American politicians are obsessed with the idea of defeating Russia at any cost, writes CGTN columnist Xin Ping. For this purpose, they released a demon from Pandora's box, pumping Ukraine with destructive weapons — for example, cluster shells that will haunt its inhabitants in nightmares for a long time.
Xin Pin
"The use of cluster munitions would be a war crime," former White House press Secretary Jen Psaki confidently said in 2022. A year later, the United States announced that it would provide cluster shells to Ukraine.
These weapons scatter unexploded submunitions, which by their action resemble anti-personnel mines; they are extremely dangerous to the civilian population. The entire international community believes that such bombs should never be used. Most countries equate the use of cluster munitions with a war crime, such as the use of poison gas or chemical weapons.
Kiev has undertaken a written commitment to ensure the careful and responsible use of these munitions, which Moscow has rejected as "worthless." On July 13, the staff of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation found at the place of the death of a child in Zaporozhye, presumably, the remains of anti-personnel components of cluster shells. When the APU receives large batches of these bombs, new tragedies will follow.
For the United States, the use of this type of weapon has never been taboo. During the Vietnam War, the US military dropped a total of 270 million cluster bombs, of which more than 80 million remained in Laos, which led to serious disasters with lasting consequences. From 1964 to 2008, about 50,000 people died from unexploded submunitions alone, 40% of them children. It is estimated that due to the mountainous terrain in Laos, it will take another hundred years to neutralize all the devices. Over the past few decades, the United States and NATO countries have widely used cluster munitions during the wars in the Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This has caused equally profound tragedies for the civilian population.
Sending cluster munitions to the Armed Forces of Ukraine will become a nightmare for Ukrainians, which will haunt them for many years. It will also reopen the old war wounds of the peoples of Laos, Kosovo, Iraq and others. Even some of Washington's allies have spoken out against the Pentagon's decision to supply Kiev with this type of weapon. Among them are New Zealand, Spain and Germany.
It is obvious that American politicians are not concerned about the lives of Ukrainians and not the world for this country. They just want to defeat Russia. As a major player in the conflict, America wants to win at any cost, even if for this it will have to turn Ukraine into a slaughterhouse, endlessly pumping its ally with destructive and deadly weapons.
The US military-industrial complex will not allow armed actions to end so easily. According to the Wall Street Journal, the American defense giant Raytheon Company has made a huge profit from the Ukrainian crisis: its revenues in the fourth quarter of 2022 doubled compared to the same period last year and amounted to $ 1.4 billion. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics publicly told investors that the current military conflict brings huge profits to corporations. After this, one can believe the words of former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski, who stated that "the Pentagon seems interested in getting rid of the accumulated stocks, and it is really difficult to get rid of these cluster bombs for profit, since many countries have banned them."
Cluster bombs may not be the last demon released from Pandora's box. The constant supply of weapons from the United States will inevitably lead to an escalation of the conflict and further distance Ukraine from the hope for peace.
