Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown is urging the Prime Minister to take
a stand against the use of cluster bombs in Iraq.
Senator Brown says the small yellow coloured bombs are the same colour as
food parcels, but explode when picked up.
He says innocent civilians, including children are being murdered and
mutilated by the weapons.
He says while they are outlawed under the Geneva Convention, the United
States is using them again.
"In the Senate last week ,the Howard Government voted to defend the
use of these against the rest of the Senate," he said.
"The Howard Government shares culpability for the use of these
barbarous weapons against individuals, and the Howard Government and Mr
Downer, who could have spoken about this to President Bush yesterday but
did not, have a joint culpability for the use of these monstrous
weapons."
A top Canberra strategist says the alliance with the United States
threatens to divide Australia from parts of Asia.
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre chairman, Professor Paul Dibb, says
Australia has to help restrain America's unilateral power.
"Australia's very closeness to the US now threatens to greatly
complicate, if not challenge, some of our key relations in Asia," he
said.
"The initial outpouring of sympathy towards the US following
September 11 has been replaced in some parts of the region... by a
growing sense...[of] unease that America is a unilateral power,
dismissive of the norms of international behaviour, except on its
terms.
"The perception that Australia is America's deputy sheriff, has also
stuck in some parts of the region."
Monstrous weapons manufacturer...Raytheon contract for cluster weapons
(munitions containers which break open in mid-air and disperse smaller
munitions which explode on impact, just before impact, or a short time
after impact. Cluster weapon delivery systems often carry hundreds of
submunitions, saturating an area with flying shards of steel. These
submunitions are small, often the size of a baseball or small lawn dart.
Depending on the delivery system, the submunitions from one munitions
container may cover an area the size of several football fields, or be
dispersed over an even wider area up to 100 acres). BAT is the Brialliant
Anti-Armor Submunition. These submunitions are launched in the Army TACMS
Block II missile. Each missile carries 13 submunitions. BAT has both
acoustic and infra-red sensors, and is targeted agains moving armored
combat vehicles. The prime contractor for BAT is Northrup Grumman
(Hawthorne, CA and Perry, GA). The subcontractor is Raytheon, Manchester,
NH.
http://www.newpower.org/xnews/99/04/203.shtml#fnB72
FROM
http://www.endgame.org/dtc/r.html
