CLUSTER BOMBS ARE BAD FOR CHILDREN

On the WELL, my online home, somebody was talking about the Cluster Bombs. Our military drops cluster bombs over Iraq, but some of them don't explode. Then civilians (some of them children) get hurt when they collect them, (apparently some of the bomb fragments look similar to food packages that are sometimes dropped) Anyway, somebody wrote about "the children" just one too many times for me. And so this was my response (slightly edited for younger audiences and better understanding) :

I agree that the use of the shrapnel/cluster bombs should be re-thought, or at the very least, they should paint the bombs bright colors with death faces all over it so no one will pick it up.

Normally I would let this slide, but I'm feeling ornery..

Why is it that it's the children who are unique and beautiful and priceless and irreplaceable expressions of life, and the adults are so much cannon fodder?


I hate this argument, bringing up the children, as if someone is supposed to melt because they were under 18 when they did something stupid/dangerous/unlawful.

War is bad, and killing people is awful, and bombs shouldn't malfunction, and these cluster bombs are particularly nasty ways of doing business. But it's not because "children are dying" -- it's because a rich and powerful society (in this case the US) is deliberately wreaking havoc on a weaker society (in this case Iraq) for reasons which are not morally crystalline. (ie, we are not stopping immediate bloodshed, but the threat of it down the line.)

I am no fan of Saddam, but I am also no fan of George Bush, who is a corporate weasel who was not elected but selected by 9 Supreme Court Justices, at least 3 of whom owed his family political favors. I trust Bush not one iota, and if that makes me less of a Patriot than, well, so be it.

Just sayin'.

Read an article about the new "Civilian Friendly" cluster bombs