Radical media, politics and culture.

more mines for afghanistan

mackswell23 writes: " Apparently the US has decided that there are not enough land mines in Afghanistan. Better drop some more to be sure. See the Human Rights Watch alert below, and also see the New York Times article that HRW refers to at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/11/international/as ia/11MILI.html?searchpv=past7days The relevant passage states that "The attacks involved about 10 B-52 and B-1 bombers, which took off from the island of Diego Garcia. They dropped "area munitions," including CBU-89 Gators, which are 1,000-pound "cluster bombs." Of course the Times gives no indication that these
"cluster bombs" are in fact anti-tank and anti-personnel land mines, nor does it attempt to give any sort of background information (e.g. the fact that there are already millions of land mines in Afghanistan, or the fact that the US is one of the few nations in the world that has not yet signed the Mine Ban Treaty) as to the significance of dropping these CBU-89 Gator things in Afghanistan. For more information about these lovely little weapons, see http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-89.htm

(Of course, this makes the murder of 4 of those responsible for mine clean-up in Afghanistan (the first reported casualties, if you all remember) a very appropriate and poetic and unsurprising convenience.)"