Reply #57: LiberalNurse, surely you are not for the use of such hideous things. [View All]

[Bongo Prophet]

It is unfortunate that the OP is framed as a vote by a candidate.
That filters people's thinking, and is seen as an attack on them.

If it were posted as "Do you think we should be funding cluster bombs?" what would your answer be? What is the core morality in the fiber of your being, and what do you really stand for?

On joking about waterboarding - you might want to think about that. Such light hearted dismissal seems too much like Bush "No WMDs under my desk" or McCain "Bomb bomb Iran" and that's pretty bad company.
I hope you don't teach your children or grandchildren (if you have them)that attitude of mass destruction being funny. Please search your soul on that, and if religious, pray on that.

Are you really a nurse? If so, I would imagine you are very concerned about people (I have very high regard for caretakers) and you also know the damage that searing hot shrapnel and huge blast force does to the human body. There is no way you could be blind to the implications of this, and common sense will tell you that it will, far too often, be inflicted upon children and other innocent victims.

Work out your true feelings on that first, and then contact your candidate - I think you are a supporter of Sen. Clinton, right - and let her know your thoughts. Democracy is about more than just picking a candidate and fighting other people. It is about the people pushing their representatives to make the changes we need.

It's about human rights and constitutional rights, and plain human decency.
Liberal nurse, this is not an attack. I sit here on verge of tears that a grown woman, a caretaker, can be so flippant about such a vital issue of life and suffering.
No. This is a plea for some reason and compassion from a fellow citizen, a fellow human being.

A cluster bomb is a 14-foot weapon that weighs about 1,000 pounds. When it explodes it sprays hundreds of smaller bomblets over an area the size of two or three football fields. The bomblets are bright yellow and look like beer cans. And because they look like playthings, thousands of children have been killed by dormant bomblets in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq. Each bomblet sprays flying shards of metal that can tear through a quarter inch of steel.

The failure rate, the unexploded rate, is very high, often around 15 to 20 percent. When bomblets fail to detonate on the first round, they become land mines that explode on simple touch at any time.

Human Rights Watch reports that 1600 Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilians have been killed, many more injured, by explosive duds following the Persian Gulf war.

Under the Geneva Conventions, cluster bombs are criminal weapons because it is impossible to use them in significant numbers without indiscriminate effects.

Indiscriminate effects.
Torn flesh, massive burns, massive concussion, loss of hearing.
Indiscriminate.
Inhumane.


Edit for spelling, because you can't see the spellcheck through watery, burning eyes.