U.S. absent as global cluster munitions ban agreed.

There is a new axis of evil: U.S. China, and Russia (et al). The U.S. not only opposes this ban on cluster bombs but also the ban on landmines. The U.S. through its allies and client states such as Canada and Australia have been pressing for the loophole mentioned that in joint operations with non-signatories such as the U.S. signatories could be involved in joint operations that use cluster bombs. Whether the final text retains this loophole should be evident today.

U.S. absent as global cluster munitions ban agreed
By Andras GergelyWed May 28, 5:40 PM ET
A draft treaty for a worldwide ban on cluster munitions was adopted on Wednesday although major powers including the United States did not attend the meeting.
The Dublin gathering attended by more than 100 nations made the final step towards agreement after a promise from Britain to stop using the devices. Cluster bombs can cause indiscriminate injury long after a conflict has ended.
Diplomats and activists said the text built on the lessons from the 1997 treaty to ban landmines and it did not allow exceptions.
"It's a strong and robust prohibition on all known cluster munitions," Christian Ruge, a member of the Norwegian delegation, told Reuters after a meeting that Russia and China also did not attend.
The draft will be submitted to a plenary session on Friday but approval is now regarded as a formality. Unless any unexpected objections derail the process, the treaty is due to be signed in Oslo in December.
Cluster munitions open in mid-air and scatter as many as several hundred "bomblets" over a wide area. They often fail to explode, creating virtual minefields that can kill or injure anyone who finds them later, often curious children.
Despite the draft treaty, the United States said it still opposed a ban on cluster munitions.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the elimination of cluster bombs from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of U.S. soldiers and those of their allies at risk.
"While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility," said Casey.
WEAKEN TREATY
Activists have accused the United States of pressing allies such as Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Australia to try to weaken the treaty.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been pushing his reluctant military to ban the use of the munitions and ordered a Ministry of Defense review earlier this month.
"In order to secure as strong a convention as possible, in the last hours of negotiation we have issued instructions that we should support a ban on all cluster bombs, including those currently in service by the UK," Brown said on Wednesday.
France said last Friday it would withdraw a type of munition that accounted for 90 percent of its cluster bomb stocks.
The last major issues to be resolved centre on military cooperation with countries still using cluster bombs and whether non-signatories such as the United States could keep stockpiles of such weapons in states that have signed up to the ban.
Steve Goose, arms director at New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said Wednesday's agreement was a success for activists but a section in the text about military cooperation with non-signatories was a partial American victory.
"The US won some concessions on the issue of interoperability," the HRW statement said. "The draft treaty text contains a loophole."
Cluster bombs can be dropped from aircraft or fired in missiles or artillery shells and have been used in conflicts including Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Balkans and by Israel in southern Lebanon as recently as 2006.
(Additional reporting by David Clarke in London; Editing by Robert Woodward)
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Russia, China, U.S. oppose cluster bomb ban

How nice that Russia, China, and the United States can agree not to ban this vicious weapon that ought to be outlawed. Of course Israel, which used cluster bombs in Lebanon, is also on board with this motley crew of countries. When it comes to blowing people up and creating future situations where for years people are maimed by unexploded bombs the great leader of the Western world and the former Commie giants see eye to eye. Will Obama take a position on this matter? This is from common dreams.


Published on Sunday, May 18, 2008 by The Boston Globe
Conferees Seek Cluster Bomb BanRussia, China, US oppose treaty
by Nick Cumming-Bruce
GENEVA - Believe the advocates of a treaty banning cluster munitions, and the international community is about to take a decisive step toward curbing the use of a weapon that inflicts terrible suffering, particularly on civilians. Believe the US government, and the measure they propose threatens to undermine the NATO alliance that has underpinned Western security since World War II.
Delegates from more than 100 countries will open a conference in Dublin tomorrow that will try to hammer out a treaty banning the production, use, stockpiling, or transfer of cluster munitions - bombs or artillery shells packed with up to several hundred bomblets or submunitions that are sprayed over wide areas of territory.Major producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions, the United States, Russia, and China, will be absent and are opposed to a treaty, but disarmament specialists liken the cluster treaty to the Ottawa Treaty of 1997 banning land mines, which was shunned by the major powers but has proved influential in shaping the policies of countries outside the convention.
Support for a ban on cluster weapons has risen sharply since the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanon, when, according to United Nations estimates, Israeli troops fired some 4 million Vietnam War-era submunitions, of which a quarter failed to explode.
These have reportedly caused more than 200 casualties since the end of the war and required a costly and hazardous cleanup operation by international aid agencies - often funded by Western governments.
In Laos, where the United States dropped 2 million tons of ordnance in the 1970s, including an estimated 260 million submunitions, unexploded weapons still kill and maim people and hinder economic development.
As many as 10 percent to 15 percent of cluster munitions normally fail to explode on impact but those who support the treaty say the figure could be much higher. A study by Handicap International, a nongovernmental organization based in Belgium, found that 98 percent of recorded victims were civilians and one-third of casualties were children.
But after a series of international and regional conferences that have mapped out the broad parameters of a treaty, Dublin is the venue where negotiators have to refine rhetoric into a legally binding instrument governing a weapon system that represents a substantial part of the arsenal of the United States and some of its NATO allies.
“It’s going to be a bruising conference,” said Patrick McCarthy, coordinator of the Geneva Forum, a disarmament research body.
A handful of issues loom as key battlegrounds. One will be the definition of what constitutes a cluster munition, with richer Western nations like Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland pressing for exclusion of sophisticated weapons that have self-destruct mechanisms, target sensors, or a small number of submunitions.
Others, like Germany, want a transition period of up to 10 years during which they can continue to use such weapons while they find replacements.
Among the most contentious is a proposed clause that would prevent those who sign onto the treaty from engaging in joint operations with forces still employing cluster munitions.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
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