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POPSEXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Air Raid Victim Tells Obama to Leave Afghanistan We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat. We are morally no different from the psychopaths within the Taliban, who Afghans remember we empowered, funded and armed during the 10-year war with the Soviet Union. Acid thrown into a girl's face or beheadings? Death delivered from the air or fields of shiny cluster bombs? This is the language of war. It is what we speak. It is what those we fight speak.
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POPSbecoming what we seek to destroy we are morally no different from the psychopaths within the Taliban, who Afghans remember we empowered, funded and armed during the 10-year war with the Soviet Union-acid thrown in a girl's face or beheadings? Death delivered from the air or fields of shiny cluster bombs? this is the language of war. It is what we speak. It is what those we fight speak.
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POPSHa'aretz: "Sadly, Israel is no longer democratic" The long-term evidence of abuse by soldiers against civilians at the checkpoints - including repeated instances of expectant mothers who are forced to give birth in the middle of the road, surrounded by armed soldiers who laugh wickedly -is no secret either. Day after day, year after year, the most moral army in the world helps to steal lands , uproot trees, steal water, close roads - in the service of the righteous "Jewish and democratic" state and with its support. It's heartbreaking, but the State of Israel is no longer democratic. We are living in an ethnocracy under "Jewish and democratic" rule. Our sages have said: "Don't be overly righteous." And there is absolutely no question that dropping cluster bombs in an area populated by civilians, as we did in the Second Lebanon War, does not testify to great righteousness. The same thing can be said of using phosphorus bombs against a civilian population. ... Ha'aretz
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POPSU.S. Bans Cluster Bomb Exports Excellent! It’s about time. What? Wait a minute, they’re still going to allow a . . . safer . . . indiscriminate killer?!? Are you kidding me? The U.S. will still use them IF they leave behind less than 1% of their submunitions. This is still unacceptable. Oh, but wait. We have the word of the receiving country that these evil inventions won’t be used where civilians are known to be present. Oh, well then, that makes it okay?!? I was seriously hoping that George Bush and his cronies would be grumbling at the loss of income these horrific weapons provide.
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POPSGone, for now, Leaving Death Behind. Like their rain of Cluster Bombs that they deliberately left behind as they scurried home with crap in their nappies from Lebanon in 2006, the inglorious IDF/IAF has left Gaza, for now, with the soiling of Palestinian land with unexploded US shells. Like the Nazis before them, they have left their calling card of children's deaths behind to prove that little men with big guns can boast to their wives and lovers how many kids that they maimed and killed. Brave brave men that kill defenceless kids, and animals
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POPSSelf-Referential Manufactured Outrage Alert see if you can find a post which even takes the Palestinian groups to task for their launching of rockets into Israel, suicide bombings, or any of the other atrocities the Religion of Peace likes to engage in, targeting civilians on purpose!
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POPSIsrael Using Cluster Bombs on Gaza Cluster bombs do not "target" militants tightly, urban areas especially. "Collateral damage" is absolutely guaranteed. More evidence that Israel is not making war on just Hamas, but Palestinians in their "collective punishment" tactics. The first pic was posted on Drudge. The last link in this clipmark has posted the CNN video showing general news of the Israeli attacks on Gaza which inadvertantly captured these bombs in action. 93 nations have banned them, except for US, Russia, and Israel.
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POPS100 nations sign cluster-bomb ban US does not, along with Russia and China, all of which are manufacturers of them. Between 1964 and 1973, over Laos, the US air force dropped the equivalent of a fully-loaded B-52 bomber's payload of cluster bombs every 8 minutes for 9 years. Children still find them.
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POPSU.S. Supports use of Cluster Munitions Cluster munitions are large weapons that release up to hundreds of smaller submunitions. "Air-dropped or ground-launched, they cause two major humanitarian problems and risks to civilians," writes the Cluster Munition Coalition. 1-their widespread dispersal means they cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians so the humanitarian impact can be extreme, 2-many submunitions fail to detonate on impact and become de facto antipersonnel mines killing and maiming people long after the conflict has ended Why does the U.S. want to continue the use of these inaccurate, indiscriminate, and unreliable bombs? We have 'smart' bombs and we use 'surgical strike' technology. Why do we insist on employing such barbaric weaponry? For a country that prides itself as a democratic and humanitarian state, how can the U.S. ignore the overwhelming mandate of such a large number of nations?
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POPSinteresting two minute video on destroying cluster bombs The headline is quite misleading. The biggest cluster bomb users aren't signing the treaty. The US has used them in every recent war: Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan, and Iraq and has not renounced their continued use. Obama voted for an amendment that would have prevented the use of such weapons against civilians, but if these weapons are used in war, they inevitably will kill civilians. The only sure way to stop killing civilians with cluster bombs is to eliminate them. A Google search for "cluster bombs" on Obama's website came up empty; I didn't find any indication of what Obama intends to do about them. If Bill Clinton were back in office, you can bet he'd find a way to continue to use these God-forsaken devices, even as he convinced everyone of the opposite. We'll see if Obama is a president in the Clinton mold.
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POPSNo more cluster bombs It's unconscionable that the USA, Russia and China use these and I wonder if the USA still use or sell these horrible civilian killers, Esp in Afghanistan?
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POPSCLUSTER BOMBS MADE IN USA Continued refusal of this and past administrations to join the World Community in the Effort to BAN these vicious munitions, it is time to put more pressure on the candidates and the new president
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POPSRussians use Cluster Munitions Russian aircraft dropped RBK-250 cluster bombs, each containing 30 PTAB 2.5M submunitions, on the town of Ruisi in the Kareli district of Georgia
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POPSCluster bombs used by Russians in Georgia “We were playing with them, as were the Georgian soldiers,” said Tatrishvili. “It was only when one of the bombs exploded after a soldier threw it that we understood that they were dangerous.”
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POPSIstiklal The oil that was their independence, has become their chain.
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POPSTell candidates to sign Cluster Bomb Treaty!
Letters to the candidates at link. Here's the sad truth: The United States is the largest producer, stockpiler, and user of cluster bombs in the history of the world. When 111 nations gathered recently to draft a treaty to ban these horrific weapons, the US was conspicuously absent. We need to right this wrong. But the leading presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, have been silent on whether they will endorse the global cluster bomb ban. We need a President who will do the right thing. Click here to ask all the presidential candidates to commit to sign the global cluster bomb ban. http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1493/t/2765/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2218 Cluster bombs are designed to open in mid-air, dispersing hundreds of smaller "bomblets." The resulting blasts kill indiscriminately, spraying over an area roughly the size of three football fields. Approximately 30% of ordnance from each bomb will fail to explode on impact, creating virtu
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POPS111 Nations Ban Cluster Bombs; US Not Among Them The piece goes on: "The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Defense Minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3. "We're certain that nations thinking of using cluster munitions won't want to face the international condemnation that will rain down upon them, because the weapons have been stigmatized now," said Steve Goose, arms control director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, who was involved in the talks. Maybe the next US admin. will be moved by this, but not Bush. Can't shame the shameless.