Nader wants to know why McCain, Obama and Clinton haven’t signed onto Cluster Ban Bill
From Nader for President 2008:
Presidential candidate Ralph Nader wants to know why Senators McCain, Obama and Clinton have not signed onto legislation, S. 594, introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, that would serve as a de facto ban on the use and export of nearly all of the one billion cluster bombs in the U.S. Stockpile.
The bill has 21 Senate co-sponsors.
The bill would prohibit the sale or use of cluster munitions that have a high failure rate. It would also prohibit the use of U.S.-made cluster munitions in civilian-populated areas. And third, the bill requires that if cluster munitions are used, the President must submit to Congress within 30 days a plan for cleaning up unexploded duds—in the case of foreign use of U.S. cluster munitions, the plan must be prepared by the government to which the U.S. provided the weapons.
“This is life saving legislation,” Nader said. “I urge the Senate to pass this legislation.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense, given all the talk about change in Washington, why my fellow Presidential candidates—McCain, Obama, and Clinton—haven’t signed on as co-sponsors—even though they or their staffs have been briefed and asked to sign on,” Nader said.
Each cluster munition scatters several hundred bomblets that spray shrapnel fragments over a wide area, sometimes the size of several football fields.
While they are designed to explode on impact, many bomblets fail to detonate, leaving behind large numbers of unexploded duds.
Hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster munitions that Israel dropped in the 2006 war continue to plague Lebanon, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians, many of them children.
“These munitions can and do explode when children pick them up and play with them,” Nader said. “The munitions are sensitive enough to function like land mines. Thousands of innocent men, women and children around the world have died as a result. Often large areas are cordoned off, denying people access to farmland, walkways and their livelihood.”
There are billions of munitions that are stockpiled and yet to be used.
“By passing S. 594, the United States can help prevent the killing and maiming of countless more innocent people around the world,” Nader said.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Well I hope they do vote for it when it comes to vote in the Senate. But IMO it’s shameful that they don’t gather around the cause of this bill.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Nader is still a fascist/stalinist criminal. Real issues like this don’t matter. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, even Obama, and there will never be a perfect politician in power. Nader either needs to get behind the “lesser of two evils” strategy (the Obama Revolution) or the Fringe Alliance Strategy. Hopefully the Libertarians and Constitutionalists will continue their pointless crusades so they can steal more Republican votes. As for Nader, again you are a pathetic man and a fascist/stalinist criminal. Cynthia McKinney and Mike Gravel would beat you physically or mentally any day, and so would Obama.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Seriously man shut up lol.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
To Catholic Trotskyist,
Your comments remind me of dictators, facists, and communists, who want everyone to fall in line or you will execute them. You’re part of the problem in this country. Get a clue. I won’t vote for Ralph Nader, but this country needs to listen to those in dissent if we are ever going to solve the messes the Dems and Reps have created.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I will never execute people. I am just angry at the Naderites who are working with the Far Right to bring us John McCain and the Hundred Years War while preaching that they are to the left of Obama, who has the potential to be the greatest president in US history.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I appreciate the libertarians and Constitution Party’s antiwar movements. They have the benefit of spreading the antiwar message, while not stealing any Democratic votes. Democrats will never vote for the Libertarian or Constitution Parties because the Constitution Party wants to take away their abortions and the Libertarians want to take away their social security. This makes them helpful to us by stealing Republican votes instead.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Dems will never vote for a LP candidate because they are big government statist warmongers. They support a socialist welfare state with out of control spending. They want more PC and less free speech. They are garbage and you have to question anyone who can still support that.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Catholic Trotskyist Says:
Nader is still a fascist/stalinist criminal
WOW WHAT AN IGNORANT STATEMENT !
May 30th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
What’s next, our tactical nukes?
Cluster bombs are a practical way of dispensing with massed enemy forces rapidly. A ban is not the solution. One solution would be that states/nations just accept the fact that we’re going to steamroll the shit out of them and that they should not resist assimilation into liberal democracy.
It’s time to stop bombing brown skinned people from other countries and turn these useful weapons against the hillbilles of North America. All here should join me in praying for our future imperial commander, General Barrack Obama.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Obama supposedly voted for a previous ban in a different bill in 2006, but good for Nader for keeping the pressure on all three of them to make strong statements now.
Feinstein’s bill is interesting because it’s not an outright ban, it just makes it impossible to use any bombs that don;t blow up, and require us to clean up after ourselves. Not ideal, but more likely to get passed. Maybe not now (Bush would veto anyway), but maybe in 2009. The global ban won;t get ratified until December in Oslo anyway.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:55 am
The last “Catholic Trotskyist” post was not by me. I am more anti-war than anyone, as I combinee Trotskyite anti-imperialism with Catholic justice theory and the New Testament words of Jesus’s sermon on the mount. Feinstein is one of the worst Democratic politicians and needs to be removed in the primary.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:35 am
I’m sorry but that last post at 12:55 am was not by me. I’m the real “Catholic Trotskyist”. And my name is Rev. Michael Pfleger. I’m a white priest at a black church. And I hold hands with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, he is my brother.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Could someone at third party watch please eliminate the trolling conversation here. JEEEEEZ