8-21-06, 9:02 am
The United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre in southern Lebanon has already identified 10 sites where cluster munitions were used and has verified one instance of children being killed in a cluster bomb explosion.
But, according to the Mines Advisory Group, an NGO working for the UN in Lebanon, around 4,000 explosive items were dropped daily on south Lebanon, of which previous research suggests that 10 per cent would have failed to explode.
The percentage failure is usually higher with cluster munitions, so the grim likelihood is that civilian casualty figures, especially of Lebanese children, will inexorably rise in the months to come as undetonated ordnance explodes without warning.
Cluster munitions are not, in themselves, banned by international law, but their use against civilians is utterly forbidden.
The 'collateral damage' excuse is unacceptable, as are claims that targeted fighters were in the vicinity of civilians or that non-combatants had been ordered to vacate specific areas.
The onus for concentrating cluster weapons on military targets and avoiding any possibility of civilian bloodshed rests exclusively on the user.
Israel's indiscriminate use of cluster munitions not only puts it in the dock of international opinion for war crimes but indicates that it was expecting the White House to top up its supplies.
It seems difficult to believe now that it was US President Ronald Reagan who imposed a pause on exports of cluster munitions to Israel in 1982 because of the international outcry over Tel Aviv's disregard of the toll of civilian casualties that their indiscriminate use had caused during its invasion of Lebanon.
The Bush administration has no such qualms over Israel's war crimes in Lebanon this time round.
It is vital that there should be an independent international inquiry into claims that Israel has been experimenting with other anti-personnel weapons in both Lebanon and Palestine.
The possible use of thermobaric weapons, white phosphorus or missiles capable of spraying near-molten copper that causes deep tissue wounds without leaving bomb fragments must be investigated.
This is not simply a humanitarian mission, vital though that is at a time when US and British government pressure on other governments allowed Israel to resist calls for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and to rain death and destruction down on Lebanon for weeks.
It is also a necessary step to isolate the warmongers and to show that the world, including most people in this country, are united against the rich and powerful interests that are hell-bent on imposing their imperialist will against any opposition.
An even more powerful peace movement can expose the crimes of imperialism and can make it more difficult for the 'might is right' crusaders in the White House and Downing Street to entertain their plans to include Syria and Iran in their sights.
From Morning Star online
