Devil's 'cluster bomb' peacemaker?

© 2023 Peter Free

 

08 July 2023

 

 

Oh, happy day?

 

Here is the United States' Undersecretary for Defense — Colin Kahl — contributing to our planet's Joy Bag:

 

 

Today, the United States also continues to demonstrate its enduring commitment to Ukraine with the announcement of a new drawdown of military assistance to provide Ukraine's forces with additional munitions, weapons and equipment needed to defend their country and push back on Russia's war of aggression.

 

Some of the capabilities in today's $800 million drawdown package include 155-mm artillery rounds, including Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, or DPICMs [cluster munitions] . . . .

 

[C]ompared to Russian cluster munitions, the DPICM rounds we will provide Ukraine have an extremely low failure, or dud rate.

 

The DPICM ammunition we are delivering to Ukraine will consist only of those with a dud rate less than 2.35 percent.  Compare that to Russia, which has been using cluster munitions across Ukraine with dud rates of between 30 and 40 percent.

 

During the first year of the conflict alone, Russia fired cluster munitions deployed from a range of weapon systems have likely expended tens of millions of submunitions, or bomblets, across Ukraine.

 

[W]e're working with Ukraine to minimize the risks associated with the decision. 

The Ukrainian government has offered us assurances in writing on the responsible use of DPICMs, including that they will not use the rounds in civilian-populated urban environments and that they will record where they use these rounds, which will simplify later demining efforts.

 

Ukraine also has committed to post-conflict demining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians.

 

© 2023 U.S. Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl Holds Press Briefing, defense.gov (07 July 2023)

 

 

Notice the multiple hypocrisies

 

First, the US provoked this war. On purpose.

 

Second, even if Russia has been using cluster munitions, does that make it morally reasonable for the United States to worsen the situation?

 

Especially so, when the only reason that the US is sending these purported nasties to the Ukro-Nazis is because our self-induced, wimpy US manufacturing complex cannot supply Ukraine with a reasonable supply of ordinary artillery shells.

 

Third, who will be paying the price in stepping on unexploded US-made bomblets?

 

Ukrainians.

 

Fourth and last, the US Lie Machine is in full operation, as it always is:

 

 

If Russia had been using cluster munitions in Ukraine, we would have been hearing about it every day, all day long. For 16 months.

 

 

Complete with heart-rending pictures of mutilated kids' corpses, hobbling teens, grieving farm widows, and what is represented to have been raped women heartlessly thrown atop unexploded bomblets by those horrible Russian barbarians.

 

 

Overall, this US escalation represents the same cowardly American logic as before:

 

 

Let's fight Russia — for no rationally defensible strategic reason — down to the last living Ukrainian.

 

 

The moral? — The Great Satan . . .

 

. . . leaves chaos, death and destruction in its wake. Wherever it goes.

 

It is no mystery that sane people are fleeing US influence.