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US Approves Saudi Use Of Banned Cluster Bombs (But Only If They're Extra Careful)
Following a report on Sunday, where Human Rights Watch said video and photographic evidence showed that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s Saada Province at least two separate times, the US State Department said it is "looking into" the allegations but, as Foreign Policy reports, said the notoriously imprecise weapon — banned by much of the world — could still have an appropriate role to play in Riyadh’s U.S.-backed offensive (as long as it was used carefully).
Human Rights Watch details credible evidence indicates that the Saudi-led coalition used banned cluster munitions supplied by the United States in airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said today.
Cluster munitions pose long-term dangers to civilians and are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, though not Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or the United States.
Photographs, video, and other evidence have emerged since mid-April 2015 indicating that cluster munitions have been used during recent weeks in coalition airstrikes in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate, the traditional Houthi stronghold bordering Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi-led cluster munition airstrikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “These weapons should never be used under any circumstances. Saudi Arabia and other coalition members – and the supplier, the US – are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians.”
However, as Foreign Policy reports, the State Department said it is "looking into" the allegations...
“We’re looking into those details carefully. I don’t have an outcome of that to report,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in answer to questions about the HRW report. “We take all accounts of civilian deaths in the ongoing hostilities in Yemen very seriously.”
...
On Monday, Rathke noted that U.S. law and policy dictates that the United States may only export cluster munitions to foreign buyers if the weapon’s unexploded ordnance rate does not exceed one percent. The U.S. also requires that the governments buying U.S. cluster bombs “must commit that cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians,” said Rathke.
When Foreign Policy asked if cluster bombs were “appropriate” to use in the U.S.-backed air campaign in Yemen, Rathke said they were so long as they’re used “against clearly defined military targets.”
“That’s our policy on those,” he said.
...
On the humanitarian front, U.S. officials have privately noted concerns about civilian casualties and fears that Riyadh is failing to properly vet the local fighters it’s arming in Yemen. But publicly, the White House fully backs the operation.
Rathke said “we share the concerns regarding unintended harm to civilians caused by the use of cluster munitions.”
“The United States remains the single largest financial supporter of addressing the explosive remnants of war,” he added.
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And single largest supplier of explosives and creator of the need for them...
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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia vs. Iran Round One.
FIGHT!
Why not, we use DIME and DU weapons on people, the Israelis use white phosphorus. Welcome to the club, guys.
Also, don't forget that that DU ammunition, when expended, the fumes from the discharge are inhaled by the soldiers. Victims on both sides. And all the while those Luciferians continue to depopulate at an alarming rate. Both sides are not exempt from these demons.
Team America! God's favorite country!
Cluster bombs are okay if we give 'em!
Luciferian DU expert reporting...
What a sick fucking country the US has become. And this is coming from a former Marine.
Fuck.
The cluster bomblets manufactured in the spitting image of Micky Mouse and Donald Duck that have a 99% non-explosion rate until handled by tiny hands are the best sellers in the M.E. ...
The cluster bombs are terrible but the US's cluster fucks are much worse.
Each bomb that falls tightens the noose on our own neck. Fantastic idea, protect a rouge country(israel) at all costs. Even the destruction of our own country.
"protect a rouge country(israel)"
Israel is red?
Who knew?
Depleted uranium is still radioactive. Just because it is no longer nuclear fuel, does not mean it won't fuck you up. (If you are reading this in Japan, please ignore what I wrote).
Everything is a little bit radioactive. Even Pb and Au decay, but with even longer half lives than U238.
We deserve a National Peace Prize. USA! USA! USA!
Humanity has become apathetic & psychotic to the extreme...
e.g. Nobody gives a damn, so they continue to kill & terrorize... (FOR PROFIT!)
But, that's indicative to going around the neighborhood with a gun shooting people and if you don't know what's going to happen as a result, let me tell ya...
Revenge is coming & they won't even see it coming... (Nuclear subs are all out there in position now...)
