Bomblets Over Baghdad

Bomblets are exactly what they sound like: small bombs.  They are, however, encased in big bombs, or shells.  The complete package is called a cluster bomb: a big bomb filled with bomblets, or submunitions, that are blanketed over an area.  Not only are cluster bombs (by design) not precise, and therefore an immediate threat to civilians trapped by war, they leave unexploded bomblets, or duds, to be happened upon like antipersonnel landmines long after they've been dropped or launched.  

 

When a cluster bomb is dropped in an airstrike, its shell opens midair and releases a multitude of bomblets.  Attached to each bomblet is a nylon drag ribbon, giving it a somewhat controlled descent.  This is necessary because, in order to explode, the ribbon must flutter in the wind to arm the bomblet and the cylindrical bomblet must land perpendicular to the ground to detonate.  The falling bomblets are reminiscent of the toy paratroopers with which I played as a child.  Tragically, children often mistake unexploded bomblets for toys, a mistake that potentially costs the child his or her life or limbs.

BLU-97

Cluster bombs are also fired from the ground by multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) launchers.

Cluster bomb technology was first developed by the Germans during WWII.  The butterfly bomb, as the Germans called it, wreaked havoc on the Allies during the war and is still causing problems today.

Since WWII cluster bomb technology has been used extensively, especially by the US.  Hundreds of millions of submunitions have been dropped or launched by the US since the 1960s.  According to the Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor, the US has used cluster bombs in the Middle East (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Lebanon), Central and Southeast Asia (Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR), Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), and on the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean Sea.

In Iraq alone, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, nearly 250,000 submuntions were dropped from the air, and upwards of two million were launched from the ground.  According to a Human Rights Watch report, ground-launched cluster bombs were used extensively in populated areas and residential neighborhoods, killing and maiming civilians by the dozens and hundreds.

These number are dwarfed, however, by the number of bomblets dropped in the Gulf War: twenty million.  Of these twenty million, the duds alone have killed 1,600 civilians and injured 2,500 (see video below).

   

  

Most recently, the Obama administration covertly fired at least one cruise missile loaded with BLU-97 submunitions (pictured above) into Yemen, causing immediate civilian casualties as well as multiple deaths and injuries in the following days.   

Obama, though a Nobel Peace Laureate, has refused to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), to which 108 states, including Iraq and Afghanistan, have acceded.  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who is the first Secretary of Defense to serve two different political parties consecutively, said that the US cannot become a party to the CCM because "cluster munitions are an integral part of our and many of our coalition partners' military operations."  Gates has also said that cluster bombs are "legitimate weapons with clear military utility."  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, like Gates, believes cluster bombs are legitimate weapons: in 2006, she voted against Senate Amendment No. 4882, which had a stated aim to ban cluster bomb use "in or near any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads."  (The amendment failed.) 

Instead of banning cluster bombs, the US put in motion a policy that "improves" the reliability of bomblets, i.e. lowers the dud rate.  Under the new policy, set to fully take effect in 2018, the US will not produce, acquire or use cluster bombs that exceed a dud rate of one percent; meanwhile, the US hypocritically believes it's acceptable to use cluster bombs with high dud rates.  

The 99 percent reliability rate seems to safeguard civilians from harm, but it begs the question: If the US is acting on bad intelligence, as it often does (and let's not forget Iraq's phantom WMD program), or a bomb goes off-target and strikes civilians, as happened in Qala Shater, Afghanistan, won't more bomblets exploding on impact kill more civilians immediately (as opposed to later)?  The fact that these bombs are inaccurate and indiscriminate is reason enough to discontinue their use.  Not to mention the fact that one percent of the twenty million bomblets dropped in the Gulf War equals 200,000.  That is, even under the new policy, hundreds of thousands of duds--effective landmines--would have still littered farmland, fields, city streets, roads, schoolyards, etc. 

JUST IMAGINE

Imagine you are granted a look into your future.  Giddily, you prepare yourself to see if, or to what extent, you've achieved your short-term goals.  Tragically, devastatingly you see your actual future: a life without legs, bound to a wheelchair like Soraj Ghulam Habib. Or, like Ali Hussein Chibli, you see you've become a one-legged, destitute man, crippled even further by the death of your son.  

Imagine how often you'd be reminded of your injuries and losses, how often you'd come to ask yourself, "For what?"  I imagine Habib asking himself, "What did the US gain by dropping the bomb that eventually took my legs, an index finger, and my cousin?"

In Chibli's case, I imagine he asks himself, "Is Israel safer now that they've taken my son, my leg, and my farmland? Does the Israeli government sleep better now that my son's dreams have vanished and I can only dream of my son?" 

I imagine Habib and Chibli, like me, are stunned and terrified by the fact that major powers, including the US, Russia, China, and Israel, oppose a ban on cluster bombs.  Certainly no moral objective has ever been, or will ever be, achieved through such a wicked and iniquitous weapon.  

