he described as a temporary measure. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Right is Mixed on This Subject

• This represents yet another diplomatic and military failure for an administration that cannot seem to shoot straight in the arena of foreign policy.

• Officials in Kyiv are best suited to weigh the risks to their own civilians.

• Yes, Kyiv will live with the scars of war, but ultimately, these munitions will save Ukrainian lives.

Another cluster from the Biden administration James Poplar, American Thinker “As the leader of the free world, this action truly sickens my stomach and is morally repugnant. Having seen children in Asia with limbs missing due to cluster bombs strewn during the Vietnam conflict, this short-sighted action will haunt us for generations, and rightly so. Another generation of children will have to suffer because of the ineptitude of decision-makers far removed from the field of battle, who take no responsibility for their callous and misguided actions. It is ethically and morally wrong to provide or even sanction the use of cluster munitions by a third party, just like chemical and biological weapons. Once the genie is out of the bottle, he is hard to put back in. As a nation, we can do better than this, but I have come to expect nothing less than this current ‘cluster’ from an administration that has lost its way.”

Biden Is Right on Cluster Bombs for Ukraine Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: Ukraine isn’t seeking to use these bombs against civilians. It wants them because they are running out of other munitions and figures they can compensate for some of the advantage Russia still holds. The greater risk to Ukrainian civilians is from Russia’s invading army and indiscriminate weapons targeting. If you can’t see a moral distinction between Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s use of cluster bombs for defense, then you have the blurred vision. Those best suited to make the tradeoff between risks are the Ukrainians whose lives are on the line every day.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Biden made the right call on cluster munitions for Ukraine Adam Kinzinger, CNN Opinion

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Left is Also Mixed on This Subject

• Kyiv is in a desperate struggle – but Joe Biden should not have approved this

• With cluster bombs, the killing doesn't stop when the war ends. Wherever they land, children playing, gardening, herding cattle or digging an irrigation canal decades later all become dangerous.

• Unlike the Putin regime, the Zelensky government is not willing to butcher its own men in human-wave attacks. Using cluster munitions has the potential to save the lives of many Ukrainian soldiers.

The Guardian view on supplying cluster bombs: not just a ‘difficult’ decision, but the wrong one Editorial Board, The Guardian: "Twenty-thousand Laotians, almost half of them children, have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance since the Vietnam war ended. It is half a century since the US stopped bombing Laos, having dropped more than 2m tons of cluster munitions; decades on, people then unborn are still paying the price. On one estimate, it will take another 100 years to fully clear the country. This is the true cost of cluster munitions. They are not only indiscriminate in showering dozens or hundreds of bomblets over a large area, but also have a lethal legacy because so many fail to explode. ... [The US] should not be supplying them to Ukraine. Their use will have terrible long-term consequences for civilians there – and perhaps, through the example it sets, for civilians elsewhere too."

Biden is wrong to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. 50 years later, they're still killing in Laos. Titus Peachey, USA Today "The Biden administration’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine is shortsighted, ignores clear lessons from history and erodes significant international norms. As a result, new casualties will continue for decades after the conflict in Ukraine comes to an end. Recent history confirms this negative assessment. U.S. cluster munitions have left a trail of human misery in the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Kuwait, Serbia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, to name a few. Last year, the United States spent more than $375 million to clean up conventional weapons, including cluster munitions, in more than 65 countries. ... That the United States is prepared to provide a weapon so clearly flouting international humanitarian law – and still causing civilian casualties – contradicts the principled commitment of our allies who have signed the treaty. It demands the question, 'Where are our boundaries?'"

One more opinion piece from the Left: Why liberals protesting cluster munitions for Ukraine are wrong ‍Max Boot, Washington Post

FLAG THIS

Bipartisan Push to Block the Bombs Faces Uphill Climb

There is a bipartisan push to block Biden’s approval of cluster munitions to Ukraine. Two right-wing Republicans — Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) — have joined Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in signing an opposition letter.

Reality check, per Axios: “Any effort to block the move is likely to face a steep uphill climb as Ukraine hawks make up the bulk of both chambers.”

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