Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday defended the Biden administration’s decision to arm Ukraine with widely-banned cluster munitions, which have a devastating impact on civilians.
The US is providing Ukraine with cluster munitions in the form of 155mm artillery shells. Blinken said without the cluster bombs, Ukraine would be “defenseless” because the US and NATO are running out of regular ammunition.
“The stockpiles around the world and in Ukraine of the unitary munitions — not the cluster munitions — were running low, about to be depleted,” Blinken said in an interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius. “If we didn’t do it, we don’t do it, then they will run out of ammunition. If they run out of ammunition, they will be defenseless.”
Blinken’s comments are a candid admission that the US and NATO policy of backing Ukraine against Russia might not be sustainable. He claimed that cluster munitions will “fill the gap” while the US and its allies ramp up the production of other artillery ammunition.
Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a large area, many of which might not explode, making them a huge hazard for civilians who may come across them in the future. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are still dealing with cluster bomblets the US dropped on the three nations during the Vietnam War decades later.
When it was pointed out to Blinken that Ukraine would be dealing with the impact of cluster munitions for as long as Southeast Asia, he claimed it was “already the case” because Russia has used them. Ukraine has used cluster munitions in the war as well and killed at least eight civilians with the weapons last year, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
HRW has also compiled evidence of Russia’s use of cluster bombs in Ukraine, although Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed Tuesday that Russian forces have not used them. “Realizing the threat that such ammunition poses to the civilian population, Russia has refrained from using them in the special operation,” Shoigu said.
He made the claim when warning that Russia will start using cluster munitions in response to the US providing them to Ukraine. “If the United States supplies cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian armed forces will be forced to use similar weapons against the Ukrainian armed forces as a response. It should be noted that Russia has cluster munitions in service, so to speak, for all occasions,” Shoigu said.
Over 100 nations have signed a treaty banning cluster munitions due to the harm they cause civilians, including most NATO countries. But the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories.
So, a year into this, we are still “ramping up” and need a horrific weapon as a stop gap so that the heroes of Ukraine (TM) will not be “helpless?” Seriously? What the heck have our manufacturers been doing all this time, sucking their thumbs?
I mean, imagine if NATO was actually at war with Russia …
Some thing else to consider how many of the NATO LACKEYS would actually send their country men into a US inspired war to shore up their EMPIRE ?.
The question occured to me. Does Joe Biden play the violin like Nero,the emperor of Rome.
Yeah. Hunter is first in line. /s
According to multiple articles now, the Ukrainian citizens are dragged off the streets and put on the front lines sans training as cannon fodder. And as you might expect, they are all from the lower working class.
Mobilization in Ukraine: Zelensky government on a manhunt
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/07/hxfo-j07.html
Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/two-weeks-at-the-front-in-ukraine
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/opinion/cluster-munitions-ukraine-biden.html
The Times, usually lapdogs for the military industrial complex, couldn’t even defend sending cluster bombs. Mind you, the editorial tried to mix in some pro-Ukraine propaganda and defended their cheerleading of the escalation of this war. We have zero moral high ground when it comes to arms control because America is and will remain the largest arms supplier in the world.
I wrote this comment elsewhere:
The US gov’t doesn’t care about that. Ukrainians are pawns in a proxy war. And pawns are expendable.
All pretenses of high moral standing and noble cause have been dispensed with, right out in the open. Too bad the stenographers at the NYT aren’t honest enough to come right out and say it.
“All pretenses of high moral standing and noble cause have been dispensed with, right out in the open.” I respectfully disagree. I write about our unjustified moral superiority and exceptionalism all the time. Despite all what we do, even using nuclear bombs on innocent civilians, our moral superiority and exceptionalism remain firm and unquestioned. That’s not easy to do. That’s the result of outstanding brainwashing, but also we are fantastic sheeple. We are born with holes already drilled for brainwashing. While lecturing our enemies about political prisoners, Assange and Snowden uncover criminal acts by our government. We want to jail Assange and Snowden–not the criminals caught in the act! Once you see it, you can’t unsee it! It’s amazing! (Sarcasm alert)
My point was not that we didn’t know although there are plenty living in the “void”, but that this government no longer gives a shit about being evil right put in the open.
