The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions earlier this month set off a furious debate, with many Democrats and a few MAGA Republicans trying to move a measure through Congress which would block the U.S. from transferring the bombs.
Old friend was a fighter pilot in the Seventies and early-Eighties; a very smart guy and good at his work. In the early-Eighties he started training in the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany. But it was when he was briefed on cluster bombs that he resigned. “I would never drop these; therefore, I cannot remain a pilot.” They’re that nasty a weapon.
Just this.
If Ukrainians want to live in Ukraine they have little choice particularly since their store of shells appears to be inadequate to the task of doing just that.
RuzZia robbing them of choice is not its greatest sin perhaps but a sin it none-the-less remains.
Win first. Debate later. Every other consideration is meaningless if Russia is allowed to win.
If Russia is willing to blow up dams, kidnap children, hold the world’s food supply hostage and threaten nuclear war, they have ceded the right to any humane considerations. They made the bed, let them lie in their own fetid filth. Fuck around and find out, I say.
A couple of points need to be emphasized:
Ukraine asked for them to defend against an invader.
Providing Ukraine with cluster munitions would not violate any principle of proportionality, as Russia has used them extravagantly in support of an illegal armed invasion.
The article does not properly differentiate the technical differences between US and Russian munitions. The most modern types of US cluster munitions (which is what the US has said it will supply Ukraine with) have a dud rate of 2-3%. Russian munitions, in line with the poor material quality of everything Russian, have a dud rate of around 30%. So it’s not as if taking the moral high ground will make the postwar situation significantly better from an unexploded ordnance standpoint. OTOH, if the war grinds on for years, or Ukraine loses the war, for lack of necessary equipment, how does that improve matters?
ADDENDUM: for Republicans, the party that is cock-a-hoop over how great torture is, to object to cluster munitions is risible. The ONLY reason they object is because they have their heads so far up Putin’s ass they can see Vladivostok.
At the Truman presidential library in Independence, MO, there is a whole room dedicated to the tortured decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan. Regardless of which side you happen to be on for those events, the installation will make you think long and hard about your beliefs and assumptions.
This cluster bomb decision strikes me as similar, if not in the overall impact then definitely in the moral complexity.
Very informative article. I don’t know what to think except that I support Ukraine’s winning this war. If both the US and Ukraine have decided that use of cluster bombs, as part of an overall defense, is necessary in this aim, then I think it should be given a provisional approval subject to change if proven abuses come to light.
Unexploded ordinance is a problem for the future. Eliminating invaders is a problem for now.
Ukraine is going to have lots and lots of unexploded ordinance scattered around after the invaders are gone. Some of that unexploded ordinance will be cluster munition bomblets. The problem is not appreciably less problematic in their absence.
This is a silly argument. Cluster munitions, the bad ones from Russia, have already been used the length and breadth of Ukraine. That bus stop where 50 men, women, and children were killed was from a Russian cluster bomb.Those duds from Russia have been spread all over the civilian Ukraine population and they will have to deal with those UXOs for decades.
That Ukraine wants them to protect the sappers while they clear mines from the front is necessary, but it won’t change the ordinance clean-up problems during rebuilding.
It’s the kind of silly argument that only people who are safe in their homes and lives thousands of miles removed from danger feel it’s important to make. It’s not just silly. It’s stupid, self-important and lazy. It’s a luxury for people who are in no danger.
If a cluster bomb is what it takes for a mine clearing operator to NOT have to crawl on their belly in order to not get shot, (there are men as well as women doing this); it should be Ukraine’s decision, not ours.
The “proportionality” argument is the best argument ethically,.in my view. That, and the reality that there are situations in which the only available immediate decisions are between bad and worse. There is a such thing as tragedy in human affairs.
It’s not a silly argument, it’s one that is inevitably going to be made over any issue involving the morality of killing people. War, after all, IS evil, and it degrades the just and the unjust alike. Hell, some Marines in the WW II island fighting collected the skulls of their dead enemy.
But it’s an argument that can be calmly and forcefully refuted with facts about who is the aggressor, proportionality, what the weapons are being used for, and the lack of alternatives if you want to sweep mines with equipment rather than human flesh.
That said, arguments against cluster munitions by Republicans are ipso facto made in bad faith.
Sometimes it feels like Vietnam has never ended. I buried two close friends in the last 2 years who managed to make a life but never recovered from their involvement in Vietnam. What a frightening world where a man’s ego can orchestrate the death, mutilation and torture of hundreds of thousands of people for personal vindication or “glory”. I am grateful every day that neither I nor my grandchildren are facing the horrors happening around the world right now. This article (which is very good) serves as a horrific reminder of the choices that have to be made by President Biden and many others that have no happy or clear cut answers. I do not ever envy the people making these choices.
Excellent post. The above is true - but what is also true is during WWII, the US military averaged two convictions per day in the abuse of POWs and civilians.
Absolutely.
I live near Fort Hunt, Virginia, site of the former interrogation center for captured U-boat commanders. When the controversy over Abu Ghraib and torture surfaced in 2003, surviving US interrogators at Fort Hunt were aghast. They said they never laid a hand on their captives; simply bugging the cells and common rooms was surprisingly effective for gleaning information. And interrogators got more out of prisoners by being mock-friendly and playing to their vanity than from tough-guy theatrics.
The moral argument about killing people rests solely with the invader. A country defending itself and its people from annihilation should never be dragged into a debate over the tactics they employ in their own protection. Forcing that argument on them is little more than mental masturbation. Enjoy on your own, but leave the rest of us out of it.
To the Russians, this is a feature.
It’s not about them; it’s about us. I believe John McCain made that point in the torture debate. He would have known a thing or two.
Speaking of McCain, during the Abu Ghraib debacle - truly one of the most despicable actions in the history of our country - some of us ruefully joked, “John McCain wasn’t tortured by the Communist North Vietnamese; he was merely subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques.”