Poll of the Day > Are you for or against Cluster Bombs?

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the ruskies get what they deserve

When the Russians themselves have been using them consistently on civilian populations, and they're being used to drive them out? For.

So it's OK for us to use them because the bad guys use them too?

It's amazing how quickly people can switch from pacifist to warmonger. Just a few news cycles and everyone falls right in line.

Hey, there he is. The ruskie shill popped up again.

Lobomoon posted...

So it's OK for us to use them because the bad guys use them too?

Would you like to have a sword to use against someone with a sword? Would you like to have a gun to use against someone with a gun?

The question answers itself. It also differs greatly when the Russians (I'm not going to do this dumb good/bad thing) are using them on civilian populations, and this is the Ukrainian rationale:

"Our position is simple - we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people," Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

"Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognized territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of Russia."

"We recognize that cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance," Sullivan told reporters. "But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery," he said.

I would of course take all of this with some grain of salt, even though I do generally believe this intent. I do see the possibility of things not going exactly according to plan, and if any oversight occurred involving civilian casualties, I'll have criticism.

Lobomoon posted...

So it's OK for us to use them because the bad guys use them too?

"Using weapons against military invaders who literally grape, torture, and massacre civilians is the same thing as the invading militants using those weapons against civilians"

-- Lobomoon

Next up: "Oh, so using nuclear weapons against Russia is ok now, just because they used them first?" - Lobomoon

propaganda works, man

I really dont get what the controversy is? Ukraine is fighting for its existence, fuck Russia.

Ozmose posted...

It's amazing how quickly people can switch from pacifist to warmonger. Just a few news cycles and everyone falls right in line.

I can tell you right now, for the record: if Russia nukes Ukraine, I will cheer any nuke that hits Russia. Fuck 'em with their own shit.

Lets get a little morbid:

Do cluster bombs cause more or less military financial gains than conventional bombs?

I would think less due to the misfire rate and apparent randomness

papercup posted...

Ukraine is fighting for its existence,

what about ukraine's existence in 2014, where the democratically elected president wanted to pursue closer relations with russia while rejecting a EU trade deal and then was immediately met with a suspiciously well-funded revolution, allowing a western ally right on russia's most populated border?

this is all geopolitics in the same vein as the cuban missile crisis. i'm not even saying we shouldn't support ukraine as it is right now- i just wish people would realize we're supporting the current ukraine because it's only convenient to the US. "russia bad murica n allies good" is incredibly reductive considering what america has been accomplishing over the past century and the current situation is right in the CIA's playbook

shit's morally complicated and all high-ranking politicians suck

agesboy posted...

what about ukraine's existence in 2014, where the democratically elected president wanted to pursue closer relations with russia while rejecting a EU trade deal and then was immediately met with a suspiciously well-funded revolution, allowing a western ally right on russia's most populated border?

agesboy posted...

propaganda works, man

Certainly seems to on you, at least

@agesboy
It seems like you're believing the type of narrative that Oliver Stone has provided. There are a...lot of messy details he completely butchers.
https://youtu.be/i9RwOrIOdq8

agesboy posted...

what about ukraine's existence in 2014, where the democratically elected president wanted to pursue closer relations with russia while rejecting a EU trade deal and then was immediately met with a suspiciously well-funded revolution, allowing a western ally right on russia's most populated border?

this is all geopolitics in the same vein as the cuban missile crisis. i'm not even saying we shouldn't support ukraine as it is right now- i just wish people would realize we're supporting the current ukraine because it's only convenient to the US. "russia bad murica n allies good" is incredibly reductive considering what america has been accomplishing over the past century and the current situation is right in the CIA's playbook

shit's morally complicated and all high-ranking politicians suck

I'm honestly really sad that you don't know the details on this.

Yanukovych campaigned on signing the EU Association Agreement. It isn't even inherently a trade deal. Yanukovych U-turned on this, and took a big fat cheque from Russia. This made the population...pissed off. They voted for him because he fucking campaigned on it.

