"Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"

(BUFDRVR) wrote:
This is about cluster bombs being
used indiscriminately and killing civilians.

If its about the indiscriminate use of CBUs,
no problem since neither the UK
nor the US employed *any* weapon indiscriminately.

If the issue is UXO from CBU employment, this
is another matter and one I
believe both the UK and US have done there best
to deal with. On averag there's
going to be an approximate 10% dud rate for
CBU submunitions (BLUs). In both
Afghanistan and Iraq, leaflets were dropped
warning people to stay away from
the unexploded BLUs. Because of the high illiteracy
rate in Afghanistan, the
leaflets were in picture form. Because of the
remote areas where CBUs were used
in Afghanistan, civilian contact with UXO is
minimal. Iraq is a different
story, however a successful one. Submunition
dispenser use was pretty heavy in
Iraq and included everything from air delivered
to Army ATACMS. Use was
confined, as much as operationally practicable,
to use away from major
population areas. With all the use of CBUs in
Iraq, and they are still a very
important weapon, the low civilian incident
rate (by comparison of quantity
dropped) speaks well for allied air and ground
forces.

Those accountable should be punished for their
actions.

Current CBUs meet all international requirements
for a legal weapon, thus no
punishment is warrented.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those
bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"
I'll agree with that. The problem is not the weapon, it's the enemy putting
his military assets in civilian areas to try and make them immune to attack.
Didn't work, though.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

Liberals and loony leftists have never heard of LGBs, JDAM or JSOW. To them,
one civilian killed by a off-target bomb is equal to Auschwitz. They also
overlook the actions of the enemy that put legitimate military targets such
as tanks, APCs, SAM and artillery batteries, radars, C3 vehicles, etc. in
civilian neighborhoods. The onus for the civilian casualties that result
from attacks is not on the attacker, it's the defender's fault for putting
said civilians at risk.
And if CBUs are available and the type of target calls for them, I would
use them. Period. War is not a game, and there are no referees.
And there's no Marquis of Quesenbery rules of war. Fair fights mean I bring
my people home alive, and screw the enemy.








"tscottme" wrote:

Rats wrote in message
...


Umm, what the **** are you going on about?
This is about cluster bombs
being
used indiscriminately and killing civilians.
Those accountable should
be
punished for their actions. The original poster
said that Saddam and
co
should be sued as well. To this I agreed and
also added the US
presidents
he'd conveniently left out.


Who said anything about indiscriminate use of
cluster bombs? You
liberals think the only bombing ever done is
either carpet bombing or
randomly dropped.

--

Scott
--------
The French, God bless them, are finally joining
the war against Islamic
extremism. Their targets, which will now confront
the full force of
l'état, are schoolgirls who wear Muslim head
scarves in French public
schools.
Wall Street Journal




Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

Charles Gray wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:59:31 -0500, "Mike Yared"

wrote:

Cluster bombs called 'war crime'
Britain's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, similar
to the ones used by the
United States military, is a "war crime" and
should be referred to the
International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution,
academics, lawyers and
human rights activists in London said earlier
this week.
at http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040...3737-4342r.htm

Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein
first? Or the late Soviet leaders
for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of
Hungary? the 1968 Invasion of
Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan?
Will the late Yuri
Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as
war criminals in historical
terms?


Well, you should check out the full article--
this is a group of
people, who seem to have little credibility--
even Human Rights watch
isn't in their corner.

Honestly, with a very few exceptonis (Chemical
and Biological, and
strategic nukes), as I understand it, the manner
of hte use of the
weapon is what defines whether or not it is
a warcrime.
Using a cluster bomb on a infantry column
is fine. Using one one a
group of peacefully demonstrating civilians
is a crime.
They also rather miss the point that while
yes, a Cluster bomb will
kill over a larger area, in some cases it can
actually be less
dangerous to civilians than an ordinary bomb--
if you have a group of
people in a building that is in the AOE of a
cluster bomb most damage
will be restricted to the facade and outer doors--
if you accidently
or on purpose drop a 500/1000lb bomb next to
it, damage is likely to
reach...considerably further inside.


HRW I don't mind. It's the loony left like the Socialist Worker's Party
(frequently visiting my old college and very disappointed in the lack of
support they get), Ramsey Clark and his WWP fronts like ANSWER and the "International
Action Center", and so forth. A lot of those making the CBU claim are prewar
apologists for Saddam's regime.I'd show these folks the mass graves, torture
and rape rooms, and execution chambers that Saddam's goons were running 24/7
and ask them if they still supported the now jailed Butcher of Baghdad.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

I've seen the term "carpet bombing" bandied about for years. I've never
seen or
heard a definition. Is there one? A generally accepted one?


