Cluster Quotes
U.S. foreign policy showdown, US vs them zero-sum, Biden authorised reservist call-up, American cluster munitions kill civilians, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen knows what cluster bombs do
UPDATE: The House of Representatives is poised for a showdown over military intervention and U.S. foreign policy, unless the GOP blocks a sweeping set of amendments from a bipartisan group of lawmakers challenging the status quo.
As the US-Chinese rivalry intensifies, other countries increasingly confront the dilemma of siding with either Washington or Beijing. Over the past decades, foreign capitals have come to enjoy security and economic benefits from association with both the United States and China.
President Joe Biden has authorised the military to call up 3,000 reserve troops to support operations in Europe after tens of thousands were sent there last year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to the UN Human Rights Office, 9,083 civilians have been killed in 500 days of fighting in Ukraine, and 15,779 wounded. These figures are likely to increase dramatically once American cluster munitions are deployed.
As the two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit 2023 began in Vilnius, , Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to member states and signatories to the convention on the prohibition of Cluster Munitions to dissuade the US from providing these deadly munitions to Ukraine amid the war with Russia.
Inside the Military-Industrial Complex
The Intercept (edited)
The House of Representatives is poised for a showdown over military intervention and U.S. foreign policy, unless the GOP blocks a sweeping set of amendments from a bipartisan group of lawmakers challenging the status quo. The amendments, submitted to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, need approval from the House Rules Committee before they can be considered for a vote. The Rules Committee has 13 members, four of whom are Democrats and three of whom are Freedom Caucus Republicans, enough to approve an amendment acting in coalition.
One of the most direct challenges to the Biden administration is a bill led by Democratic Reps. Sara Jacobs and Ilhan Omar which would block the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine and all other countries. Other amendments restrict military cooperation with a variety of governments accused of human rights abuses, order the declassification of information about past U.S. participation in coups or the operation of death squads, or shift spending from weapons systems toward social programs for troops.
Last week, 19 Democrats sent a letter to Biden objecting to the cluster munitions transfer, arguably the most significant challenge to the Executive Branch’s expansive military and surveillance overreach — from preventing the transfer of cluster bombs and demanding war powers votes for Yemen and Syria to oversight over irregular warfare authorities, to limiting government purchases of data about Americans.
In the past week, multiple U.S. allies including the United Kingdom and Spain have voiced opposition to the Biden administration’s support for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine. These weapons are banned by over 100 countries and have already killed civilians when deployed by the Ukrainian military, which has obtained some cluster munitions from Turkey. Jacobs and Omar’s amendment orders that “no military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions, no defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued, and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred.”
In another direct shot at U.S. war making capacity, Omar introduced legislation to repeal the Pentagon’s 127e program, which is a route by which the U.S. wages proxy war, sponsoring death squads or other irregular partner forces with hideous human rights records. While Omar’s legislation would ban the program, Jacobs has introduced a separate measure to curtail it by requiring the Pentagon to vet the groups it sponsors for credible allegations of human rights abuses and consider whether the alliance may damage U.S. interests.
A measure by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., requires the Pentagon to report back on human rights abuses carried out by its allies before continuing certain military partnerships in Peru, where a left-wing populist president was recently forced out by the right-wing opposition. Ocasio-Cortez also introduced a measure requiring the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department to declassify information related to the U.S. government’s role in the Chilean coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power.
She also introduced a separate amendment that makes a similar demand related to the 1964 military coup in Brazil, additionally requiring the Pentagon to explain to Congress what its role there was, and what types of cooperation it offered the resulting dictatorship over the next two decades. Her third historical amendment orders the Pentagon to produce a report on its involvement with Colombian military repression from 1980 to 2000. Legislation from Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., orders the Pentagon to report back on any U.S.-funded foreign security services that have killed journalists in the last five years, an expansion of her probe into the killing of reporter Shireen Abu Akleh by U.S.-funded Israeli forces.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass has proposed a Haiti-related NDAA amendment ordering the Pentagon to submit a new report on its knowledge of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Another measure from Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., blocks any funds from being used to support military intervention on the island, which the U.S.-installed de facto prime minister Ariel Henry has called for.