Don't say I didn't warn you folks... https://youtu.be/1kSFWCt1rFM
discharge are inhaled by the soldiers. Victims on both sides.
amen brother
poor charlie manson
dr crippen
whitechapel london ripper
ted bundy
ed gein
heath ledgers joker character
day all victims
dem dead folks where askin for it.
if you nato
a brit or a yank soldier you use depleted uranium you are a stalin a hitler a churchill a fucking mass murdering psychopath with a billion year legacy
any soldier ordered to use du should say fuck you to his chain of command.
If they keep fucking with the money, they're going to set off a riot they will in no way be able to control....
(It would be impossible, the rioting & the fires would be INSANE!)
Kill the Shi'ia! Kill the Sunni!
Pick a side, any side.
FORWARD SOVIET!
Kaboom! Clusters last stand...
Start Pagetm "cluster bombs Laos" or "agent orange Vietnam" and check your emotional level.
Nothing but pure disgust for US selling and SA dropping them.
Round 2 is WWIII.
This is clearly a proxy war, and I hope Iran kicks KSA's ass.
The Straights of Hormuz are about to become a free-fire zone. In addition to aircraft carriers, Sunburn and Onyx should prove highly effective against oil tankers.
In 1999 and 2000 I spent a few months in SE Asia. What I saw in Laos and Cambodia 25 years after the war was atrocious. The victims of cluster bombs, landmines and unexploded ordnance was still happening daily. The US is the most violent and repugnant wager of war in history. Followed closely by the IDF.
"Sahib. What are you doing?"
"Just playing with this cluster bomb, mom."
"Well...ok. Just be careful or you'll put your eye out."
"Ok mom"
Cluster Fucked= D.C.
Historians will laugh...
If you can find anyone to caring read about it...
Saudi has the complete military backing of the US, in exchange for them selling oil in dollars.
We were able to turn Arab oil embargo into a petrodollar hegemony in a few short years. Prior we were afraid of commie nukes and global chilling. Then all of the sudden it was all about oil, energy and resources. Soylent Green, Mad Max. Then when that was settled it was an abundance scare - chemicals, deforestation, ozone holes, effing Captain Planet. Then less specific climate change and terrorism that are still fighting for the spotlight, and now again, world war, nukes and perhaps another energy shortages... or overabundance. TPTB haven't made up their mind yet.
Can't wait to find out what to be afraid of next.
The control freaks are looking for a mechanism to supplant the original use of ingroup-outgroup morality as a way to put in place global governance.
Ingroup-outgroup morality binds a tribe together, binds a nation together, but it its method of pitting one against another doesn't scale up well enough to be used subjugate all of mankind. Too much resistance.
So the search continues for an outgroup to basically all of mankind.
BTW, global warming is a very dangerous outgroup ploy - a "threat" to all of us.
Let's wait for the day than usa and yemen will change roles...
It's fine and dandy when the Nobel Prize Winner drones women and children and wedding parties, spies on the world, supplies banned munitions to Saudi Arabia, spends $5 billion destabilizing Ukraine, almost starts a war against Syria based on lies about sarin, because it is all justified by American exceptionalism.
Let's not forget the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah and the 2600 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq.
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumours have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-forces-used-chemi...
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published an article demonstrating that the US government and President Barack Obama knowingly lied when they claimed that the Syrian government had carried out a sarin gas attack on insurgent-held areas last August.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/10/pers-d10.html
Hey, its ok, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Winner is workin out an agreement with the oil rich Persians, errrr, Iranians on some nuclear power stuff.
It'll all balance out, what could possibly go wrong? ;-)
I was wondering what they would do with the spent nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima. 2600 tons seems like a really really big number (5,200,000 pounds). When nukes are involved, everything is large.
We illuminated some folks.
We cluster bombed some folks.
The same fuck head who sold and supported the use of cluster bombs doesn't value life there, here, or anywhere else.
Most people haven't even taken the first step towards becoming human.