Personally, I think its a direct translation from the wartime German phrase. I
have the postwar interviews carried out at Schleswig and back in the UK, where
defense industry and military brass were questioned concerning the
effectiveness of Allied bombing. My specific interest is in the Allied
destruction of airfields, so that's what I am referring to here - in those
attacks, the Germans (all the way up to Goering), agreed that (paraphrasing,
but very similar wording in many cases) "unless a bomb carpet was used, damage
to the runways and aprons would not be sufficient to make the airfield unusable
for more than a few hours or a day/two at the most." The Germans had become
masters of the war between "shovel and bomb" and proved quite capable of
standing things back up after a short time. This could be done if the bombs
fell scattered, by aircraft releasing at different moments or different
altitudes, but not if the "bomb carpet" technique was used. Evaluating the
attacks that these Germans were discussing shows that they meant heavy bombers
('viermots') in tight formations, all dropping their bombs in a string, as
opposed to dumping all of them in a tight bundle. At Burg-bei-Magdeburg and
other jet airfields struck on 10 April 45, the bomb craters stitched their way
across the facility, leaving no usable tracks for air operations. It was the
last time the airfield was used during the war.

I think of it as area bombing. The ultimate example would be the March
10, 1945, fire bombing of Tokyo. Though that was incendiary rather
than high explosive, it was planned to cover whole square miles of a
city.

The Germans appear to have never used the term "bomb carpet" in any other cases
than the one I discribed above. "Area bombing" has nothing to do with
precision bombing of a specific industrial target and I don't think the term
should be used or confused with "carpet bombing", which was used against
factories, airfields, marshalling yards, and occasionally troop/supply
concentrations.

Just my opinion of course.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools

Ohh, it does 'Mr T' impressions also.

Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
-warning prior to making such statements?

Thank you.

v/r
Gordon

On 26 Jan 2004 19:06:22 GMT, nt (Krztalizer) wrote:


I am from NZ and I do not hate the US as much as I pity the fools

Ohh, it does 'Mr T' impressions also.

Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
-warning prior to making such statements?


;-)


greg




--
You do a lot less thundering in the pulpit against the Harlot
after she marches right down the aisle and kicks you in the nuts.

On 26 Jan 2004 19:06:22 GMT, Krztalizer wrote:

Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
-warning prior to making such statements?

There's just something fundamentally *wrong* about a Squid drinking milk.
Maybe you need to spend a year or two back on the boat to regain some
perspective?

-Jeff B. (Zoomie, drinking Kool-Aid from a dirty glass)
yeff at erols dot com

Dude, would you mind giving a "Do not attempt to drink milk while reading."
-warning prior to making such statements?

There's just something fundamentally *wrong* about a Squid drinking milk.

Geez, can't a guy eat breakfast? )

Maybe you need to spend a year or two back on the boat to regain some
perspective?

That'd do it... I am currently catching daily increased hell for the amount
of time I spend "accidentally" driving past the Midway at its pier... Waiting
for the day when I can stand on the pointy end once more, remembering the stink
of the cats and feeling the roar of the wind over the bow.

-Jeff B. (Zoomie, drinking Kool-Aid from a dirty glass)
yeff at erols dot com

I can somewhat relate - three beers and one shot last weekend put me to sleep
at 7pm. please dont tell the aircrew boys!

v/r
Squidly

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
ubject: "Cluster bombs called 'war crime'"
From: IBM
Date: 1/24/04 11:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: Xns947AEE42DF19Bibmsvpalorg

Why did the lawyers not sue Saddam Hussein first? Or the late Soviet
leaders for the the Soviet Union's 1956 Invasion of Hungary? the 1968
Invasion of Czechoslovakia; and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan? Will
the late Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev be labeled as war criminals
in historical terms?

Because they ( the lawyers ) are looney leftists.
A cluster bomb is no more illegal than a rifle bullet.
The use to which these instruments are put might constitute
a crime under certain conditions however.

IBM


Lawyers as a voting block are 95% conservative.

Cite?

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:00:49 -0600, "S. Sampson" wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

By that criteria, I'll still say little or no "carpet bombing" in SEA.

If you limit it to iron. The most common carpet bombing in Vietnam
was the defoliant chemicals.

Maybe there's a more correct term, as "bombing" seems to signify
explosives, rather than biological weapons.

The US did not use any biological weapons in SEA.

Al Minyard