Agreed. Sorry, I initially missed the fine details in your writing. I think you would appreciate the works of this guy: The Truth in the News. He had a series on YouTube for the first 9 months of the war. They demonetized and shadow-banned him. He stopped posting. He is one of the most effective in systematically displaying the propaganda tricks. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts. I hope you enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4H8bRKcgfE
My point was not that we didn’t know although there are plenty living in the “void”, but that this government no longer gives a sh!t about being evil right out in the open.
John Pilger:
In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Fuhrer. She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.
Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked. “Yes, especially them,” she said…In the years before he died in 2008, the playwright Harold Pinter made two extraordinary speeches, which broke a silence.
“U.S. foreign policy,” he said, is
“best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.”
In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pinter said this:
“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
Pinter was a friend of mine and possibly the last great political sage – that is, before dissenting politics were gentrified. I asked him if the “hypnosis” he referred to was the “submissive void” described by Leni Riefenstahl.
“It’s the same,” he replied. “It means the brainwashing is so thorough we are programmed to swallow a pack of lies. If we don’t recognise propaganda, we may accept it as normal and believe it. That’s the submissive void.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/07/john-pilger-silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works/
WOW! Beautiful. Thanks for posting. I especially loved that sentence ending with: “…before dissenting politics were gentrified.” Is that what happened to us? LOL and WOW!
In another article today on Anti War the US announced F16s to Turkey The beat goes on. these arms sales and the resultant killing is the only thing keeping the American economy afloat.It sure isn’t factorys,jobs or education bringing in the bucks.
Debt too
Once the greatest financial and industrial power in history is making its money thru arms sales and money games
As if Mr. Trump brought back millions of jobs per his campaign promises. But then he fights $15 per hour minimum wage. What a guy.
Typical of the yanks when they are losing , and if Russia is using them then lets see the evidence , because i don`t believe a word spoken / printed by the Western MSM it`s nothing but PROPAGANDA .
No… I’m good. …I don’t want it. I told you I don’t want it. …What’s that? Cluster bombs are good for “freedom and democracy?” …Why didn’t you say that from the start? (Sarcasm)
Truth, Justice, the American Way! Gives me goose bumps. Wow.
He’s a liar. He knows it too.
However, Russia has said that if we do this, then they might start to do it in response. It might be of use against the recent Ukraine tactic of light infantry attacks.
Ukraine has been using them since 2014. I do think in return that Russia has also.
Where did Ukraine get them back in 2014 should be the question?
I read that they were left over from the Soviet era but I can’t remember where I read it or how reliable it might be.
I just looked it up and found articles in NYT and HRW, and they seem to indicate they were Soviet because of the rockets used.
Maybe, but I have minimal trust in NYT.
“If we didn’t do it, we don’t do it, then they will run out of ammunition. If they run out of ammunition, they will be defenseless.”
What he really means is that feeding Ukraine’s civilian population into a conscript meat grinder can only be helped by attacking them with banned munitions. The neocon abiding hatred of Russia is only matched by their abiding hatred of Ukrainians. Is it just a coincidence that both Blinken and Nuland are descendants of refugees from Catherine the Great’s 1791 Pale of Settlement?
One bomb,one fighter,one Carrier one tank are alll one too many. The only enemies the US has are self created by the evils of Capitalism,Imperialism and White Supremacy
You nailed it, Wendell. I would only add Zionism to your list.
We must never forget the chosen people and AIPAC.
Capitalism only means the private ownership of the means of production. There’s nothing evil about that. The evil is how the US government has corrupted our economic system so that it favors the elite at the expense of ordinary people. If we want to fix it we should start by abolishing the Federal Reserve and outlaw fractional reserve banking, which is nothing more than legal counterfeiting.
Without these, the war is lost, because we’d be out of ammo.
