Each year, the United States ships “military supplies” to Israel. This isn’t military aid but rather billions in primarily munitions that are designated as “offshore storage” for the US Department of Defense in order to replenish munitions used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each year, these munitions are sold without the “knowledge” of the United States, year after year, billions in munitions, much of it illegal technology transfer or designated “weapons of mass destruction.”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Today, the United States and Great Britain threatened Libya with direct military action if attacks using advanced and prohibited weapons continue. Special operations units of Britain’s SAS, supplemented groups from several American agencies and commands are currently assessing the situation “on the ground’ in Libya. Reports indicate the possible deployment of one tactical nuclear weapon against a rebel supply depot several days ago.
Sources in both Britain and the United States also report there is evidence of the deployment of chemical weapons and that Libya’s stock of illegal cluster munitions has been drawn upon in early fighting....
Cluster bombs are munitions that disperse “bomblets” across a wide area, not just killing everything but leaving behind a “zone of death” for years to come. “Bomblets” don’t all explode, some stay behind as land mines. These are weapons that are meant to deny an enemy use of runways, killing the personnel that come to repair damaging caused by craters left by iron bombs. Repair crews, medical first responders, these are the secondary “kills” of cluster bombs. These munitions remain a danger for decades, killing and maiming children, endangering farmers and leaving entire regions virtually uninhabitable. Laos and Iraq and cited publicly as the worst areas. Gaza and Lebanon are never mentioned though they continue to be under attack, even to this day, by these weapons. Now its Libya’s turn.
Libya has a large inventory of illegal cluster munitions, bombs made in the United States. One might ask how he got these and why the United States would have sold him weapons that are deemed illegal by the Convention on Cluster Munitions that came into effect on August 1, 2010....
Each year, the United States ships “military supplies” to Israel. This isn’t military aid but rather billions in primarily munitions that are designated as “offshore storage” for the US Department of Defense in order to replenish munitions used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each year, these munitions are sold without the “knowledge” of the United States, year after year, billions in munitions, much of it illegal technology transfer or designated “weapons of mass destruction.”
A giant loophole has been written into the storage agreement. Israel, the location of this “offshore arms depot” is allowed to “dip into” the inventory, not just for its own use but for “other purposes deemed applicable and consistent with the security of Israel.” Israel interprets this as a “green light” to sell this US stockpile on the open market. Each year, the American tax payer pays for billions in weapons, not just to see them “disappear.” That would be bad enough. Most, not some but most, go to nations known to supply terrorists or cited for egregious human rights violations.
The Americans involved in keeping this semi-covert policy “dark” are regular guests in Tel Aviv, whether members of Congress or military “brass.” Peddling these Weapons of Mass Destruction, cluster bombs are designated as such, on the “open market” is the way many Americans express their “solidarity” with Israel.
By “open market,” we mean to those who would otherwise be denied such things, generally because of blockades, sanctions and other international prohibitions. The buyers are generally involved in conflicts looked on unfavorably by the world community or considered “rogue states,” such as Sudan, North Korea and Libya.
Of those items the United States steers into this vague “black hole” inventory in Israel, the “rock star” of the munitions supermarket world is the cluster bomb.
Cluster bombs are “terrorism” incarnate. The largest user, of course, is the United States, followed by Israel....
Read more:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/09/gordon-duff-cluster-bombs-used-in-libya-poison-gas-use-feared-intervention-threatened/
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