An amendment from Reps. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., and Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., would block the use of military force in or against Mexico. Reps. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Becca Balint, D-Vt., are attempting to amend the NDAA with conditional restriction on military aid to Uganda, a measure responding to a draconian new LGBTQ+ human rights law that punishes same-sex relationships with life in prison. Two different amendments offered by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., seek to end military assistance to Guatemala and Honduras over human rights abuses, following a similar amendment from Bush that attempts to limit financial assistance to Cameroon’s military and law enforcement over related concerns.
Targeting the yet-to-be-settled war in Yemen, Reps. Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, and Val Hoyle have all come out in support of a measure blocking the U.S. from assisting the Saudi war effort if it resumes hostilities against the Houthis. The amendment follows a related push from Reps. Ted Lieu, Gregory Meeks, and Dina Titus attempting to extend a moratorium on refueling aircraft participating in the war.
Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Mark Pocan, D-Wis., are scrutinizing the accelerating violence taking place in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in an amendment seeking a report from the Defense and State departments on the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
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The Myth of Neutrality
Countries Will Have to Choose Between America and China
By Richard Fontaine (edited)
As the US-Chinese rivalry intensifies, other countries increasingly confront the dilemma of siding with either Washington or Beijing. "This is not a choice that most countries wish to make. Over the past decades, foreign capitals have come to enjoy security and economic bene!ts from association with both the United States and China. "These countries know that joining a coherent political-economic bloc would mean forgoing major benefits from their ties to the other superpower.
“The vast majority of Indo-Pacific and European countries do not want to be trapped into an impossible choice,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, observed at a 2022 meeting of the Brussels Indo-Pacific Forum. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., noted in 2023 that his country does not “want a world that is split into two camps [and] ... where countries should choose what side they would be on.” Similar sentiments have been expressed by many leaders, including Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s deputy prime minister, and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud. "The message to Washington and Beijing is clear: no country wants to be forced into a binary decision between the two powers.
"The United States has hastened to reassure its allies that it feels much the same. “We’re not asking anyone to choose between the United States and China,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference in June. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, speaking at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, insisted that Washington doesn’t “ask people to choose or countries to choose between us and another country.” John Kirby, the White House’s foreign policy spokesperson, repeated the same point in April: “We’re not asking countries to choose between the United States and China, or the West and China.”
It is true that Washington does not insist on an all-or-nothing, us-versus-them choice from even its closest partners. Given the extensive links that all countries— including the United States—have with China, attempting to forge a coherent anti-China bloc would be unlikely to succeed. Even the United States would not join such an arrangement if it required ending its economic relationship with China, which would come at a tremendous cost.
But it may not be possible much longer for countries to simply sit on the fence. When it comes to a host of policy areas, including technology, defense, diplomacy, and trade, Washington and Beijing are, indeed, forcing others to take sides. Countries will inevitably be caught up in superpower rivalry, and they will be required to step across the line, one way or another. "The U.S.-Chinese competition is an inescapable feature of today’s world, and Washington should stop pretending otherwise. Instead, it must work to make the right choices as attractive as possible.
As U.S.-Chinese competition has intensified in recent years, countries have been increasingly placed in the unenviable position of having to choose. Under former U.S. President Donald Trump, the United States exerted signi!cant pressure on its allies to not let Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, build its 5G networks. Beijing naturally wished to secure the telecommunications deals, and multiple governments privately expressed concern that barring Huawei would anger China. In response, Washington played hardball. "The Trump administration even went as far as to suggest to Poland that future U.S. troop deployments might be at risk if Warsaw worked with Huawei. "The U.S. government warned Germany that Washington would limit intelligence sharing if Berlin welcomed Huawei; not long after, the Chinese ambassador to Germany promised retaliation against German companies if Berlin barred Huawei. Europe’s largest economy was caught between its top two trading partners.
"This dynamic continued under U.S. President Joe Biden. "The administration’s 2021 CHIPS and Science Act offered some $50 billion in federal subsidies to American and foreign semiconductor manufacturers that are produced in the United States— but only if they refrain from any “significant transaction” to expand their chip- making capacity in China for ten years. Later that year, the Biden administration unilaterally imposed export controls on high-end semiconductors used in China for supercomputing. Initially, the Netherlands and Japan—the other main countries that export chip manufacturing equipment to China—were not party to the new approach. But they were soon told to match the restrictions with limits of their own. By early 2023, Japan and the Netherlands had bowed to U.S. pressure and done so.
