Here’s how it happened. You see, Kossak Moongazer made a well-written open-hearted reply yesterday to sidneyluv. It reminded me that The Candidate (a recent U.S. Sec. of State) is not on the record opposing transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. You can act against it right now. The Candidate opposes U.S. joining the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), also known as the Oslo Process, in which 119 states (100 States parties & 19 Signatories) in the CCM prohibit all use, production**, transfer and stockpiling of these weapons.
CCM was Adopted on 30 May 2008 in Dublin, Ireland; Signed on 3-4 December 2008 in Oslo, Norway. It became binding international law when it entered into force on 01 August 2010. Cuba’s ratification was April 9th and as Joe Biden always says: it’s a bfd.
Inquiring minds want to know which of our 5 intrepid current U.S. Presidential candidates is willing to move the U.S. into The Convention. Will it be a rally point for Mr. Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Sanders and/or Ms. Clinton?
To help our brave candidate(s) garner talking points, here is some background on Cluster Bombs and blowin’ shit up.
**The CCM treaty was opposed by a number of countries that produce or stockpile significant quantities of cluster munitions, including China, Russia, the United States, India, Israel, Pakistan and Brazil. Way back in 2008 U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown created fresh pressures on the United States, which had counted Britain as one of its staunchest allies in opposing the ban.
A little-mentioned split in 2006 saw Barack Obama vote support of a legislative measure to limit use of the bombs, while Mrs. Clinton and John McCain voted nay. According to the Pentagon's 2008 policy, cluster munitions are actually humane weapons. "Because future adversaries will likely use civilian shields for military targets – for example by locating a military target on the roof of an occupied building – use of unitary weapons could result in more civilian casualties and damage than cluster munitions," the policy claims. "Blanket elimination of cluster munitions is therefore unacceptable due not only to negative military consequences but also due to potential negative consequences for civilians." In response to U.S. lobbying, and also concerns raised by diplomats from Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and others, the treaty includes a provision allowing signatory nations to cooperate militarily with non-signatory nations. This provision is designed to provide legal protections to the military personnel of signatory nations engaged in military operations with the U.S. or other non-signatory nations that might use cluster munitions. In 2006 David Miliband, Britain's then foreign secretary under Labour, approved the use of a loophole to maneuver around the ban and allow the US to keep the munitions on British territory in a secret collusion with Secretary of State Clinton to bamboozle the U.K. Parliament. Their “deal” came to light in a Wikileaks tranche.
Forward video to 17:03 ~~ report on Yemeni civilians bombed:
US: Reject Bomb Sales to Saudi Arabia
Coalition Failure to Investigate Civilian Deaths in Airstrikes on Yemen
PAX (formerly IKV Pax Christi, the Netherlands) and FairFinI (formerly Netwerk Vlaanderen, Belgium) published the first report on “Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions: a Shared Responsibility” in October 2009. It was updated November, 2014 [full report here] an excerpt of which is below:
“The Hall of Shame contains a list of financial institutions that still invest in cluster munitions producers. The first step in our research was to identify which companies are involved in the production of cluster munitions. The 2013 Hall of Shame contained 139 financial institutions. The 2014 Hall of Shame contains 151 financial institutions. Held over from 2013 were 103 financial institutions and in 2014 we found 48 new ones entered the Hall of Shame. In the research period, these 151 financial institutions invested US$27 billion in the seven cluster munitions producers included in the report. (Does this study include all companies that produce cluster munitions? No. There is still a marked lack of official information available in the public domain about the production of cluster munitions. ) ... [When we found no financial links for companies, we did not include them on our red flag list. There may also well be companies that currently produce (key components for) cluster munitions or explosive sub-munitions but that have been excluded from the red flag list simply because we could not find sufficient evidence of their production activities.] ... {Researched Time Frame— We listed a company as a cluster munitions producer when we found evidence that it was involved in producing (key components of) cluster munitions in the time span extending from 30 May 2008 to 31 August 2014. — We listed a financial institution as an investor when we found evidence of investment in the time span extending from 1 June 2011 to the beginning of September 2014. Since the banking group usually sets the investment policy and since this group directly or indirectly supervises its subsidiaries, we researched the group’s investments.} … The report includes Summary Tables: pp. 19—24, a Hall of Shame overview presenting the types of financial relationships that financial institutions have with cluster munitions producers on a “red flag” list. Of the 151 financial institutions, the United States is country of origin for 76 or ½ of them. Of 7 cluster munitions producers, 2 are in the U.S.”
The two firms are ATK—Alliant Techsystems (making “innovative affordable precision guided munitions systems” like Orbital ATK’s LEO Warhead) and Textron (NYSE: TXT).
One ATK job site claimed on 4-29-14: “annual revenues in of (sic) nearly $4.5 billion, over 12,000 employees, and operations in about 20 states. (sic)” A news story, Textron's Cluster Bombs Are Anything But Ordinary, included this passage about:
“ … $640.8 million contract modification, which expanded upon an existing firm-fixed-price contract to supply 1,300 cluster bombs to the U.S. Air Force. As it stands, this formalizes a contract first announced in 2010, with at least some of those units to be used by the Royal Saudi Air Force.”
“We are disappointed with the US decision to export cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia as both countries acknowledge the negative humanitarian impact of these weapons on civilians,” said Sarah Blakemore, director of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).
“$410 million of that Textron-Pentagon deal comes from foreign military sales (FMS) funds on the behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and $230 million was awarded in 2012 to “meet an urgent Saudi requirement for 328 units,” the Pentagon told Think Progress.
Which of our 5 intrepid U.S. presidential candidates will take a stand to tell Wall Street and the like to stop investing in cluster munitions use, production, transfer and stockpiling the weapons? Will it be Mr. Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Sanders and/or Ms. Clinton over whom so many are fawning?
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Ms. Clinton, and the rest of you guys: Earn our Votes.