Bin Laden's Dead; Now Let's Kill His Recruiters: Predator Drones

Barrack Obama announced on Sunday that Osama bin Laden is dead, and that he met his demise at the hands of Americans in Pakistan.  "A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability," the president said.  He went on to say that no Americans were wounded and that the team "took care to avoid civilian casualty," but didn't elaborate.  A jubilated America took to the streets.

Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a well-off city near the Pakistan Military Academy.  His body has since been buried at sea.

The president was quick to publicly acknowledge the mission.  Obama, however, rarely discusses covert US missions in Pakistan, which happen regularly.  The difference, of course, is who this mission killed -- and how the killing was done.

The US routinely carries out covert, targeted attacks in Pakistan.  Predator drones -- unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) armed with Hellfire missiles -- carried out 118 such attacks in Pakistan in 2010 alone.  The drones are flown by CIA operatives back in the states, half a world removed from the carnage.

However clandestine, the drones have not gone unnoticed by Pakistanis, who are increasingly voicing their opposition to the strikes. Imran Khan, a Cricket Hall of Fame inductee and Pakistani politician, has taken to direct action, orchestrating and participating in a sit-in that blocked a NATO supply route to Afghanistan.  He has promised similar action in the future if the drone strikes continue.

Collateral damage -- civilian deaths and injuries -- is the chief remonstration of the protesters, and rightfully so.  Since 2004 drone strikes have taken the lives of no less than 293 innocent Pakistanis, according to the New America Foundation.  These numbers are very conservative; the actual number is undoubtedly much higher.  The pernicious, contradicting logic of Operation Enduring Freedom and the War on Terror gives the family, friends, and compatriots of these now-dead innocent Pakistanis the right to bring the killers to justice, to avenge their dead -- through violence.

To demonstrate how counterproductive and ineffectual drone strikes can be, let's presume that each of the 293 drone victims had at least two young males (42 percent of the population is under 14 years old) with whom each was close and who will likely take action against the killers (the US government): that's 586 justified soldiers if we are to follow the eye-for-an-eye logic of the US government and many Americans.  Now, many of these 586 brave, honorable soldiers will die heroically fighting the cold, mechanical killers of their loved ones, sparking yet another line of young men to fight just as heroically in their stead -- only to end up just as dead.  So it goes.

There is no endgame.  So-called terrorists and insurgents are not a fixed number; they cannot be identified from the air with certainty; they are a symptom of the problem, not the ultimate problem; and most important, they cannot be exterminated like mice in a weekend.  They are fluid, adaptive and can be created as easily as they can be killed -- and are often created by those tasked with killing them.

War begets terrorism.  It must stop, for there are innocents breathing as a write this who will be directly killed by US/NATO forces tomorrow and the next day and every day this wanton war is waged.

Bound by Beauty ... Or Bound for Calamity

We left Pittsburgh for Ashland, Oregon, late in the morning; our only possessions were those that could win a spot in the Roof Bag or on Ali’s Cobalt’s backseat.  With no room to recline, a crate of fruit for Ali, and Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee for me, we began our three thousand-some mile move across the country.

Along the way, I wanted to see America like I hadn’t seen it before, discover what binds it and what separates it. 

Driving through the Midwest, I noticed that rear window decals were seemingly a must-have among truck and SUV owners.  This could lead one to believe that America’s natural beauty is cherished by truck and SUV owners; sadly, it’s not the case.  The purpose of these decals is to make vehicles seem more natural, less destructive, and as if they’re just another part of God’s green earth; it’s an underhanded tactic used by the automotive industry to blur the line that separates their products from Nature.  As an experiment, make a list of cars as fast as you can: how many are given Native American names? How many are named after animals?  Such deception can only be rivaled by cigarette ads that use athletic, well-aged models to sell a product that is known to reduce one’s athleticism and cause premature aging.  The absurdity of these decals can only be rivaled by one drawing one’s curtains so as to block-out the setting sun, thereby reducing the glare on one’s computer monitor, the desktop background of which is, not surprisingly, a setting sun. 

Intermittently, groups of motorcyclists would come between us and the decaled trucks and SUVs.  They were as common as Perkin’s and McDonald’s placards were on highway information signs.  The motorcyclists’ sense of fashion jumped from leather chaps to fresh-pressed jeans, from ponytails and skull-caps to sun-burnt balding heads that seemed to lose more hair with each passing mile.  Many wore helmets, but they too varied from robotic-looking modular helmets to 1960s-era half helmets.  They were bound by motorcycles, but what else, I wondered.  After studying the motorcyclists for two states, I concluded that not much else brought them together, that they too, despite my initial thought that they took to the open road to marvel at the vast expanses of the countryside, were blind to the rolling hills in the distance. 

I slowly began to realize that, despite my wishful thinking, most of America was probably bound by concrete, cars, “reality” TV, restaurant chains, and large corporations, not Nature.  Each motel Ali and I stayed at supported this, offering variations of free cable TV and discounted meals at T.G.I.Friday’s. 

Notwithstanding our current immersion in the human-made world, I’m confident we could rediscover Nature’s beauty (though it may take a major, sustained power outage to reset our mammalian disposition). 