"The moves and countermoves have since continued. Months after the U.S. restrictions, Beijing retaliated against the United States by barring the use of semiconductors made by Micron, a U.S. company, in key Chinese infrastructure projects. Washington then promptly asked South Korea, whose chipmakers operate major “fabs”—chip manufacturing facilities—in China, not to back!ll any supply gap. Beijing, in turn, restricted the export of key metals used in semiconductor manufacturing. Chinese state media condemned the Netherlands, one of the countries that uses the metals, as it made the announcement.
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Biden Activates US Reservists for NATO
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American cluster bombs in Ukraine
By Richard Broinowski (edited)
According to the UN Human Rights Office, 9,083 civilians have been killed in 500 days of fighting in Ukraine, and 15,779 wounded. These figures are likely to increase dramatically once American cluster munitions are deployed.
Invented by Germany and deployed in World War Two, cluster bomb technology spread to the United States, Russia and Italy by war’s end. By 1990, 34 countries were making them. Released from larger bombs dropped from aircraft, or from ground-fired artillery shells, small cluster bombs were designed to be scattered in their hundreds or thousands across enemy terrain. Some were designed to destroy enemy armour, materiel, or electrical installations, or used as incendiaries. But most were aimed to kill ‘soft’ targets such as human beings, usually enemy combatants.
Among many such deployments, the United States dropped thousands of cluster bombs during its numerous post-WW2 engagements, including in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1960s, and in Iraq during ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ in 2003. No doubt, US-made cluster bombs were also deployed in numerous US efforts to overthrow governments in Latin America between 1954 (Guatemala), and Nicaragua (1987).
The Soviet Union deployed them, notably in Afghanistan in the 1980s and during the first Chechen War in 1995. Britain used them against Argentina in the Falklands War in 1982. Israel has dropped them on numerous occasions in Syria, Iran, Lebanon and among Palestinians.
Warfare kills civilians in what perpetrators euphemistically call ‘collateral damage’. But cluster munitions are particularly terrible because 20 to 40 percent of them don’t detonate immediately, but days, weeks, months or even years later, often to explode among civilians with devastating results. For example, fifty years after the Indo-Chinese conflict hundreds of farmers are still being killed in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam as their ploughs bump into thousands of unexploded American bomblets buried in their paddy fields. Such ‘accidents’ have been particularly numerous in Xiang Khuoang Province in Laos, and Quang Tri Province in Vietnam.
Growing horror at the mindless destructiveness of cluster bombs prompted the international community to negotiate a Convention on Cluster Munitions. It was adopted in Dublin in May 2008, and signed into law in Oslo in August 2010. It bans the use, production, trade or stockpiling of cluster munitions. The Convention has been adopted by 110 nations with 13 additional signatories. Regrettably, the United States and Ukraine are not amongst them. Nor are China, Russia, India, Pakistan and the Republic of Korea.
Now, as part of America’s program of support for Ukraine, President Biden has announced that the United States will supply cluster munitions for deployment against Russia. He claims he has had to do so because Ukraine is running out of regular artillery ammunition in its present counter-offensive against Russian forces in Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. The counter-offensive is invested with much significance, aimed at driving a wedge between Russian forces in the Donbas and Crimea, a crucial step towards President Zelensky’s hope to expel Russia from the country.
President Biden has met with protests from many signatories to the Convention, including Britain, Canada and Spain. He has responded defensively by saying that everything must be done to prevent use of cluster bombs against civilian targets, and that the so-called ‘dud rate’ of the American-made bombs will be no more than 2.35 percent. It might just be possible that the US manufacturer of the cluster munitions has made such fine ‘dud rate’ calibrations. But given Ukraine’s past atrocities against civilian targets in the Donbas, it is unlikely that Zelensky or his forces will be able or willing to abide by Biden’s demand that no civilians will be targeted.
What about Australia? We have traditionally prided ourselves at being in the forefront of anti-war conventions. We were one of the first countries to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970, followed by the Treaties against Chemical and Biological Weapons and Mines in 1993, and the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013.
Australia also signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2012, and has coordinated the Convention’s victim assistance work since September 2014, as well as working to universalise the Convention’s practices in the Asia-Pacific region ever since.
