Cluster bombs scatter dozens to hundreds of explosive bomblets that spray deadly shrapnel fragments over wide areas of land, making it very difficult to avoid civilian casualties. The bomblets sometimes fail to detonate on impact, leaving behind large numbers of unexploded duds that are akin to landmines.

In the last 15 years, the U.S. has dropped cluster bombs in civilian-populated areas of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S.-made cluster bombs have also been dropped in many other countries. The United Nations has discovered U.S.-made cluster bombs dropped in front of hospitals, schools and other civilian areas.

Since the last U.S. cluster bomb was dropped on Laos in 1973, approximately 12,000 Laotian civilians have been killed or injured by an unexploded bomblet. As many as 60% of casualties from unexploded cluster munitions in South East Asia are children.

The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007 (S. 594) would ban the use of cluster bombs in or near civilian areas and ban the use, sale and transfer of almost the entire existing U.S. arsenal of close to one billion bomblets.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takea...2?z00m=9445650

I have to disagree with this one. Cluster bombs are a legitimate and vital weapon. War is hell... It's messy... no way around that. What we should be calling for is that we be more careful when we attack someone... Lets not castrate ourselves here.

Come on tadpole, it's wrong!
Cluster bombs leave ‘toys’ that kill children - Times Online

Asia Times

Children maimed by Israeli cluster bombs in Lebanon - The Wire - November 2006 - Amnesty International

Cluster munitions have a valuable place in a battlefield. Do not question these weapons, question the ones who decide when and where to use them.

Many of our weapons are still designed around a "World War II" mentality -- thinking the enemy is going to inolved massed, uniformed troops.

That said, I agree with the others here, it's not the weapons, it's the people deciding when and where to use them.

Land mines, cluster bombs, willie pete, the list goes on. Like it or not, these weapons are needed to fight war. War has evolved a long war in the last 60 years. Civilian casualties are tragedy, however, in WWII we carpet bombed, destroying everything indiscriminately. Cities, villiages, civilians and military.

dmk

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Our past mistakes should be lessons to improve upon our actions, not as justification for repeating them.

The simple matter is that war should be used as a last resort, and while civilian casualties simply go with the nature of war; you can take steps to attempt to minimize them when war is necessary.

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."
-Ernest Hemingway

Exactly. Cluster bombs save a lot of lives too...

Most civilians don't understand war... It's hard to understand unless you've been there.

I agree that war MUST be an ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT. However, once declared, we can not knee-cap our forces.

It's very easy to be an arm-chair General.