This is not to say that technology is pure evil — it’s not, at all; it’s very human, in fact.  But it should not be our common denominator, Nature should.  And the further we isolate ourselves from Nature, the more likely is our demise, for as much as we “depend” on technology, that technology, as well as human ingenuity, is dependent on Nature.     

Ali and I no longer live in the Northeast; we live in the Northwest.  Our new apartment is a beautiful day’s drive from Seattle, a city originally occupied by the Duwamish tribe.  The Duwamish were (and still are) very grateful for their land and wildlife; their reverence is unmistakably and elegantly documented in a letter written by prominent Duwamish tribesman Chief Seattle to U.S. president Franklin Pierce in 1855: “Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.  Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.”  Admittedly, Chief Seattle lived in an entirely different world from ours.  Today, we couldn’t possibly treat every pine needle as if it were sacred (except at Christmastime, of course).  But we must admit that we live on the opposite extreme: where the Duwamish have love and respect for the earth we have contempt. 

Chief Seattle’s letter went on to say that “[t]he earth is not the [white man’s] brother but his enemy….  Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.”  Though Chief Seattle’s generalization is counterproductive and racist (and understandable, given the circumstances), his message has become increasingly relevant since it was issued over a century and a half ago — and now applies (as it arguably did then) to every culture across the globe. 

If we do not, as a species, become bound by our mutual love and respect for the natural world, then we are, as a species, bound for a succession of calamities from which we cannot recover.  

I knew this before my and Ali’s move began; it’s not a recent revelation for me.  But the caveat became all the more real to me after I saw what we stood to lose: a planet so beautiful that one can travel 3,000 miles and not once see its beauty falter.  When I realized that this beauty tragically goes unnoticed by most people, I came to understand that my unborn grandchildren would not see this planet if it isn't first seen by those driving on it.  

Asante Sana, Tanzania

Last spring I went to Tanzania to visit a friend stationed there with the Peace Corps.   

The flight was rougher than I expected; it replaced my excitement with torment and, instead of worrying I’d be swimming in the Atlantic, I was worried my head would explode on the seemingly never-ending flight.  (So I don’t sound completely ridiculous, let me explain: my seat’s reading light didn’t work, nor did the TV; I had the window seat and am the type to sit miserably for hours lest I annoy the person next to me.)

Soon after arriving in Tanzania I came to know that which I had confidently, but really only partially, known heretofore: that people are generally the same everywhere on Earth; that the differences that separate cultures are not as strong as the similarities that bond individuals.  This knowledge, I think, is so basic yet so profound that it must be obtained through life experiences, gathered by the senses, to be known completely. 

I realized this early through the conversations I had with Tanzanians, and it was affirmed by the many subsequent conversations I had had.  Tanzanians were more than happy to talk with me, not that I thought they wouldn’t, it’s just that I expected the conversations to unravel in an unfamiliar way.  They didn’t.  The awkward pauses, the fleeing of the conversation when topics became scarce, the uneasy smiles, the out-of-place but liberating laughter, the reliance on the most talkative member of the group to save the rest — all too familiar to me.  I felt comfortable, as if only the scenery of my life had been changed.  I felt — for lack of a better, more specific word — human.  To clarify: I’ve always felt human, or so I suppose, but for the first time I was connecting with people simply because we were people, that is, curious, caring, bored, in the mood for a Fanta.

My friend and I, true to Peace Corps principles, had an unsaid but religiously-followed rule: to live and travel as average Tanzanians.  In a country with little, and often rudimentary, infrastructure, this rule made traveling all the more interesting, memorable, edifying and, frankly, scary.  And travel we did — through forests and cities.  We journeyed to a preserved rainforest by the strength of our feet and two pick-up trucks, the second of which we shared with three barrels of gasoline, maybe 200 pounds of rice and ten to fifteen Tanzanians.  Another notable trip took place in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city.  This particular trip made the finite space of a minibus seem boundless.  Just when I thought it was impossible to fit even a small child into the bus, it stopped to pick up another four African mamas, each carrying goods from the market, and, for whatever reason, a computer monitor was brought in through a window.

This space-defying, tightly packed trip happened to be my last in the country; I was going to the airport.  At my stop, I hesitated.  Some people in the bus shot me a look; others spoke in Swahili.  I imagine they thought or said: “What’s this mzungu doing?  This is his stop.”  My friend gave me a nudge and said, “Just go.”  I went.  I had to squeeze through people and climb over them.  To my surprise, no one pushed back or became annoyed. Tanzanians handle such situations with incomparable equanimity, and it’s refreshing to see people in such close contact remain calm, cooperative. 

After three weeks of such travel and powerful realizations, the flight home – figuratively and literally – flew by.  Throughout the flight, I was in deep introspection (and didn’t even bother to check if the TV worked or not).  I realized how privileged I was and that with this privilege comes great responsibilities.  Namely, if we are going to use valuable resources to visit (or report on) those without such resources, we must do so modestly, respectfully; we must share what we’ve found understandingly, forthrightly; and it must be to our and their benefit.

I owe much to the continent and am looking to settle my debt with interest.