Did ya'll get that title? I almost shot oatmeal out of my nose when I read that (I was eating breakfast, oatmeal is not some disturbing euphemism). Cluster bombs are a pretty nasty piece of military hardware, capable of wreaking havoc over a large area due to the deadly "bomblets" which shower over the target after the initial detonation. Their military value is obvious, but the downside is the usual tragedy of civilian woe.
Their devastating impact on the battlefield often comes at a terrible cost to civilians afterward, including farmers who strike unexploded “bomblets” in their fields or children who mistake the objects for playthings.
Playthings? I mean, American parents will sue someone to smithereens if their child scrapes their knee on the playground, but evidently we have no problem letting all those brown "fer-ner's" kids play baseball with unexploded military ordinance. Our nation, along with Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, decided not to sign the ban, despite over 100 countries adopting the measure. Evidently, our nation would rather let a couple thousand more kids die than give up one of our many toys. Our rationale:
While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility, and their elimination from US stockpiles would put the lives of our soldiers and those of our coalition partners at risk.
Because refraining from using one type of bomb is gonna ensure a "terra-ist" victory, or commie victory, or illegal immigrant victory, or which every enemy Eurasia is at war with at the moment. Why don't we try equipping our soldiers with actual body armor and IED resistant vehicles, and then worry about whether or not a lack of cluster bombs will endanger our fighting men and women?
Ah, then we find that the Bush Administration, SURPRISE!, might have another reason to oppose this life-saving ban. They've been using cluster bombs to fight...well...AQI, the Insurgents, whoever...in Iraq for years, and Gawd knows, we can't do anything which might hamper Dubya's exercise in prideful ignorance in the Middle East.
For the record, Obama has come out in support of a ban on cluster bombs, while Hilary has not. Screw all those little kids, right Hil? If they were Americans, they'd be young or a minority, so they would probably be voting for Obama anyway. Way to be a leader....
So I did some informal polling at www.buzzdash.com this week and came up with some good info. I surveyed a good mix of political questions that had at least 300 voters and tried to put them together to make sense of the population's stance on most issues.
First is the war in Iraq.
64% of Americans think the surge in Iraq is a temporary fix while 23% feel the surge is effective at stemming violence. When asked to choose the larger threat to US security between Iraq and Afghanistan, out of 375 respondents 63% answered Afghanistan, 17% said Iraq, and 20% said it was about equal. There is a very clear majority who feel Afghanistan is a bigger threat than Iraq, but what about the rest of the the Middle East?
Two countries and the "other" category score higher than either Afghanistan or Iraq. These two countries, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are considered the strongest US allies in the Middle East. So why is the general public so afraid of these two countries? It could be that 15 out of 19 9/11 highjackers were Saudi Arabian, or that the Saudi regime has harbored Hamas terrorists and provided medical care to their spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin.
Republican hopeful John McCain has stated that the occupation in Iraq may last for 100 years, when asked whether this policy was good because it finishes what we started or bad because its misguided the poll results showed 78% of Americans feel that McCain's stance is misguided.
Looking back 4 years ago public sentiment was very divided between the war in Iraq and the necessity to pursue Saddam Hussein. How do people feel about the war now?
Out of 700 votes 500 said that in retrospect the war was a bad idea. For me the interesting numbers lie within the "Yes, I see that now" and "No, though I once supported it" columns. These two responses cover the people who have changed their minds about the necessity of the Iraq war. An overwhelming majority of people who have changed their mind about the war have shifted from supporting to disagreeing with the war. Only 2% were against the war initially and later decided it was necessary. The public opinion of our occupation in Iraq has shifted greatly away from support but do our politics reflect that?
One last poll asked participants whether history would judge the war in Iraq as a success. 61% believe it will not be positively judged while 26% say it will be. 12% of respondents thought that to some degree the war will be positively judged.
So what do all of these numbers mean? I really don't think it says who's right and who's wrong as that will take a few decades to sort out, but it does offer a pretty good section of the public's feelings concerning our Iraq occupation. Hopefully the parties will start to reflect this public opinion instead of trying to guide opinion based on politics and scare tactics.
As a disclaimer, these poll results are completely unscientific as the sampling is not carefully controlled and the candidate pool may be biased based on the membership makeup of the polling website. But this does give a pretty good look at some gross trends on these policies.
While serving as a civilian contractor in Iraq Brad Blauser is providing Iraqi children with wheelchairs, read the CNN article here (be prepared to cry). Brad is a guy that I've followed for a while through his posts on texags.com. Brad has given his time in Iraq for a few years and is always drumming up support for not only the troops but the Iraqi citizens. He truly is someone to be proud of and has a heart of gold. Read this post he made about an armed service member he works with and reflect on the people who are truly making a difference in this world. Not many people can give as much as Brad has to his country, those around him, and the institutions associated with him. Take time to think about accomplishments like this and what small things we can do everyday in our lives to live more like neighbors with everyone.
Out of 700 votes 500 said that in retrospect the war was a bad idea. For me the interesting numbers lie within the "Yes, I see that now" and "No, though I once supported it" columns. These two responses cover the people who have changed their minds about the necessity of the Iraq war. An overwhelming majority of people who have changed their mind about the war have shifted from supporting to disagreeing with the war. Only 2% were against the war initially and later decided it was necessary. The public opinion of our occupation in Iraq has shifted greatly away from support but do our politics reflect that?
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