One sits behind one’s desk

31May08

This week an agreement was reached on a treaty banning cluster munitions. See Cluster Munition Coalition: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/ and Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=arms_clusterbombs. Being a pessimist — as far as the future of our society and our world is concerned – I don’t think this means that cluster munitions will soon be a thing of the past, and if that happens, it will be because we have come up with some new and at least as lethal.

Cluster bombs have been banned because of their impact on civilian populations (as battle field weapons they are a huge success, denying space to one’s enemy: always an essential part of strategy). A cluster bomb opens on descend and releases up to 200 ‘bomblets’ (‘air dispensed submunitions’: for some technical stuff, refer to http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cluster.htm). Up to 5% of these bomblets are duds: unexploded they litter the landscape and kill or main for a long time afterwards (often children, who think these are toys). “Drop today, kill tomorrow” as it was put in a Mennonite condemnation of cluster bombs. One can compare the landmine problem.

Terrible of course. But I had to think of something equally terrible: the mind conceiving of the cluster munition. Someone figuring out how every small canister (one type of submunition) descending on an individual parachute will turn into a small fragmentation bomb, disintegrating on impact and spraying at least 300 bits of steel in every direction. Not 100 or 200 bits of steel, but at least 300. Of explosive charges intended to maim rather than kill. Dead people are merely dead, maimed people are a burden on the enemy. You go to the office in the morning, get your fill of coffee, open your laptop, sharpen your pencil. You stare pensively out of the window at the sun slowly peircing the morning haze above the treetops, think of your loved ones at home, take a deep breath, and then you start working on the design of a real good cluster bomb.