U.S (WIN WITHOUT WAR) : CONGRESS can stop BIDEN’s decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.

 

 

 

Friend : The Biden administration’s decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine is a devastating error.

94% of casualties from cluster bombs are civilians— of whom 40% are children. That’s why over 100 countries have signed an international treaty to collectively ban the use of cluster bombs. 

When Russia used cluster bombs in Ukraine last year, the Biden administration said it was a “potential war crime” and emphatically declared at the UN that cluster bombs have “no place on the battlefield.” But now the Biden administration is supplying these very weapons. 

An act of Congress can effectively block this transfer of cluster bombs. That’s why Reps. Sara Jacobs and Ilhan Omar have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that is being voted on this week that will stop the Biden administration’s decision to send cluster bombs. 

Sign this petition and tell your Representative to support the amendment to block the transfer of cluster bombs. Right now, not only do we have an opportunity to stop this in its tracks, we also have a powerful opportunity to remind the Biden administration and any other future administration that the people are against cluster bombs.

ACT NOW

Over the last few days, human rights organizations, members of Congress, our international allies including the governments of Spain and Canada, and the New York Times editorial board have all condemned the Biden administration’s decision. 

Why ? Cluster bombs are indiscriminate, inaccurate weapons that cause catastrophic civilian harm. They also have an unacceptably high rate of failure to detonate, inadvertently causing them to linger on the land for months, years, and even decades to come. 

Vietnam and Laos are still suffering from unexploded cluster bombs fifty years after the U.S. dropped them. Over one thousand people were killed or injured in Laos between 2008 and 2022 because the cluster bombs from five decades ago finally exploded. 

And the cluster bombs the Biden administration is sending to Ukraine have a troubling failure rate of 14% if not more — and that’s according to a Pentagon study. The mass casualties caused by cluster bombs is so unacceptably high that over one hundred countries have banned them, just like the world once did with chemical and biological weapons after World War I. 

By choosing to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, the Biden administration is leading the U.S. to the wrong side of history. Just because Russia has used them, absolutely does not mean the U.S. should follow suit. Those are not the standards we should stoop to meet.

So please, take 30 seconds and add your voice to this petition. And tell your Representative to stop the Biden administration’s decision to send cluster bombs.

The reality is that war is horrendous, brutal and cruel. But one of the few things we can do to limit this war’s brutality is to ensure that the weapons we are sending don't linger in grass and dirt waiting to inflict more death and destruction for decades to come.

Thank you for working for peace,

 

Yint, Sara, and Stephen, and the Win Without War team.

 

 

 

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