Well-funded revolution????? Did all of the protestors get a fat stack of US-bucks? Bullshit. As Euromaidan went on for a few months, protestors were eventually shot. Over 100 people were shot dead from police snipers - ordered by Yanukovych. Yanukovych fled the country as rataliatory violence increased, and parliament was dissolved. He claims his life was threatened - there is no direct evidence of this. It was revealed that he'd embezzled significant amounts of money from the Ukrainian treasury and took the cash with him when he fled. He reappeared in Russia, maintaining that he is still the legitimate President of Ukraine and that his removal was an illegal coup d'tat. He literally disappeared on February 22nd - couldn't be found, and parliament were not informed of his whereabouts.

and if anyone wants to point me to the Nuland-Pyatt call - expressing a preference for the present opposition leader isn't exactly a fucking conspiracy. after Yanukovych fled, they held an election where the Ukrainian people voted.

If you're against American Imperialism like that that occurred in Iraq - this is rather analogous. Plus, Russia has also had a bit of a history over the past century, and it wasn't all spurned on by the US. Condemning bad things should be easy. I get if people want to argue about cluster munitions, that makes sense. The Russian state is the defininitive bad actor here though. Flipping it into some "oh wow actually this is the fault of the USA and CIA please stop hating Russian people" is so fucking dumb. I literally know Russian people that have left. This war wasn't caused by "NATO aggression" or whatever dumb line has seeped into your conciousness.

Against. They cause too much collateral damage.

@agesboy

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-russia-deal-special-report-idUSBRE9BI0DZ20131219

Also, this is the most extensive video available compiling sources that poll Ukrainians on their political preferences. It's very fair, very interesting. You'll see things as you'd expect in Crimea. You'll find that people lie a lot about how people in the East feel. The majority of them were pissed the fuck off at Yanukovych and did not consider him the legitimate leader of Ukraine when he fled.

https://youtu.be/XJzCW3SCe-Y

Whats the difference between dropping cluster bombs and dropping a lot of normal bombs at the same time

dragon504 posted...

Hey, there he is. The ruskie shill popped up again.

You got me. I don't like war, so I'm clearly an agent of the Russian state.

Maybe if you wish really hard, the fates will bless you with critical thinking someday.

Zareth posted...

Whats the difference between dropping cluster bombs and dropping a lot of normal bombs at the same time

Many of the bombs in the cluster often don't explode and effectively become land mines in perpetuity. They cause civilian casualties after wars...40% children if the stat I saw the other day in the NY Times is correct. They're effective during wars: it's the long-term risk.

If Ukraine wants to use them on their own territory and can debatably claim to be preventing deaths now...I would probably give them to them. But I wouldn't feel good about it.

agesboy posted...

what about ukraine's existence in 2014, where the democratically elected president wanted to pursue closer relations with russia while rejecting a EU trade deal and then was immediately met with a suspiciously well-funded revolution, allowing a western ally right on russia's most populated border?

this is all geopolitics in the same vein as the cuban missile crisis. i'm not even saying we shouldn't support ukraine as it is right now- i just wish people would realize we're supporting the current ukraine because it's only convenient to the US. "russia bad murica n allies good" is incredibly reductive considering what america has been accomplishing over the past century and the current situation is right in the CIA's playbook

shit's morally complicated and all high-ranking politicians suck

Its almost as if there was a revolution in Ukraine and they became more closely aligned with the west, and then Russia stole their territory and are now trying to steal more territory or something.

Edit: Also, you know, the long history of Russian invasions, political meddling, genocides, and other evil shit they've been pulling in Ukraine for forever.

papercup posted...

Edit: Also, you know, the long history of Russian invasions, political meddling, genocides, and other evil shit they've been pulling in Ukraine for forever.

Does he know? He's repeating Russian bs propaganda verbatim, he's probably brainwashed himself beyond repair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obMTYs30E9A

ReturnOfFa posted...

I'm honestly really sad that you don't know the details on this.