The USA has really turned to dirty shit. What the fuck is wrong with the .gov ?
What the fuck is wrong with the .gov ? -everything
Nothing wrong with .gov; it just consists of exeptional American people.
no worries mate.........this is what Empires do........
Here is what the british empire did to some brown people
''Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women's breasts. They cut off inmates' ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound.''
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crim...
Now a days, whenever I see the DC US flag I feel a combination of nausea, rage and anxiety for the future.
Must be all those "Freedoms" we have or something.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Yeah, "real careful" like, just as with our drones bombing weddings and funerals with Women and Children present. Such bravery! Risking our expensive robots!
Are the Saudi's too chicken to send in troops? What's all this bombing shit in civilian filled cities?
Door-to-door you dopes, unless of course they're just expending U.S. made munitions.
"Fire up the assembly lines!". Jeebus, what a mess!
Assad next, U.S. backing ISIL that we are now bombing.
Makes perfect sense! (to Beelzebub).
"We clusterfucked some folks".
The United States cannot bring themselves to ban cluster bombs or mines because, in the most dire of circumstances, these weapons can save a military unit from being overrun and wiped out. It is hard to describe them as less horrid than napalm; but they are; and they are long-lasting.
The ethical problem is that these weapons can also be used offensively as a way to cut off an enemy from retreat and/or to kill them en masse, once they are pinned down - like napalm.
The use of clusterbombs is no more terrible than the penchant, which the US has for bombing civilian or dual use tagets. "Collateral damage" -when the intended target is fixed and defenseless- is inexcusable, regardless if it is the Americans, the Israelis, or the Saudis doing the bombing.
The use of napalm was a horrible war crime, committed and permitted by the United States for decades. Finally, the United States agreed to abandon napalm. But I cannot understand why it was not condemned at the UN and during the framing of the Geneva conventions from the beginning of both.
What a bunch of Luciferian Clusterfucks.
Wonder what it's like waking up each day knowing that your all your life's effort is dedicated to creating objects whose only intent is to kill as many people as possible or that you've chosen a career of using those objects wherever Washington tells you.
Fucking murdering MIC bastards!
I'm suffering outrage fatigue so please forgive me if I can't raise a care that a country that did not agree to a obey a particular munition ban used said munition...
I wonder if the Saudis will approve the U.S. Government using similar bombs on us.
I don't understand the comment that cluster bombs are imprecise.
Those fuckers always hit the ground.
I bought a watch from a crazy man. Instead of a dial, it has the word "now" written on it. It's never wrong.
FAC Vietnam '67-'68: CBUs, 500# snake eyes, napalm (snakes and napes), 20mm, whatever worked for a particular target. I might add the same for wars before and wars after. If it works, then it will be used up to and including nuclear weapons in balistic missles. It is the 'war' that is evil whether it is a declared war, a police action, or a UN declaration; the weaponry is secondary.
Danang 71-72 F-4 outfit. (366TFW) Remember that we called Vietnamese 'gooks and dinks'. and in Iraq ''sand niggers and ragheads''.
Then people wonder why the USA is so hated.
The vietnamese proved you cannot beat someone in their own backyard.
Russia was attacked by Nazi Germany and were the ones who actually ''won'' WW2.
I guess you are aware now that the 'Gulf of Tonkin'' incident never occurred, right?
Only 58,000 Americans lost their lives . Compare that to about 18 million in Russia who lost their lives fighting the Nazis who the USA now actually supports in the Baltics and Kiev.
They lie. There is no US.
War Crimes?.....oh, I forgot, they would have come from the US and carry the stars and stripes seal of approval, so could not possibly be a war crime even if a city of civilians was taken out, only the Baddies commit war crimes, bring on the white phosphorus.
The qualification is irrelevant. The fact (crime) is self evident.
The US supports and facilitates the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas.
The fact, crime, is evident, the DC US is a criminal and murderous war dog for Zion.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
But, but, Nuland handed out cookies.
Doesn't look very effective.