U.S.-Made Cluster Bomb Use by Saudis in Yemen

Human Rights Watch released a report Sunday providing new indications that Saudi Arabia has fired American-made cluster munitions, banned by international treaty, in civilian areas of Yemen, and said their use may also violate United States law.


Read more here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/15/world ... middleeast

 

Looks like Russia is also using cluster munitions in Syria, according to reports. America never signed the treaty on banning the things.
Here's some video. I'm not a weapons expert so perhaps someone with some experience can determine if these look like cluster bombs going off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQpxNA-uku4

 

If we wish to assume that Russia is using some cluster bombs in Syria to wipe out the terrorists attacking Syria, we should remember that the US used these weapons extensively on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan deliberately as confirmed by the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who told the world that killing 500,000 kids "was worth the price."
The US and it's Israeli controllers created all these wars, not Russia.

 

One of the very few US companies not outsourcing manufacture to China

http://www.textronsystems.com/capabilities/smart-weapons/sfw

Scroll down and read about the CLAW. By the way 'soft targets' is the politically correct term for people

[video=youtube;9HkauuIyDsM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HkauuIyDsM[/video]

 

Judging from the video footage of an actual test, the attack gizmos appear to have missed most the targets.

 

So what?

- - - Updated - - -

Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia signed any such treaty.

 

I believe the thread starter just wanted to point out monumental U.S hypocrisy. Fake tears about supposedly killed civilians in Syria (most of whom were killed and displaced by jihadists supported by the USA) and being totally silent about Saudi Arabia genocidal actions in Yemen.

For heaven’s sake, Saudis and their allies completely destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure. The destruction on steroids. They destroyed more infrastructure in Yemen within 6 months then both sides in Syria for 4 years.

Why the managed transition after Yemen’s uprising led to war
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...-after-yemen’s-uprising-led-to-war/ar-BBpGMhD

 

Treaty obligations are only one side of the issue. There is the question of the morality of US government policy in supplying anti-personnel weapons to "friendly" nations for use against civilian populations. Whether it be the Israelis in Lebanon or the Saudis in Yemen, handing over military hardware causing indiscriminate casualties of women and kids does the USA more long-term harm than any benefit derived from propping up a hated invader whom we have decided to back. Guns and bombs are not the answer to our problems in the Middle East.

 

Not PC to say this but I just don't care if they kill each other in that part of the world and I don't mind us supplying the weapons for them to do so.

 

Yeah, so what. The US has the attitude that if 1 well aimed shot would do the job use several thousand instead. You gotta hit something eventually.

[video=youtube;iLEGE7k9FD4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEGE7k9FD4[/video]

 

A quite understandable isolationist point of view and politically correct as well. While you may not care if they kill each other in that part of the world, I assume that you rather do care if they kill us in our part of the world. The issues are strongly connected as our supplying the weapons to both sides of the great civil war that is convulsing the Arab world is the principal motive inspiring the growing number of folks over there who want to come over here and kill us.

 

So what would be a pro-personnel weapon? Would that be like a pillow case full of marshmallows?

 

It's not difficult, silly. Use a focused weapon on combatants. Not indiscriminate ones that harm/maim/kill children, woman and innocents/non-combatants.

Weapons such as land mines, cluster bombs etc., are illegal under international humanitarian law because they are inherently indiscriminate (see HERE).

But the US doesn't adhere to international law - unless it wants too. Put in a simplified way this makes the US a rogue state:

Source

"The United Rogue States of America", would these days, be a more meaningful sobriquet, I think.

But that's just me.

 

Sorry, those "laws" are not applicable to the United States as a country. Your understanding of what it takes to win a war is as baffling as well as naive.

 

Oh, please. Don't be naive. They want to come over here and kill us whether we go there or stay here.

There are no "rules" in war. You fight to win or you lose.

 

It doesnt matter anyway. obama approved the sale, and hes a nobel peace prize winner.

If you dont like it, then you must be a racist.

 

Overkill is underrated. If your going to kill something, you might as well (*)(*)(*)(*)ing kill something. Preferably in a humongous explosion.

 

Those Arab savages have been killing each other forever and the blame America first crowd you represent is on shaky ground here

 

That's why I say the USA is, today, a "rogue state".

I think your understanding of war is baffling but very cynical too. The use of abhorrent and indiscriminate weapons has been illegal in warfare for god alone knows how many decades. The fact that you don't know that, nor care, doesn't change those laws because ignorance of the law is not a defence.

If you, personally, were to sell an illegal firearm in the US to someone who was not legally authorised to own that weapon and were caught you'd go to prison.

But if the US as a state decides to sell illegal weapons overseas in breach of international law, including to international terrorists organisations like al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and ISIS etc., they do so and be damned with the consequences.

It's a double standard and hypocritical. One law for citizens and another for the government. That's no way to run a country.

 

Who's law? Who enforces that law? Why should we adhere to it? You can't go to prison for a law we don't recognize.

 

So reports of use by Saudi Arabia, and video footage of use by Russia - and its genocide by the Saudi's but anti-terrorist operations by the Russians LOL, you pro-Putin posters here are a real worry

 

It took some time to find the real reason for Saudi war on Yemen. Of course, it's another pipeline in the making. Hence our media silence about genocidal crimes committed by Saudis.

Secret cable and Dutch government official confirm that Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen is partly motivated by an ambitious US-backed pipeline fantasy -

See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays...ring-al-qaeda-1386143996#sthash.XfZBPrC9.dpuf

Hiding the pipeline connection

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays...ring-al-qaeda-1386143996#sthash.XfZBPrC9.dpuf

 

You know that little about the subject? It's international law agreed upon by 123 nations around the world and administered by the International Criminal Court (ICC) a tribunal that sits in the Hague, Netherlands, where it holds trials for international crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

You do recognize it now. Bush the younger, when he knew he was going go to go for broke and engage in perpetual war, many of which would not have legal cover cover under the UN Charter, refused to recognise it. Obama re-established a working relationship with the court.

You should adhere to it if you care about the US operating in legal ways with moral responsibilities. If you don't care about either, and you don't then you must be regarded as a rogue state.

Your proposition that "you can't go to prison for a law we don't recognise is plain wrong". The US [or should we use the euphemism for the US - "the international community" ] had no problem effectively capturing/kidnapping? former Serbian head of state, Slobodan Milosevic for transportation and trial at the ICC in the Hague. In fact, it was the US that set the temperature on this by issuing a deadline to Serbia to force them to arrest and turn him over to the ICC (HERE)

It suited the US to work with the ICC on that and other cases at that time, but come 9/11 and Bush's decision to engage in illegal war with states it no longer favoured, it withdrew it's support for the ICC.

I call that rank hypocrisy. And am no longer surprised by it.

 

The US is driven by the military industrial complex. We sell all sorts of weapons, and we don't give a damn about how they are used.

 

Problem with these weapons is that they are highly unreliable. We have them still exploding from time to time in the Balkans. And that is US bombs that was dropped 20 years ago.