Yanukovych campaigned on signing the EU Association Agreement. It isn't even inherently a trade deal. Yanukovych U-turned on this, and took a big fat cheque from Russia. This made the population...pissed off. They voted for him because he fucking campaigned on it.

Well-funded revolution????? Did all of the protestors get a fat stack of US-bucks? Bullshit. As Euromaidan went on for a few months, protestors were eventually shot. Over 100 people were shot dead from police snipers - ordered by Yanukovych. Yanukovych fled the country as rataliatory violence increased, and parliament was dissolved. He claims his life was threatened - there is no direct evidence of this. It was revealed that he'd embezzled significant amounts of money from the Ukrainian treasury and took the cash with him when he fled. He reappeared in Russia, maintaining that he is still the legitimate President of Ukraine and that his removal was an illegal coup d'tat. He literally disappeared on February 22nd - couldn't be found, and parliament were not informed of his whereabouts.

and if anyone wants to point me to the Nuland-Pyatt call - expressing a preference for the present opposition leader isn't exactly a fucking conspiracy. after Yanukovych fled, they held an election where the Ukrainian people voted.

If you're against American Imperialism like that that occurred in Iraq - this is rather analogous. Plus, Russia has also had a bit of a history over the past century, and it wasn't all spurned on by the US. Condemning bad things should be easy. I get if people want to argue about cluster munitions, that makes sense. The Russian state is the defininitive bad actor here though. Flipping it into some "oh wow actually this is the fault of the USA and CIA please stop hating Russian people" is so fucking dumb. I literally know Russian people that have left. This war wasn't caused by "NATO aggression" or whatever dumb line has seeped into your conciousness.

Russia said there are WMDs in Ukraine?

Restrictions on weapons of war largely exist to benefit nations that already have military superiority. These are also the nations that should be most held accountable for breaking these conventions, as it's done almost purely out of malice.

The US should never use cluster bombs. Russia shouldn't be using cluster bombs.

When Ukraine is already being cluster bombed by a more powerful nation that's 100% in the wrong it's insanely out of touch to try and restrict their ability to fight back.

I'm anti-war, where does that put me?

Revelation34 posted...

Russia said there are WMDs in Ukraine?

Do you recall the bioweapon facilities claims? Of course, this was an early post-hoc rationalization, not the expressed intent for invading. And it's been lost in the dialogue because Russian media is like shitty Western media on meth. If anything, the intent for invading made even less sense than the WMD claim for Iraq.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/25/1087910880/biological-weapons-far-right-russia-ukraine

these stories about 'bioweapons' began less than a month into the invasion and were heavily covered on Russian media.

Also, of course, is Ukraine is just 'sending back' captured cluster munitions... that's just turnabout

Blightzkrieg posted...

Restrictions on weapons of war largely exist to benefit nations that already have military superiority. These are also the nations that should be most held accountable for breaking these conventions, as it's done almost purely out of malice.

The US should never use cluster bombs. Russia shouldn't be using cluster bombs.

When Ukraine is already being cluster bombed by a more powerful nation that's 100% in the wrong it's insanely out of touch to try and restrict their ability to fight back.

So where's the cut off? Nerve agents? Napalm?
Cluster bombs aren't restricted because a country uses them out of malice, they're restricted because they tend to leave a bunch of small unexploded munitions all over the place. The kind kids end up finding decades after the fact. Often with tragic results.

AltOmega2 posted...

I'm anti-war, where does that put me?

in a priviledged position :D

Generally against but if another country starts using them against you I don't have a problem with you giving them a taste of their own medicine

ReturnOfFa posted...

in a priviledged position :D

Yeah...so privileged...haha...

AltOmega2 posted...

Yeah...so privileged...haha...

I'm just saying, you're privileged to have that position as you're not in a war torn country. My observations also come from a position of privilege. Your response seems to be deriding mine in a fairly feeble manner. It's not really a slight to observe that we're removed from the situation.

Ozmose posted...

