The other day, Minnesota Monitor brought to my attention that a munitions maker named ATK in my home state was in the business of clusterbomb manufacturing. Indiscriminate weapons made right in my back yard. Sad.
At the heart of the controversy is an ATK-manufactured bomblet known as the M85. Packed in missiles and dropped on military targets, the M85 bomblets wreak destruction over a much wider territory than conventional munitions. And because some portion of the missiles' multi-cluster bomb payload fails to detonate on impact, they can go on causing civilian casualties after combat is over.
Digging a little deeper, I find out about Senate Amendment No. 4882 which called for their banning, and was introduced 9/5/06 by Feinstein and Leahy.
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To protect civilian lives from unexploded cluster munitions.
Back then, Obama voted for the ban, Clinton voted against the ban. Read on....
Some speculate she voted against the bill so as not to appear soft on terror. A political calculation.
Here's David Rees via Huffpost:
I'm not a single-issue voter. But as Obama and Clinton share many policy positions, this vote was revelatory for me. After all, Amendment No. 4882 was an easy one to vote against: Who'd want to risk accusation of "tying the hands of the Pentagon" during a never-ending, global War on Terror? As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.
The High Costs of Political Expediency (via at-Largely)
In fact, as evidenced by her vote against Amendment No. 4882, it's fair to say that Hillary Clinton stands - or stood (she might regret the vote; we don't know because no one in the media has asked her) - with George W. Bush on the issue of cluster bombs. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Bush administration reiterated its support of this weaponry
Googling around, I see this topic discussed on a few other political sites:
SA 4882, Dead Kids & Hillary - myDD (with pro-Clintons arguing it out in the comments)
and ......
Cluster Bombs: Obama against / Clinton not against? via Tears for Lebanon
the vote by Clinton is even worse
than originally noted here. The Amendment was not a complete ban on
cluster bombs. It would have allowed cluster bombs when "the rules of
engagement applicable to the cluster munition ensure that the cluster
munition will not be used in or near any concentrated population of
civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of
cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps
or groups of nomads." So, Hillary Clinton voted in such a way as to
indicate that she thought this was an unreasonable restriction on our
military.)
Needless to say, I think Obama took the high road on that one, along with the 29 other senators.
What was Clinton thinking?