Ah, that is a confession of serious blundering by the guy who provoked and then prolonged the war, sabotaging peace several times.
Gypsy33 defends cluster bombs in the White House and Pentagon.
they should at least store them all there
“on”
right then. scenario = Bullets-R-Us sells out of bullets after cornering the market.
“i would like to place an order for X-million bullets please”
“sorry those are back-ordered right now, put your name on this waiting-list”
“but i need them all right now”
“waiting-list!”
i bet that China is not wasting their bullets.
there are 1.5 billion people in China.
i wonder how many bullets they already have.
We use “smart” bombs, the Russians use shovels, and the Chinese use …flip flops. https://youtu.be/HTKG0RNFHh8
Those flip-flops are scary. My wife can hit me with one from across the house.
Well, the only thing we have left is nukes. So….
send them over … it will shorten the pain …
Normal people with common sense know Ukrainians need peace more than anything, but a man like Blinken, without character and conscience is only human scum. Such a despicable POS.
The moronic statement of the week…!
Only a Moron exposes lack of weapons during a war…!
Unless… you’re not a MORON and want to fool your enemy into thinking you are weaker than you actually are. The reason I’m leaning to agree with you is not because they’re actually out of bombs–it’s because I agree with you that NATO are MORONS. (Sarcasm)
So does the USA recognize the Geneva Conventions, or not?
Sales and gifts of weapons prohibited under same would suggest not. Proliferation of land mines would suggest not. Use of torture against detainees would suggest not. Non-recognition of the ICC itself, would suggest not. We’re a rogue state with a head up our buns about still being some beautiful pro-democracy empire.
What is it in the Geneva Conventions that you think prohibits cluster munitions?
There’s a Convention on Cluster Munitions which went into effect for the countries which signed it on or after december 2008 (the US, Russia, and Ukraine are not among those countries). Why would such a convention be needed if the Geneva Conventions already prohibited them?
The ICC also has jurisdiction over countries which have are party to the Rome Statute.
The US and Russia both ratified that treaty, but then withdrew from it.
Ukraine has signed but not ratified it, but has accepted ICC jurisdiction since 2013, meaning any violations of laws the ICC has authority to adjudicate that either happen on its soil (no matter by whom committed) or are committed by its regime (no matter where committed) are covered.
Well now, if Blinkey thinks it is a good idea, then I suggest one be dropped in his backyard. Make that two.
HRW is an organization for hire. Its credentials were well tested in August of 1995 when Croatian military ethnically cleansed Krajna region of ethnic Serbs. Then HRW followed desparate columns od fleeing civilians, snd the only picture they published was of a refugee family cooking meal on a makeshift fire by the roadside after 12 hours on the rioad. It all looked like a picnic with campfire.
It is do typical of US to blame others. “Compiling evidence” that Russia used cluster bombs? Yes, just use compilers’ words for truth. And where EXACTLY did Russia use cluster bombs, and why? It is not running out of ammunition, and its military operations were all in majority Russian populated area. Why would Russia create such danger for civilians that are pro-Russian?
But no worries, US knows why such weapins are necessary. Just use them in Russian soeakers territory not yet cintrolled by Russia. It will hurt populatiin Zelenski hates. Same purpose for DU. Why not permanently poison lands Russians or Russian soeaking Ukrainians inhabit? It is all PURE HATE and vengefulness. Laws of men, principles of humanity and even God’s words do not apply, Those in charge believe THEIY are supirior beings, demi-Gods. Appealing to their humsn side is pointless. It is also pointless to appeal to public in US. Wast majority is interested.
“HRW is an organization for hire.” Which is why I’m left confused, scratching my head as to why they’re criticizing Ukraine even a little bit? (Sarcasm)
Trying to act like a neutral unbiased organization.
Like anything else, both sides will insist their version of reality is correct.
The above narrative that Bianca wrote is much better than the Blinken narrative of we have to mass kill civilians because Russia has already done so.
Sociopath. Complete waste of genetic material.
How could that be – we’ve been told for so long that Ukraine is kicking ass and Russia is ready to surrender?