So where's the cut off? Nerve agents? Napalm?
Cluster bombs aren't restricted because a country uses them out of malice, they're restricted because they tend to leave a bunch of small unexploded munitions all over the place. The kind kids end up finding decades after the fact. Often with tragic results.

And they're already being used by a more powerful country against civilian targets.

If Russia nukes America, should America refuse to fire back?

Lobomoon posted...

So it's OK for us to use them because the bad guys use them too?

YES

I'd be fine with not providing Ukraine with cluster munitions if we were, instead, providing them with the materiel needed to establish air superiority (like F-16s and the associated crew), rendering the need for such munitions moot. Since we're not doing that (and since doing so would be difficult without getting more directly involved), cluster munitions are the necessary stopgap.

Ozmose posted...

So where's the cut off? Nerve agents? Napalm?
Cluster bombs aren't restricted because a country uses them out of malice, they're restricted because they tend to leave a bunch of small unexploded munitions all over the place. The kind kids end up finding decades after the fact. Often with tragic results.

This argument would carry more weight if Russia hadn't already mined and booby-trapped the shit out of the occupied territories (to the point where they've literally booby trapped toys in the hopes that children will get maimed/killed by them). The entire region is going to need to go through an extensive demining phase *anyways*, because of Russia's activities (which, notably, include the use of cluster munitions, meaning the area is already going to be facing that danger); additional cluster munitions aren't going to appreciably change the calculus of that.

As well, the reason cluster munitions were originally banned was because of a high dud rate that left lots of unexploded ordinance. You can see this with Russia's cluster bombs, which have a dud rate of roughly 40%. The dud rate of modern-era American cluster munitions is ~1%.

Against. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than Putins russia

Ozmose posted...

Cluster bombs aren't restricted because a country uses them out of malice, they're restricted because they tend to leave a bunch of small unexploded munitions all over the place. The kind kids end up finding decades after the fact. Often with tragic results.

While that's bad, I'm inclined to overlook that here for two reasons:

1. The territory in question has already been cluster bombed by Russia to such an extent that further cluster bombing isn't going to make a substantial difference to the future risk
2. The territory in question is Ukraine's own territory, meaning they are able to decide if they're okay with writing some of it off for the foreseeable future by rendering it unsafe with unexploded munitions. It's also considerably easier to track where their own munitions are deployed than it would be to track somebody else's, which helps to direct future de-mining efforts and identify areas that shouldn't be used before those efforts take place

ReturnOfFa posted...

Would you like to have a sword to use against someone with a sword? Would you like to have a gun to use against someone with a gun?

The question answers itself. It also differs greatly when the Russians (I'm not going to do this dumb good/bad thing) are using them on civilian populations, and this is the Ukrainian rationale:

"Our position is simple - we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people," Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

"Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognized territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of Russia."

"We recognize that cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance," Sullivan told reporters. "But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery," he said.

I would of course take all of this with some grain of salt, even though I do generally believe this intent. I do see the possibility of things not going exactly according to plan, and if any oversight occurred involving civilian casualties, I'll have criticism.

Fuck weapons do this the old way just fight with your body. Yet somehow someone will complain about THAT too.

ThePWBPoster posted...

Fuck weapons do this the old way just fight with your body. Yet somehow someone will complain about THAT too.

Imagine if we got rid of guns and bombs and went back to fighting with swords, spears, axes, bows, etc.

they worked great in video games

ReturnOfFa posted...

I'm just saying, you're privileged to have that position as you're not in a war torn country. My observations also come from a position of privilege. Your response seems to be deriding mine in a fairly feeble manner. It's not really a slight to observe that we're removed from the situation.

So you're saying civilians in war torn countries are not anti-war?

Revelation34 posted...

So you're saying civilians in war torn countries are not anti-war?

There's a difference between opposing war and whether or not you agree with your country defending itself. Do you really think that a Ukrainian civilian wants Ukrainian soldiers to lay down arms? The oversimplification you're offering isn't realistic whatsoever.