An exciting international movement is underway to ban cluster bombs - and it's about time. Cluster bombs, like landmines, overwhelmingly kill and maim civilians, and they do it for years after conflict has ended.
Handicap International reports that 98 percent of all casualties from cluster bombs are non-combatants.
These weapons drop hundreds or thousands of small "bomblets" over a large area. Many do not detonate on impact and in effect create a minefield, lying near towns, playgrounds, and farms. Many children are blown up when they mistake the metal object for a toy.
But just last week, 46 countries (including our key allies Britain and France, but unfortunately not the United States)
pledged to ban cluster weapons by the end of 2008. And, for those of us in the United States, there is now positive legislation to support. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy have introduced a bill to limit the use and sale of cluster bombs by the United States.
Just Foreign Policy has set up an
easy way for you to make your voice heard against cluster bombs, asking your Senators to support the Feinstein legislation as a big step in the right direction. You can take action here:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/ban_cluster.htmlThe new bill is not perfect, but if we demonstrate that this issue is important to many Americans, we can lay the groundwork for a ban on this horrible weapon.
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