We have condemned the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan, Syria, and by Ukrainian forces in their own country in 2015. Curiously however, we do not yet appear to have condemned President Biden’s decision to supply Ukrainian forces with cluster bombs this time around. Does the government’s refusal to condemn them fit in the same category as Australia’s reluctance to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which Washington says would not allow US forces to exercise ‘extended deterrence’? Is it, depressingly, one more example of where Australia is forfeiting its sovereign right to make decisions that benefit this country? Are we simply too afraid to irritate Washington? What does it reveal about Australia’s selective disregard for international law-based order?
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Cambodia: No No No to cluster bombs
By Soth Koemsoeun (edited)
As the two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit 2023 began in Vilnius, Lithuania yesterday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to member states and signatories to the convention on the prohibition of Cluster Munitions to dissuade the US from providing these deadly munitions to Ukraine amid the war with Russia.
The US plans to give Ukraine $800 million worth of additional aid in the fight against Russian troops which occupied the country, including cluster bombs.
In a message on Twitter yesterday, Mr Hun Sen said, “On behalf of the Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to continue to call on NATO member states and some US allies, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Canada, all of which are signatories to the convention on the prohibition of Cluster Munitions, to take responsibility and participate in preventing US President Joe Biden and the President of Ukraine not to use this deadly weapon.”
Mr Hun Sen said that the painful experience of Cambodia, on which the US dropped cluster bombs in the early 1970s, is still being felt after more than 50 years and the threat, has not yet been completely eradicated.
“I know for sure that Cambodia is small and weak, but out of compassion for the people of Ukraine, I call on the President of the United States, the donors, and the President of Ukraine, the recipient, to refrain from using cluster munitions in this war, because the real victims will be the Ukrainian people,” he said.
Some other countries and groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) have also called on the United States not to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine.
While more than 120 countries have signed international treaties banning the use of cluster munitions, Russia, Ukraine and the United States are among those that have not ratified the treaties.
US Embassy in Phnom Penh spokeswoman Stephanie Arzate said yesterday that the United States announced on July 7, an additional $800 million in security assistance for Ukraine needed to defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war.
“We are working with Ukraine to minimise any risks associated with security assistance, and Ukraine has committed to post-conflict de-mining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians,” she said.
Nataliya Zhynkina, the Deputy Head of Mission and Political Counsellor of the Embassy of Ukraine in Vietnam, said yesterday that Ukraine understand the concerns of Mr Hun Sen, and values his approach about peaceful settlement of the conflict. She noted that prior to the decision on the transfer of the cluster munitions, Ukraine provided the United States with appropriate official guarantees containing certain obligations.
a guarantee that Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of its own internationally recognised territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognised territory of Russia;
The Defence Forces of Ukraine will not use these munitions in urban areas (cities) to avoid risks to the civilian population. Cluster munitions will be used only in places of concentration of Russian troops to break through enemy defence lines with minimal risk to the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. Saving the lives of Ukrainian citizens – civilians and military – remains Ukraine’s top priority;
Ukraine will keep strict records of the use of these weapons and the localities where they will be used;
After the de-occupation of Ukrainian territories and Ukraine’s victory, these zones will be prioritised for demining purposes. This will eliminate the risks associated with unexploded cluster munition elements; and
Ukraine will report to partners on the use of these munitions and their effectiveness to ensure an appropriate standard of transparency and control.
Ly Thuch, First Vice-President of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA), said yesterday that Mr Hun Sen’s recommendation is a reminder to the world to be extremely careful in using cluster munitions in the war between Ukraine and Russia.
Cambodia is concerned for the people of Ukraine who are the direct victims of this war, because Mr Hun Sen has been through many years of wars and he knows the effects and impact of cluster munitions, he noted.
Cambodia has been at war, and this type of bomb has been used on Cambodian soil. After the end of the war, many Cambodians died or were injured and maimed by cluster munitions left over from the war, Thuch said.
“Cambodia has spent more than 30 years clearing all types of mines, but not just demining cluster munitions, and so far the efforts have not been completely successful,” he added.
“I think that the call by Samdech Techo Hun Sen was made out of compassion for the people of Ukraine and the NATO members and the United States should fully consider that the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine will be more catastrophic for its people in the future,” Thuch added.
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