Flawed Design said:So our CF 18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan will no longer be allowed cluster bombs?
Matt_Fisher said:I didn't think we had CF-18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan, but I believe that as treaty members, that would be the case.
It might. However, that is debatable as the only consumers (& producers) of such munitions will be nations which don't feel compelled to conform.Matt_Fisher said:As valuable a tool as cluster bombs are, their UXO rate is pretty high. .... If anything, this will cause the companies producing such munitions to be motivated and have their engineers design a munition set that doesn't have as significant a rate of UXO as the current ones do.
Full agreement here. Written by people who probably do not fully understand the weapons, this treaty's broader humanitarian goals are (according to those who pushed for it) to reduce explosive remnants of war & to get rid of an area effect weapon. History will see likely see it as a failure because it does not specifically address the issues which are its objective. Instead, the organizers should have pushed for something which directly addresses the explosive remnants of war issue. Self-neutralize & self-destruct capabilities could have been mandated across a much broader spectrum of munitions including anti-tank mines, aircraft bombs, artillery rounds, etc. There could have been standards for a munition systems reliability to function or self-destroy (and in this a cluster munition could be required for considered as a whole as opposed to by individual bomblet/grenade) . Imagine if every explosive munition fired in battle was automatically removed (either by functioning against its target or by self-destruct) with six sigma of reliability. As opposed to finding new ways get around the convention and leaving the battlefield with the same problem of explosive remnants, nations would have the motivation to engineer that risk out of the munitions.Cleared Hot said:This is another bad idea made only because it sells well politically to Joe Civie.
ironduke57 said:The destruction of our cluster ammunition is in full swing as you can see on this short Video from the BW: :'(
- http://www.bundeswehr.de/fileserving/PortalFiles/C1256EF4002AED30/W27LWJEN788INFODE/7LWK7G948INFODE.asx?yw_repository=youatweb
(That is the MW-1 system. Mainly used by our Tornado´s.)
It will probably take 8 year´s to destroy them all.
Regards,
ironduke57
NFLD Sapper said:Works for me it opens in Windows media player
Armed Forces criticized for its cluster munitions
BY CHRIS COBB, POSTMEDIA NEWS
4 June 2012
In a rare public attack, a former Australian prime minister has lashed out at Canada for what he says is a lack of commitment to an international treaty to ban deadly cluster munitions.
Long-serving Australian PM Malcolm Fraser, in a statement released to the Ottawa Citizen, accuses the Conservative government of departing from Canada's traditional international leadership.
"Canada used to be in the forefront internationally in leading the world in good directions," he said. "That tradition lasted over many decades after the last war. "It is a pity the current Canadian Government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world.
Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive."
Fraser, Australian PM from 1975 to 1983, echoes other international criticism of the Conservative's recently tabled legislation designed to finally cement Canada to an international treaty to ban clusters.
Canada, one of the first countries to sign the treaty at a special ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo in 2008, must pass domestic legislation to formally ratify its position.
But foreign and domestic critics say that legislation, Bill S-10, is weak and compromised by Canada's military relationship with the United States. That will ultimately allow Canadian forces to use the weapon the country has legally banned, critics say.
"Canada cannot claim to have banned cluster bombs when it proposes to allow its military to help others use the weapons, and even leaves open the possibility of Canadian forces using them," said Laura Cheeseman, Britishbased director of the international lobby group, Cluster Munition Coalition.
"These weapons are outlawed because of their indiscriminate effects and devastating consequences for civilians. Canada appears to be buckling under the pressure of the United States, which has not yet joined the ban treaty, at the cost of people's lives," Cheeseman added.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has defended the ratification legislation.
"The proposed legislation fully meets our humanitarian obligations under the treaty while ensuring the Canadian Forces aren't compromised in any way from working with our Allies and doing what we ask of them," said his spokesman Joseph Lavoie. "We are committed to reducing the impact of armed conflict on innocent civilians around the world."
Cluster weapons, stockpiled in the tens of millions primarily by the U.S., China and Russia - none of which will sign the treaty - scatter small bomblets in war zones but leave a massive legacy of unexploded ordinance.
Clusters are designed to maim and typically result in victims losing arms and legs and suffering facial injury. Most of its victims are civilians.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
So, with training budgets tightening, troops' availability increasingly limited, and mandated training items proliferating.....you want to add training with a munition that our government is banning.AJFitzpatrick said:Forgive the ignorant civilian, but I take that using the DIPCM up in training/exercises is not an option ?